APEGA
and responsibilities of our licensed professionals and permit holders. Right now, one of the three revamped standards I alluded to, the Practice Standard for Authenticating Professional Documents, is in the member consultation stage. Information sessions about a draft of the standard are happening now in several Alberta centres and online. Authentication can be challenging, especially in the online, digital space. We are well aware that this stan- dard is important to many of our members and needs this update. What You Can Do: Register now for an information session about the authentication practice standard. Read the draft and check out other online materials. Take our online survey on the standard. Also, make sure you consult and understand what- ever standards and guidelines apply to your area of practice. If you don’t understand something, reach out to our Professional Practice Department. The numbers and types of questions we receive help us determine what needs to be addressed in our review process. SUCCESS THROUGH LEGISLATION What We’re Doing: For now, what we’re doing is taking some deep breaths. APEGA’s institutional understanding of the EGP Act has, I strongly suspect, never been as deep and detailed as it is now. That’s one of the positive consequences of having just completed an exhaustive review that began in 2014. We have presented the Government of Alberta (GOA) with volumes of supporting material. The ultimate goal is to have the GOA approve a new EGP Act, instituting its first major revamp since 1981. We can’t speak to when that approval will happen, because the EGP Act belongs to the province. Nor can we speak to which of our 80 proposed legislative changes will be accepted or to how the province might revise them. But no matter what the outcome, this process has been thoroughly rewarding. It connected us to members in an unprecedented way. More than 6,000 stakeholders shared their input in six rounds of consultations. A champions collaborative, made up of volunteers, worked at the branch level to gather the input from the grassroots of
will likely be far less daunting than you imagine. In fact, there are probably things you are already doing, like reading technical articles in magazines, that legitimately qualify. SUCCESS THROUGH STANDARDS AND GUIDELINES What We’re Doing: We’re continually evaluating APEGA’s collection of practice standards and guidelines. Currently, three standards are in line for major updates. This process involves developing, revising, and improving these important documents. It includes member consultation, and it draws on the wisdom of subject-matter expert panels. Standards and guidelines are important. They expand upon the provincial legislation that enables us to operate, the Engineering and Geoscience Professions Act (EGP Act) , by detailing the expectations, obligations,
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