The Voice - Winter 2020 - 4

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

While COVID-19 and its ensuing upheaval occupied our minds for most
of the year, at OSPE we saw small signs for optimism: engineering
students, engineering graduates, and engineers coming together, and
that pessimism hadn't taken hold no matter how dire the world or the
employment landscape seemed.
While there was a severe blow to the
economy, we also saw that opportunities
would emerge for people who had lost their
jobs. Some had never before been given
the chance to pause, take a breath, and
re-evaluate: the traditional and established
career pathways had been laid out long ago,
and many had been on auto-pilot since
graduating.
Combating COVID-19 has meant
thinking about how we want to engineer
our place in the future. As industry sectors
struggle to survive, it has been brought into
question whether we want to continue as
before or if we will take the opportunity
to rebuild the world as it should have
been; incorporating diverse perspectives
so that we all can thrive together through
use and through opportunity. Now that
the pandemic has unwittingly given us a
chance for a fresh start, we must consider
the state of the engineering profession in
Ontario and the learnings from the past so
that we can integrate into the new reality.
Through the destruction of COVID-19 the
way has been made clear, and as OSPE
fulfills its mandate, it helps to ensure
there is a vibrant ecosystem in existence
so that engineering students, engineering
graduates, and engineers can contribute.
This means that we must assure our future
by pressing on the issues of importance
to the reputation of the engineering
profession. In 2015, OSPE published a
report titled Crisis In Ontario's Engineering
Labour Market which I would encourage
you all to read. Page nine of this report
highlights the potential reasons for historic
underemployment in engineering, and as
we re-jig our futures we look to this as a
starting point for improvement. One of the

4

THE VOICE Winter 2021

members, we will act. We must lay the seeds
biggest areas for investment, now and in the
of the future today, whether it's pushing
coming decades, appears to be in the green
for mandatory professional development
space - jobs that mitigate climate change
so that we can demonstrate our value,
and reduce greenhouse gas emissions,
develop and build infrastructure, create
engaging when the regulatory process falls
short, or by simply taking advantage of the
learning opportunities for re-skilling and
downtime to strategize on how to elevate
up-skilling, bring back manufacturing,
and foster technological advancement
the status of our profession in the eyes of
the public - there has never been a greater
and innovation. How can the engineering
opportunity.
community take advantage of this
On behalf of the board and staff at OSPE,
opportunity to embrace the future?
we
wish you a very happy, relaxing, and funInnovation must be led by our members.
filled
holiday season. Stay safe and healthy
We must harness our technical and soft
with your families.
skills to occupy positions of prominence
in government, industry, and
academia to remain relevant.
Combating COVID-19 has meant
While our technical skills are
thinking about how we want to
of immense use on the job, we
engineer our place in the future.
must fully accept that in order
to control our future, a focus on
our emotional quotient - communication,
teamwork, creative thinking, leadership,
networking, and mental health awareness -
is more important now that it has ever been
before. For immediate success, we must
utilize these skills, in conjunction with our
technical know-how to demonstrate our
capabilities as the leaders that Ontario
needs to envision a complete future.
As COVID-19 and innovative
technologies take turns disrupting the
day, we must acknowledge that this can
be a good time for entrepreneurship to
thrive, for new ideas to take root, and for
unorthodox thinking to be incorporated in
all facets and eventually lead to progress.
Réjeanne Aimey, P.Eng., MBA
For OSPE, 2021 is a year of taking the
PRESIDENT AND CHAIR
bull by the horns and pushing forward.
We have done our research, consulted the
right groups, and have received feedback
on our letters - now, with the help of our

Ontario Society of Professional Engineers
The Voice - Winter 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Voice - Winter 2020
