Professional Engineers Ontario: Removal of Industrial Exception 2

[Gymmeh]

I have been working on how to manage this change, and thought I would share.

Professional Engineers Ontario: Removal of Industrial Exception

http://www.peo.on.ca/Committees/RIETF/RIETF.html

I hope this link works

Cheers

 

[IRstuff]

sorry, but it looks to me to be a solution looking for a problem, or perhaps, Ontario is so strapped for revenue, they decided to gouge all the exempt engineers. The other outcome of this would be that the PE board, or whatever, would need to grow by a factor of 10 or so, to provide sufficient "oversight" over so many additional PEs.

TTFN
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[drawoh]

Gymmeh,

It works. I tried your DO I NEED A LICENCE test and I answered Yes, Yes and Maybe. I am an engineering technologist, certified by OACETT. There is no mechanical PEng looking over my shoulder.

How much trouble am I in?

--
JHG

 

[Gymmeh]

Well,

I have ran across some of the politics of it, but have mostly avoided just skimmed thru.

Right now i am trying to figure the requirements for my company and suppliers for our client. Since the suppliers are in the US, the designs are US, but the facility is not in the US.

Should be very interesting.

 

[Gymmeh]

drawoh,

still trying to figure out if i am going to be in trouble, before I can figure out if your in trouble! Watch out for them Mounties!

 

[drawoh]

Gymmeh,

This is Ontario, and not the Mounties department. I think it is the OPP we need to watch for.

--
JHG

 

[drawoh]

I am poking around the website, looking for more information. This piece was published in OACETT's January/February 2012 magazine.

[Bill 68, Open for Business Act, 2010] changed the Professional Engineers Act to repeal the licence exception that has allowed non-engineers to design and analyze production machinery or equipment for use in their employer’s facilities making products for the employer. This exception, commonly referred to as the industrial exception, was in force only in Ontario.

This implies that the industrial exemption existed only in Ontario, Canada. Is this true?

--
JHG

 

[Mekada]

This implies that the industrial exemption existed only in Ontario, Canada. Is this true?

Quebec does not have an industrial exemption, but exempt some workers from the restriction law. The part about the skilled workman confuses me because the way I interpret it, it could include anyone. I did not find a definition of "skilled workman" (but I cannot say that I looked very hard)

2. Works of the kinds hereinafter described constitute the field of practice of an engineer:

...
(i) industrial work or equipment involving public or employee safety.

5. Nothing in this Act shall:

...
(h) restrict the normal practice of his art or trade by a mere artisan or skilled workman;

 

[moltenmetal]

The industrial exemption in Ontario was written narrowly but not enforced vigorously as written. It applied ONLY to people practicing engineering related to their employers' means of production, i.e. viewing employees as somehow more willing to accept injury arising from incompetent engineering than members of the general public. In practice, even then, it only applied to engineering not regulated by other Acts (i.e. not requiring a prestart health and safety inspection, not impacting OSHA, not impacting any of the 5 areas of the TSSA Act etc.)

Firms doing engineering under the assumption that there was a broad industrial exemption similar to what exists in many US states were in violation of the Act already. Are they at more risk of enforcement action now? I don't see fees doubling any time soon to pay for enforcement inspectors, nor do I see P.Eng.s lining up to report on customers or their employers for violating the Act, so I doubt it.

No OPP involved- the Act is a civil rather than criminal matter- the cops won't be involved.

Drawoh: a CET can get a limited license from PEO to practice professional engineering in their area of expertise. That's been true for over 10 years.

Firms having a C of A can use any monkeys they choose to do whatever engineering they like, as long as they have one signatory patsy P.Eng. willing to sign off on the work. There is no limit on "span of control"- one patsy can be "responsible" for 1000 non-licensed cubicle stuffers. Worse still, that signatory doesn't even need to be an employee of the firm holding the C of A. There's a term for this type of person- a "rent-a-stamp". They're taking a risk of discipline action if anything goes wrong, but the C of A fee is so minimal that some firms are literally obtaining a C of A merely to be permitted to use the word "engineering" in their company name so they sound sophisticated.

Do I see lots of firms lining up for new C of A applications? Sure. It's relatively cheap and easy.

There are plans to reform the C of A, some of which are in progress, but I wouldn't hold my breath that it is truly reformed any time soon. They've been talking about reforming the C of A (putting in place practice inspections, limiting span of control for signatories, requiring a list/register of signatories, and having fees proportional to the size of the engineering department rather than the same fee for a sole proprietor engineer as for a major multinational engineering firm) for at least 15 years. That the C of A acts as a secondary license for any licensee practicing in their own name appears not to bother anyone.

 

[Gymmeh]

molten,

Thanks that clears up the C of A thing for. That is kinda what I thought. Its odd, because in NY you need a PE in house to have the Engineering in your company name.

Gymmeh

 

[IRstuff]

I think that the PEO over-reached. If you design, build, manufacture, and sell a stereo or a PC, is having a PE seal the schematics going to make anything safer? The answer is no, because being a PE for electronics does not make you qualified to do safety assessments. That's what organizations like UL are for; since their livelihoods are solely geared towards safety assessments.

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[drawoh]

...

Drawoh: a CET can get a limited license from PEO to practice professional engineering in their area of expertise. That's been true for over 10 years.

Thanks.

I have been following OACETT's Licensed Engineering Technologist program for a while now. Most literature about LETs seems to be about brownfields, rather than the mechanical design that I do.

--
JHG

 

[Gymmeh]

IRStuff,

The way it reads to me, its there concern is not over the product but the process. More specifically HAZOP, or Hazard assessment of the production line. I would assume this is also concerning the bi-products realized into the atmosphere.

Chemicals being pumped into the atmosphere are a real pain in the States. Buy the times people have been exposed enough to have symptoms, testing complete, legal action is taken, often large numbers of people have been effected, often with cancers or something else which is really hard to prove. Typically the "public" or the employees are already dead before any action is taken.

I can think of one factory right up the street, where there is plenty of conclusive evidence against them pumping 300 times the legal limit of Benzine into the air. The legal system is slow when its against a large "corporate shield", so they are still doing it, while the case is in court.

If there was a industrial PE requirement, the PE self regulating system could step in and put a stop to it. (i.e. take action against the PE responsible) Putting the company in a position, where a PE that will say, this is not to code, we must change it, or I will loose my license.

Again, thats how it reads to me, but I am not 100% sure.

 

[IRstuff]

" the PE self regulating system could step in and put a stop to it. (i.e. take action against the PE responsible) Putting the company in a position, where a PE that will say, this is not to code, we must change it, or I will loose my license.

That's assuming that the PE signs off or seals something. If it's purchased process equipment, there wouldn't necessarily be anything to sign or seal.

"Chemicals being pumped into the atmosphere are a real pain in the States."

And all the reductions that have occurred re. VOCs, smog, ground water contamination have all be done WITHOUT repealing the industrial exemption in California.

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[moltenmetal]

In California and in many other places, the engineering profession is regulated by the employers, which means it's de-facto regulated by the insurance industry and the civil courts.

Those environmental achievements touted for California all happened long after the initial harm took place- and some swung way too far back in the other direction (witness the cancer warning labels I got on some plywood packaging sent to me from California recently). All resulted from government regulation and enforcement PLUS punitive costs arising from civil litigation.

In Ontario, we're at least trying to prevent harm from incompetent engineering by eliminating it in the first place, rather than merely compensating the victims afterward. We too have the environmental regs and the civil courts- but there is far less opportunistic suing going on, because you cannot hire a lawyer on contingency here, and only recently were class action suits permitted.

Different approaches to solving the same problem. Both fraught with its own host of problems.

The heavier regulatory approach we have in Canada is what you get when you build a society on "peace, order and good government" (Canada) versus "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" (USA).

 

[IRstuff]

I've had some experience in some very hazardous processes and equipment, and I can't even begin to imagine how making everyone PEs would help, unless there's a gigantic stick at the end of this legislation. In many cases, the apparent harm isn't even necessarily evident at the point of initial use, and in many cases, the harm is only apparent after decades, so how is that going to work? In our business, everyone is highly specialized, and we have, only because of contractual obligations, someone specifically tasked to be a safety SME, but even he has to resort to asking the specific disciplines for help on analyses. To impose that sort of FMECA/HAZOP analysis on every single product would add insane amounts of overhead on already expensive development efforts.

TTFN
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[Gymmeh]

IRstuff,

Hopefully in a year or two when this job is finished I will have a good objective view of which approach it better. This is my first time dealing with Canada.

I am also torn about the SI system vs US Customary... after working in both I really dislike the US Customary system but, right now there are a number of people (~20 for this job) at my company employed because we are specializing in technology built in the USA that needs to be fitted into a system built in metric. Talk about pointless overhead, but it employs a lot of engineers, me being one of them.

 

[IRstuff]

Well, best of luck with all of that. Change is never seamless.

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[drawoh]

From Plant Engineering and Maintenance magazine...

CME applauds Ontario’s decision to scrap repeal of Industrial Exception

--
JHG

 

[GregLocock]

and the downside is...?

Cheers

Greg Locock


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