APEGA
Why did you choose to run for the APEGA presidency?
We have public representation on our statutory committees and Council, too. They provide a perspective from outside the professions, which is also important. Would you expand on your experience and tell readers why it’s a good fit? GE Two regulatory and governance pieces of my experience have great similarities: APEGA and the ERCB (Energy Resources Conservation Board), which became the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) while I was there. The cabinet of the Government of Alberta appointed me to the board of ERCB in 2008, and for the last six months of 2013 I was an AER hearing commissioner.
George Eynon Mainly because I have the kind of experience APEGA needs. I feel that we have to make sure that APEGA continues being an effective regulatory agency and gets even better. Self-regulation is under at- tack in a lot of places. In the U.K. and Australia, for ex- ample, self-regulators have been turned over to public bodies. It’s even happening to some extent in Canada: in B.C. and in Quebec. In the latter, the government placed the engineering regulator under trusteeship for some time. Yet self-regulation in Canada works extremely well. Who better to decide whether I’m operating professionally than
Our self-regulating organization makes Alberta strong, safe, and secure, and that’s something that we have been doing for 100 years. We need to put that APEGA brand out there so the public knows who we are, what we do, and why we do it.
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my peers? They have a vested interest in making sure that engineers and geoscientists act professionally, because it reflects on every one of them if we don’t. Could you tell us more about why you support self-regulation? GE The whole concept of self-regulation is excellent. Canada is one of the few countries that uses it to the extent we do, and it works. Having your peers regulate you, which I call regulation by peer review, means that none of the member volunteers on the committees who implement our regulatory functions want to see the professions decline in excellence. The same is true of APEGA’S professional staff. There is a certain sense of pride in being able to maintain the excellence of our professions.
For APEGA, my regulatory experience started more than two decades ago, as a volunteer with the Practice Review Board. My Council and related roles date from 2012. APEGA regulates the practices of engineering and geoscience, much of which in Alberta leads to oil and gas development. AER regulates at the implementation stage in energy. That’s a clear connection. I learned a great deal as an ERCB board member, overseeing the regulatory function and conducting hearings, considering the input of the public and interveners. Although a separate committee at APEGA conducts discipline hearings, our regulatory processes are quite similar. Public service is a really important connection. APEGA serves the public interest by regulating our professional
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