2001-02-07|Inter-Association Agreement on Mobility of Professional Engineers Within Canada
To whom it may concern
I have always advocated the mobility of engineers within Canada. As a matter of fact, I am a member of the Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO) but now reside in Québec.
Recently, I received a letter from l'Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec (OIQ), as shown below.
Your name was given to us by the "Professional Engineers - Ontario". According to their records your address (which we presume to be your work address) is in Québec.
The Québec Engineers Act requires that anyone practising or holding themselves out as engaging in the practice of professional engineering in Québec must be registered with the Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec.
This letter seems to be contrary to the intention of the Inter-Association Mobility Agreement to allow members of an engineering association to practice in other provinces or territories in Canada. It practically means that every licensed engineer must qualify his/her title as "P.Eng. (Ontario only)" for identification.
I am appalled that the agreement is used for exchanging membership lists in order to police the membership! I feel that my privacy, one of the fundamental human rights, was violated!!
Thank you very much for your attention.
To whom it may concern
When I first heard of the Inter-Association Agreement on Mobility of Professional Engineers Within Canada (IAAMPEWC) in PEO Engineering Dimensions, I mistakenly thought that the agreement was for a Canadian professional engineer from any province to practice engineering anywhere in Canada. Thus, I was incensed when I received a letter from the OIQ 2000-08-16 stating that it is illegal to practice engineering in Québec without registering with the OIQ. Since I do not practice the type of engineering that deals with public safety as set out in the laws and regulations, I replied to the OIQ to that effect. I also wrote a letter of protest to the PEO about the policing on personal privacy.
When my head cooled down, I decided to be a good citizen and to make contribution to the engineering profession in Québec. I contacted the OIQ, and submitted the application for admission form 2001-09-20 with a cheque for $57.51 CAD and a photograph. I thought that I could take advantage of the IAAMPEWC, which is described as "automatic transfer" by the OIQ. Well, the IAAMPEWC may be a milestone for the engineering profession in Canada, but here are my personal observations and ordeals.
Since the IAAMPEWC states "applicants must be able to meet language requirements as specified by the host association/Ordre", I took the French exam at l'Office de la langue française in Montréal (Québec) 2001-12-06 and passed it OK to receive an "attestation". I believe that every professional association/Ordre in Canada should make the test of a second official language mandatory.
I wrote the part of the professional examination concerning the laws of Québec as they relate to the engineering profession.
I had to produce a complete university record including official transcripts of marks, even though the PEO should have transferred to the OIQ such information on my graduation record from McMaster University in Hamilton (Ontario) in 1983.
I was told that a letter of reference was required for my work in the past 5 years even though I had a good standing with the PEO without being subject to any disciplinary action.
I was told that a birth certificate was required because of Code civil du Québec in addition to a Canadian citizenship certificate. The engineering regulation says that the applicant must submit "une copie authentique de son acte de naissance ou une autre preuve de la date et du lieu de cette naissance". A notary who practices in the province of Québec said that a certified copy of a Canadian passport with the date and place of birth should be OK as "une autre preuve", so I replied to the OIQ to that effect. I was repeatedly told that I had to contact the embassy of the country that I had permanently left for good more than 20 years ago. Since becoming a Canadian citizen in 1984, I have lost the citizenship of the country of birth along with original documents and the ability to communicate with any other language than English/French. Thus, the consular service of the country of birth told me that it was no longer possible for me to obtain a birth certificate. Meanwhile, I telephoned another professional association, i.e., Barreau du Québec, and found that they do not insist on a birth certificate. I also found that Article 864 of Code de procédure civile has a provision of having an alternative document accepted under Article 139 of Code civil du Québec itself.
Well, I had never anticipated that a birth certificate from a foreign country, rather than academic documents, would fall into the provision of "additional requirements for admission to review the qualifications of any applicant from another Canadian jurisdiction" and "a submission of supporting documents in exceptional circumstances" in the IAAMPEWC. Hence, 6 months after my initial contact with the OIQ, my application to the OIQ is on hold. This experience has all but killed off my enthusiasm to contribute to the engineering profession in Québec.
I hope that this fiasco highlights the difficulty of engineering mobility despite the IAAMPEWC. The purpose of this letter is not to attack or belittle the hard-working people who had done their best to admit me to the OIQ, but to sincerely expose the reality of bureaucracy so that the CCPE can repeal the notwithstanding clause in the IAAMPEWC in future negotiations with the member associations/Ordres, and that the transfer of membership becomes truly "automatic"!
