ASET Fall 2017 - 6
Scope of Practice
Legislative Review and the Rights and
Recognition of Technologists as a Profession
Barry Cavanaugh
S
ince its inception as a Society in 1963, ASET has
continually developed its role as a certifier of applied
science, engineering and geoscience technicians and
technologists - consciously and deliberately emulating the
processes and approaches of a self-regulating profession to
learn how to properly assess and regulate professionals and to
establish a high bar of academic and experience qualifications,
as well as a high standard of ethical and professional conduct
for its members. In achieving the designations awarded by ASET,
its members voluntarily undertook many or most of the same
obligations as others in self-regulated professions. The goals of
this noteworthy undertaking were straightforward: protection
of the public through the most rigorous qualification and ethical
standards, and recognition of the emergence of this new
profession.
ASET sought to honestly and demonstrably take its place in
the world of the engineering team. After all, the advent of the
technology programs at NAIT and SAIT in the 1970s were
meant by Government and those institutions to recognize the
emergence of a new group of professions capable of doing
unique work, both under supervision and independently, working
with professional engineers, architects, geoscientists, and
the like. The work of NAIT, SAIT, the Colleges, and ASET has
resulted in tens of thousands of highly capable, highly qualified
members working in a wide range of disciplines and proving daily
their worth and their calibre. Engineering firms, construction
companies, oil and gas enterprises, municipal and provincial
government... many of the most important industries in the
province, including small business, have come to rely on the
knowledge and skill of the Certified Engineering Technologist
and the Certified Technician.
In the early 1990s, ASET undertook discussions with APEGA
toward recognition of the scope of practice of an engineering or
geoscience technologist, with the hope of legislative amendment
to reflect that definition of what a technologist is and does,
and the extension of regulation, in the public interest, to the
profession. Facilitated discussions between the committees
delegated by both ASET and APEGA, under the auspices of
the Government of Alberta, actually reached an agreement
about the fitting description of a definition of practice. It
recommended to the executives, councils, and members of both
ASET and APEGA, 08 August 1994, that:
6 | FALL 2017 | TECHNOLOGY ALBERTA
"Practice of applied science technology and engineering
technology means:
Accepting responsibility for the reporting on, advising on,
evaluating, designing, preparing plans and specifications for, or
directing the construction, technical inspection, maintenance or
operation of any structure, work or process that is:
A. Aimed at the discovery, development or utilization of
matter or energy or in any other way designed for the
use and convenience of society;
B. Concerned with safeguarding of life, health, property,
environment, public welfare or economic welfare; and
C. In accordance with legislation and industry recognized
codes, standards, procedures and practices,
Through the application of established engineering or applied
science principles and methods of problem solving."
Before that agreed scope of practice could be enacted, or even
proposed to Government, in fact within days, APEGA Council
rescinded its agreement.
Through the years since, the issue of scope of practice for
technologists has been a problem for relations between ASET
and APEGA. When the issue came up again more than a decade
ago now, and ASET was seeking from Government a clarification
of the role of the profession, Government again sent ASET and
APEGA to the table with a mediator. The result of that Discussion
Team process was, in 2007, legislation which included ASET in
the Engineering and Geoscience Professions Act, and provided
for the Professional Technologist (Engineering or Geoscience)
designation...a role in which a Certified Engineering Technologist
could attain the right to practice engineering within codes and
standards and applying established engineering or applied
science principles and methods of problem solving.
Some progress, but even then, only for practitioners who could
offer a precise description of their limited scope of practice
within that broader scope and demonstrate at least six years
of engineering work under supervision of a P. Eng. That limited
"practice right", if indeed it was that, was in fact the imposition of
a limitation on the practice rights earlier promulgated for all
certified engineering technologists. Progress? Not likely. But at
least we were now recognized in the Act, although an important
piece was still missing - the scope or definition of practice.
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of ASET Fall 2017
ASET Fall 2017 - Cover1
ASET Fall 2017 - Cover2
ASET Fall 2017 - A
ASET Fall 2017 - 4
ASET Fall 2017 - 5
ASET Fall 2017 - 6
ASET Fall 2017 - 7
ASET Fall 2017 - 8
ASET Fall 2017 - 9
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ASET Fall 2017 - 11
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