Winter 2017 PEG

REGULATORY

Legislative Review — Now and Tomorrow

APEGA’s recommendations are in the Government of Alberta’s hands, but the actual government rewrite of our legislation will likely take place several years from now. Still, work needs to be done. Joint regulation and scope of practice for technologists will be the focus of discussions between APEGA and the Association of Science and Engineering Technology Professionals of Alberta (ASET) in 2018

LOOKING BACK, LOOKING AHEAD We began our legislative review project in 2014, at the request of the provincial government. Three years and five rounds of APEGA stakehold- er consultations wrapped up this year, with more than 6,000 Professional Members sharing their feedback on proposed changes to the Engineering and Geosci- ence Professions Act (EGP Act) and General Regulation . Your input was collected through surveys, face-to-face meetings, webinars, emails, and video conferences. A champions collaborative made up of Members representing APEGA Branches ensured that the conversation reached every corner of the province. Earlier this year, Council submitted more than 80 proposed recommendations to the Government of Alberta (GoA) for its approval — but there’s still important work to complete in 2018 and beyond. Although the government likely won’t move for- ward with amendments to our legislation before the next election, the completed work is important and is not lost. KEY HIGHLIGHTS The current Act is not broken. But it is 35 years old and the legislative review project was an opportunity to improve it — to give APEGA better tools so we

can better regulate in the public interest. It was an opportunity to make the Act and regulations better and align them with modern professional legislation. Many of our proposed changes seek to clarify our authority: to make explicit what is currently implied. Modern professional regulatory legislation enshrines this explicit authority in the legislation itself. To name a few, these proposed changes: • clarify the Registrar's authority to make certain administrative decisions so they don’t need to be brought to Council (for example, some of the items that currently go through our policy and standards task force) • grant explicit authority of delegation, where appropriate • grant Council authority to approve terms of reference for statutory committees • grant Council authority to approve practice standards Having these authorities specifically laid out in the legislation will benefit the Association by reducing confusion and reducing potential legal challenges. A modernized EGP Act will also support reciprocal notification of incidents with Occupational Health & Safety, the Alberta Energy Regulator, and other government ministries and regulators. These

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