Professional Engineers Ontario Removes Cross Border Engineering Practice Barriers
Canadian professional engineers in the western and maritime provinces have for many years worked closely with U.S. PE boards—mostly in border states—to foster mobility for Canadian engineers in the U.S., and for U.S. engineers in Canada. It has long been a sticking point with Canadian engineers that they are required to take and pass the FE and PE examinations to become licensed in most U.S. jurisdictions, but the exams are beginning to be administered in Canada, and most Canadian engineers pass with flying colors. With respect to the province of Quebec, there is a language barrier that creates an unavoidable barrier to cross-border practice, in many cases in both directions.
But the situation in Ontario has been entirely different in the past.
In Canada, engineers themselves regulate the profession through Engineers Canada, which is a national organization consisting of 12 provincial and territorial engineering associations, representing the more than 234,000 members of the profession in Canada. They formulate and adopt the rules and regulations. They accredit university engineering programs. They register engineers, and enforce the rules and regulations with respect to the practice of engineering. And they do a pretty good job of it. Engineering education in Canada is strong. Canadian engineer interns are required to complete structured, mentored, and evaluated experience, and a non-technical professional practice examination is required prior to registration as a PEng (professional engineer).
Ontario’s past rules and regulations have made it extraordinarily difficult for a U.S. engineer to become licensed in Ontario. The problem was that the rules stipulated that at least 12 months of the engineer’s experience must be in Canada, unless that provision is waived. The rules further stated that experience outside Canada could “count” if the experience was in the employment of a company whose head office was in Canada or under the direct supervision of an engineer licensed in any Canadian jurisdiction and the experience provided the engineer with appropriate knowledge of Canadian codes, regulations, and standards of practice. This type of restriction was unique to Ontario; it did not exist in other Canadian provinces, nor did it exist in any U.S. jurisdiction.
Those restrictive provisions in Ontario are now gone. Professional Engineers Ontario has shepherded revisions to the professional engineers act through the legislative process, removing these artificial and protectionist barriers to cross-border practice. As finalized in November, 2010, the Ontario professional engineers act now keys on qualifications rather than residency (see Schedule 2).
This success follows a two-and-a-half-year quest on the part of Gene Corley of Illinois, to become licensed as a professional engineer in Ontario. Dr. Corley is clearly more than “minimally competent,” the licensure threshold. He is an internationally renowned structural engineer, a Distinguished Member of ASCE, a past recipient of the NSPE Award, and a past president of NCEES. After his two-and-a-half-year year quest, Dr. Corley became the first U.S. licensee in Ontario following the passage of the new act.
U.S. engineers will likely continue to be required to pass, as Gene Corley did, the Canadian professional practice examination, to demonstrate knowledge of applicable Canadian laws, codes, standards, and other professional practice matters. It appears that U.S. engineers will need to pass Canadian examinations, and it also appears that Canadian engineers will need to pass U.S. examinations to practice in most states. Fair enough.
Ontario PEng’s, you did the right thing. Well done.
Editorial input provided by Bernard R. Berson, P.E., F.NSPE; L. Robert Smith, P.E., F.NSPE; and W. Eugene Corley, Ph.D., P.E., S.E., P.Eng., Dist.M.ASCE, F.NSPE (who may now need larger sized business cards in order to include all those abbreviations).
