THE DISCIPLINE FILE
Case No. 17-017-RDO continued
2. The Member was asked by the applicant to provide a co-reference for his May 2015-to-October 2016 work experience reference with [Company B]. 3. The Member agreed to provide a co-reference in his capacity of professional engineer licensed with APEGA. 4. The applicant sent the Member his May 2015-to- October 2016 work experience record with [Company B]. When the Member received this work experience record it already had his name typed into the “supervisor” fields and the “reference” fields. 5. The Member accessed, filled out, and submitted the APEGA Reference Questionnaire. In the questionnaire, the Member intentionally selected “supervisor” in the field that asked for his relationship to the applicant during his May 2015-to- October 2016 work term with [Company B]. 6. The Member was not the applicant’s supervisor during this work term. The Member did not supervise the applicant during this work term. 7. The Member chose “supervisor” because he judged “supervisor” to be the type of reference that best represented a “co-reference”. The Member understood that the applicant had a supervisor that resided outside of Canada, and that the Member was co-referring the applicant’s supervisor’s reference. 8. In the reference questionnaire, the Member wrote “yes” in the field that asked if he verifies that the work experience record he received from the applicant was accurate and valid for the time period. That work experience record claimed the work was conducted in Alberta when it consisted solely of outsourced projects in Nigeria and Chad. That work experience record claimed work with a Canadian company called [Company C], when the applicant had never worked for, nor with, [Company C]. 9. The Member admitted to verifying the applicant’s work experience record based on the trust he had in the applicant, who he had known for 19 years. The Member has learned from this experience to double check and read between the lines when he becomes a reference of future applicants.
A. BACKGROUND The Complainant filed a complaint against Mr. Olutoyin Okelana (herein referred to as “the Member”), alleging the Member provided a false reference to an applicant applying for his professional member designation with APEGA. The Complainant had historical familiarity with the Member and the applicant in this case but declined all attempts for either a face-to-face interview or a tele- phone interview. Initial research into the statements made by the Complainant revealed sufficient evidence for the panel to proceed with the investigation. The final condition that led to the Board of Examiners (BOE) approving the applicant’s application was the required one year of Canadian work experience record, on which the applicant listed the Member as his supervisor. The Member completed and submitted the APEGA Reference Questionnaire, for this Canadian work experience, with his name as the applicant’s supervisor even though he wasn’t. The Member also confirmed, while providing the reference, that the applicant’s work experience record was accurate when it was not. The applicant is the subject of a separate investiga- tion. B. THE COMPLAINT The Investigative Committee conducted an investigation with respect to the following allegation to determine if the actions of Mr. Olutoyin Okelana, P.Eng., contra- vened Section 44(1) of the Engineering and Geoscience Professions Act: Specifically, the Investigation Panel considered whether Mr. Olutoyin Okelana, P.Eng., colluded with the applicant on his APEGA application to provide a false/ fraudulent supervisor reference for the applicant’s claimed Canadian work experience with [Company B] from May 2015 to October 2016. C. AGREED STATEMENT OF FACTS 1. The Member was a professional member of APEGA and was thus bound by the APEGA Code of Ethics at all relevant times.
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