The Value of Professional Self-Regulation

The 2020 election campaign for APEGA Council has kicked off this week with the announcement of the candidates running. Though participation has been slowly improving over the past few years, less than 1 in 5 of eligible members cast their votes. Many members, when asked why they don’t participate in this most basic form of self-regulation, indicate that APEGA isn’t really relevant to their day-to-day practice. Other than paying their annual dues and reading the occasional PEG article, they don’t interact with APEGA very much, if at all. I would like to see if I can change that.

First, though, I’d like to let you know my qualifications for talking to you about this subject. My current employer operates in a significant number of Canadian and US jurisdictions, and the engineers (we don’t have enough internal geoscience work to practice both professions) working here support those operations. The regulation of engineering in the US is similar to that in Canada in that it is done on a state-by-state basis, just as each Province and Territory in Canada is responsible for the regulation of the professions. Part of my job is to ensure that when our engineers are practicing, or when we engage outside consultants, the engineering is done in accordance with the applicable legislation, so a good portion of my job is reading, understanding, and interpreting that legislation.  Even before joining my current company, though, I developed a deep interest in the topic of professional regulation, so much so that I did a study of experience requirements for the entry into the profession of engineering for a wide range of countries around the world as the capstone project for my Master of Engineering degree, and I spend much of my volunteer time serving as a public member of the regulatory and advisory committees for other professions here in Canada. My interest in the subject has also led me to read as many news articles on professional regulation I can find, and to write a few of my own, which I post on LinkedIn.

Over the past year or so, I noticed several significant incidents which involved the regulation of professional engineering (or the lack of it), and how that regulation is evolving in response to events which occurred. I will tell you about one today, and save the others for future articles. 

On September 13, 2018, in the Merrimack Valley area of Massachusetts, work to abandon an old cast-iron distribution main and replace it with a newer plastic main resulted in the over-pressure of the new line and the associated distribution systems. That over-pressure in turn caused dozens of building fires and explosions, the evacuation of over 30,000 residents, 25 injuries, and the death of an 18-year-old student who was visiting the area at the time. The resulting investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board determined that the over-pressure resulted from the failure of the workers to relocate a pressure-sensing line from the old main to the new, causing the pressure regulator to run wide open. In examining what led to that failure, the NTSB found that a weakness in the legislation regulating the practice of engineering was a contributing factor. The legislation exempted the gas utility industry, along with a large number of other industries which have a direct impact on the public, from requiring engineering review and approval of their work. 

This exemption, known commonly as an industrial exemption, is almost universal in US jurisdictions, and arose from strong lobbying efforts from industry, efforts which were successful in part because the regulation of the professions is done out of a department of the state governments. Though these departments all have boards made up of regulated professionals, they ultimately report to the politicians elected to government, politicians who are often influenced by lobbyists. These exemptions are being challenged, however, as time goes by, but almost always in response to a public outcry arising from a tragedy like that which occurred in the Merrimack Valley. In response to the outcry, and heeding the advice provided in the NTSB findings closely, the Massachusetts state government eliminated the portion of the exemption which allowed public utilities to not have professional engineers review and approve work plans.

Here in Alberta, where professional engineers and geoscientists are regulated not by an arm of government but by our own self-regulating body, APEGA, we have required operating companies, like natural gas utilities, to be licensed with a Permit to Practice since 1981. We have required all engineering or geoscience work to be completed by, or under the direct supervision and control of, a qualified and licensed professional. As a result, professionals are involved in many aspects of work and life here in the Province.  Alberta’s public, then, has a layer of protection provided by qualified professionals which may be lacking in other jurisdictions around the world.  The equivalent of an industrial exemption doesn’t exist here, largely because we are self-regulated.  While the Government of Alberta has empowered APEGA to administer the Province’s Engineering and Geoscience Professions Act on its behalf, having the professions regulate themselves has made us relatively immune to industry lobbying, an immunity which should endure as long as APEGA regulates our professions in the public interest. The other factor which plays into this, however, is that we can truly claim that we are self-regulated. 

One measure of self-regulation is the number of regulated professionals who volunteer by serving on the numerous boards and committees APEGA has established, but another, more telling one is voter participation in our elections. Voter participation has hovered between 10% and 20% of members eligible to vote for as long as I can recall. This is concerning to me, as it should be to any professional who values our ability to protect the public. Should our voter participation drop below 10%, our claim to self-governance becomes questionable.

As you likely have worked out, I am running for APEGA Council in the 2020 election, and one reason is that I do value our professions’ ability to protect the Alberta public. During the course of the election, I will be writing a number of articles about the practice of our professions, our code of ethics, and other topics of interest to our members. I encourage you all to read what I and the other candidates write and say. Engage in the conversation on this social media platform, or others, and put forward your thoughts and ideas.  Most importantly, though, vote in the Council election. You don’t have to vote for me, but do please vote!