Registrar & CEO's Message and standards, by improving our mandatory Continuing Professional Development program, and by improving our Permit Holder practice reviews. Also under the better regulator banner, we’ll continue to improve enforcement and discipline, whether we’re dealing with complaints against individuals and companies not licensed to practise who mispresent themselves or practise illegally, or complaints of unskilled practice or unprofessional conduct against those who are licensed. Watch also for continued improvements in the way we license and register Members and Permit Holders. Those are the broad sweeps. For a detailed look at how we’ve done in 2017, I encourage you to attend the APEGA Annual General Meeting, April 20, 2018, in Edmonton. Before the AGM, watch for the 2017 APEGA Annual Report, which will be available online in early April. If you’ve never done either before — gone to the AGM or read the Annual Report — perhaps those two efforts will be your commitment to engaging more with APEGA in 2018. It’s a great start. DUES INCREASE You’ll read elsewhere in this PEG and on apega.ca about a dues increase of $32 that Council approved on November 30. Dues increases are never popular, but this time I like to think I’m the bearer of good rather than bad news. This increase has a non-operational and specific purpose, and I think it’s a purpose many of you will relate to: improving risk management. We are committed to putting and keeping our financial house in the best order possible. Part of that commitment is being prepared for unforeseeable threats. A huge lawsuit or challenge to your right to self-regulation, for example, could jeopardize the future of APEGA. The experts have told us that we need better pro- tection in this area, much of it in the form of money we set aside for the purpose. It needs to be done, however, and I hope we have your support. We also recognize that some of our Members have still not recovered from the economic downtown. In an unprecedented move, Council has extended a dues re- duction for unemployed Members for a third year in row.
APEGA
LEGISLATIVE REVIEW UPDATE A key component of being a better regulator is our legislative review. We have made our submission to the provincial government, but the Association of Science and Engineering Technology Professionals of Alberta (ASET) has made a separate submission. The two organizations differ in what the path forward should be when it comes to regulating technologists. The crux of our disagreement is this: ASET would like to be a self-regulating body for technologists who take responsibility for their own work, without APEGA’s involvement. APEGA has always held, and continues to hold, that public safety is not properly protected if ASET has self-regulatory independence. We will, however, continue to work with ASET to try to reach an agreement on the matter. In the meantime, we have fully functional legislation, and the government has in its possession a wide-ranging set of recommendations to eventually make it even better. I encourage you to click on the links below to read our materials on this matter. Also, check out the latest legislative review story in this edition of The PEG.
Legislative Review Site
ASET & APEGA Proposed Changes
HOLIDAY WISHES Finally, I’d like to wish all of you the best of the season. And if I may, let me add special best wishes to Council and APEGA staff, who have been forthright and supportive in my development and growth as the APEGA Registrar & Chief Executive Officer. I’m excited about what we’ve accomplished in my first eight months in the role, and I look forward to many more accomplishments to come. Thank you!
Questions or comments? Registrar_CEO@apega.ca
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