APEGA
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most ethical and best-trained engineers and geoscientists in the world. Alberta has seen a decline in some of the immediate positions available for our members, but we’re going to see a lot of opportunities to take those skills to the rest of the world. How we regulate outsourced work is a major priority in our new strategic plan. My predecessor Nima Dorjee, P.Eng., looked deeply at the outsourcing of engineering to other countries. What is APEGA’s ability to regulate something that’s implemented here in Alberta but engineered elsewhere? So, I think there will be international opportunities, and not just in terms of going overseas but also in terms of doing a really good job making sure that what’s brought into Alberta is safe. Also, natural resources aren’t just oil and gas. We have tremendous opportunity with wind and solar, obviously. Another important piece is the minerals industry, which most of our members are not engaged in but many Canadian geoscientists certainly are. Geothermal energy is another one: we can get a great deal of energy out of the ground quite easily, given that Albertans are The number of jobs that came out of the work of professional engineers and geoscientists in the latter part of the last century and the early part of this one is phenomenal. Today, there’s a real opportunity to bring other areas of our natural resources base in, and there are also opportunities in artificial intelligence, software engineering, the knowledge economy, and much more. '
By the late 1930s, more and more geoscientists were involved in the province’s development, eventually developing into a separate profession (or professions at the time, geology and geophysics) in the 1960s. The oil and gas industry was really growing, and it became the financial foundation not just for the professions but also for the workplace and the economy. The number of jobs that came out of the work of professional engineers and geoscientists in the latter part of the last century and the early part of this one is phenomenal. Today, there’s a real opportunity to bring other areas of our natural resources base in, and there are also opportunities in artificial intelligence, software engineering, the knowledge economy, and much more. I don’t think we’ll have booms like the ones we’ve had in the oil and gas industry. But oil and gas is not going to go away, and growth in other areas is going to be really important to the future of Alberta, APEGA, and our professions. What are your thoughts on APEGA’s role in our licensed professionals finding employment? GE We put on events and professional development sessions that help members help themselves and each other. But beyond that, I’m not sure there’s a lot we can do. We are a regulator, and we are a self-regulating organization. The way we’ve executed our responsibilities under that model has allowed us to develop perhaps the
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