[All] Idea for Agenda: Letter to revise Professional Engineers Act

[Robert Milligan]

Lulu & GREN,

As you all know, I take on big challenges myself -- and I commend you Lulu for taking on the challenge of both seeking CME's collaboration in a judo-like manner (hopefully) so as to help the PMO achieve their objective of modifying the PE Act whereby the Industrial Exemption (or Exception) is removed and the Act improved so as to " assure that discretionary powers of corporations and politicians are not used to shape the scope of reviews, but that the scope must reflect reasonable scientific engineering protocols based on actual guidelines."

Yes, all GREN members probably share the values of the CME  -- as would most people. But we only have implicit values in our GREN Guiding Principles and they relate to environmental protection and not competing with the world better for greater profit -- and harming the environment in the process. And we do not share their Mission and Vision except maybe for some members with an non-etnical investment portfolio (very unlikely) or pensions plan that do.

If CME included Triple Bottom Line thinking in their Mission and Vision as does the Regional Municipality of Waterloo partially does, then we would have a common connection on which to build.

All that aside, I must further commend you Lulu for your first iteration:

"The Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters website displays their mission, their vision and values here:
> 
> http://www.cme-mec.ca/english/who-we-are/who-we-are.html and from that information we can craft a response that include lines like this: 
> 
> By securing an independent engineering review agency for the Province we want to set the world's benchmarks for competitive performance, innovation and growth based on sound engineering principals. 
> 
> We want to see our Province succeed in leading domestic and global markets by leveraging our leadership with expertise of knowledge to improve upon the strength of the investments made in the Province."


However, I do disagree with first statement in your next paragraph:
"The values of the Manufacturing Association is basically the same as ours so lets use this to make the bridge happen in good faith."

No they are not basically the same because we only have implied values. However, we could add an "Our Values" section to our GREN Guiding Principles that would be very similar to CME's but with an environmental emphasis plus (Triple Bottom Line ?).

Then we would be in a better position to do this (great approach Lulu):
"... in our GREN letter, I suggest we craft in the mandate of the Manufacturers Association to support our request. Therefore if they disagree, they would appear either unreasonable or hypocritical. Taking their words and using them for our purpose WORKS. I've won many battles using nothing more than the data of the people I opposed. They can never question the validity of the data without self incrimination. It's a very efficient." 

Best regards, 
Robert M

PS: It may take a miracle to get CME's cooperation -- or even to listen to such a small group as ours. A stronger website would help. I did know an earlier CME (CMA) CEO and arranged a meeting with them about values accompanied by my now deceased Prof. Russell Legge (Buddhism & Technology, etc.) of St. Paul's University College -- then also President of the Canadian Council of Churches and a friend and colleague (his words). Needless to say it was unproductive. Values for them and their members are good for PR (=BS) and otherwise hamper their efforts to "profit" Creation to oblivion. Russell and I founded the Values and Technology Group which became the Centre for Society,Technology and Values -- with UW President Doug Wright's leadership.


On 2014-01-14, at 11:22 AM, Louisette Lanteigne wrote:

> Hi Everyone
> 
> Here is an idea I'd like GREN to adopt: The establishment of a letter requesting a review of the Professional Engineering Act. 
> 
> In the responses from the Professional Engineers Ontario executive committee it flagged key issues that need addressing. For example:
> 
> For many years PEO has been trying to modify our Act to remove a section variously known as the Industrial Exception or the Industrial Exemption (IE). This allows manufacturing and other companies an exemption from complying with our Act as far as engineering done by them in certain areas. Unfortunately initial Regulation was never made spelling out the terms of the IE and corporations have self determined their ideas of IE and the scopes that they say are outside our purview. In the last three years we have worked with Government to close this loophole and we have an Act change approved by the Legislature. Unfortunately with two days to go before proclamation a manufacturers’ association lobbied every MP several times such that a cabinet meeting was called at short notice and the proclamation was put on hold. ALL POLITICAL PARTIES were involved in this and none were prepared to stand up against the manufacturers.
> 
> PEO has control over Engineers. NOT over engineering. We licence engineers and can only investigate the performance of (an) engineer(s). We cannot examine the results of their work, just the means by which the work was done.
> 
> ...standing up to political entities who misuse engineers and engineers to support bad development. 
> 
> I'd like to see if GREN could support a review of the Professoinal Engineering Act to abolish the use of Industrial Exemptions. Need to assure that discretionary powers of corporations and politicians are not used to shape the scope of reviews, but that the scope must reflect reasonable scientific engineering protocols based on actual guidelines. To date such guidelines are not reasonably established. In creating this, it will help to prevent massive liability risks of issues like the closing of the gas plant in Oakville or the collapse of the mall in Elliot Lake. 
> 
> Concerns were voiced by Professional Engineers Ontario that revised changes were recommended and that the Manufacturers Association blocked it so in our GREN letter, I suggest we craft in the mandate of the Manufacturers Association to support our request. Therefore if they disagree, they would appear either unreasonable or hypocritical. Taking their words and using them for our purpose WORKS. I've won many battles using nothing more than the data of the people I opposed. They can never question the validity of the data without self incrimination. It's a very efficient.
> 
> The Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters website displays their mission, their vision and values here:
> http://www.cme-mec.ca/english/who-we-are/who-we-are.html and from that information we can craft a response that include lines like this: 
> 
> By securing an independent engineering review agency for the Province we want to set the world's benchmarks for competitive performance, innovation and growth based on sound engineering principals. 
> 
> We want to see our Province succeed in leading domestic and global markets by leveraging our leadership with expertise of knowledge to improve upon the strength of the investments made in the Province.
> 
> The values of the Manufacturing Association is basically the same as ours so lets use this to make the bridge happen in good faith. Some may state it is a marketing spin but either way, they spent good money crafting these words and it works for them. In framing our response around these topics it can work for us too.
> 
> Leadership
> Excellence in customer service
> Commitment and accountability
> Respect for the individual
> Open communication and teamwork
> Continuous improvement
> Sharing in success
> 
> If you can make that an agenda item I'd greatly appreciate it.  
> 
> Lulu 
> 
> 
> 
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> All at gren.ca
> http://mail.gren.ca/mailman/listinfo/all_gren.ca

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