Blog Archives

Greg D’Avignon

Recommended changes to B.C.’s professional reliance model for resource industries is “a solution looking for a problem” [Greg D’Avignon, BCBC] that could take B.C. back to the days of the Forest Practices Code, which hamstrung forestry companies with red tape. That’s how professional and business associations are reacting to recommendations released Thursday June 28 for overhauling how the provincial government regulates resource industries in BC. …COFI characterizes such an oversight office as “a regulator of regulators” that will add unnecessary layers of red tape. “Mr. Haddock’s proposals would effectively take us back 25 years to a ‘forest practices code’ system, that was ultimately rejected as unworkable due to its highly prescriptive, costly, and gridlocked regulatory scheme,” said COFI president Susan Yurkovich. …The Business Council of British Columbia (BCBC) is calling on the NDP government to shelve the report, while Sonia Furstenau, Green MLA for Cowichan Valley, is urging its immediate implementation.

The Province has received the final report on the independent professional reliance review, commissioned by government last fall. The report provides recommendations on two aspects to improve the current professional reliance model. First, the governance of the professional associations that oversee qualified professionals (QPs), including forest professionals, engineers and geoscientists, agrologists, biologists and technicians. Second, consideration of improvements to 28 regulatory regimes that pertain to natural resource management. The report recommends restructuring the governance of the professional associations by creating new legislation and an independent office, which will bring together the five statutes governing the associations.

Susan Yurkovich

Vancouver, BC – BC Council of Forest Industries President & CEO Susan Yurkovich issued the following statement responding to the report by Mark Haddock released today on professional reliance. “We are disappointed with the professional reliance report. Mr. Haddock’s report misses the opportunity to focus on meaningful improvements to the governance of professional associations, drifting well beyond his terms of reference to propose unjustified changes to the forestry regulatory regime unrelated to professional reliance. The intent of this review was to identify and recommend good governance practices that could be applied by the resource professions’ governing bodies. Instead the report recommends a new ‘regulator of regulators’ be established. This would duplicate process, add unnecessary costs and create uncertainty, without any clear indication of how public interest will be served.”

Christine Gelowitz

While there are some recommendations we as a profession can support in the name of continuous improvement, others are troubling. The audits conducted as part of the professional reliance review found the ABCFP and the other four regulators in compliance with their legislation. Despite this clean bill of health, the report’s two recommendations aimed at the professional regulators are unnecessarily heavy-handed. They constrain the autonomy and independence of natural resource professional regulators while doing little to address the core public concerns raised around natural resource development and environmental protection. The report’s two professional governance recommendations could have both transformative and costly implications for a non-profit association such as the ABCFP. …These recommendations clearly do not lead to better forest management on the ground, and they fracture the critical relationship required between the professional statutes and results-based regulatory regimes that rely on professionals for their delivery.

Brian Cox

VANCOUVER – The Mining Association of B.C. (MABC) has significant concerns with the recently released Professional Reliance Review Report. “MABC was hopeful the report would represent the substantive submissions received by important stakeholders like the mining industry and make recommendations focused on good governance and transparency,” said Bryan Cox, President & CEO of MABC. “Instead, the report strays beyond the terms of reference, proposing significant changes to the system without the necessary justification, investigation or reference to British Columbia’s best practices to support them.” …It is the responsibility of professional associations to establish the appropriate criteria to achieve and maintain professional accreditation, adjudicate individuals against these criteria, and discipline members who fail to maintain the established professional standard. 

Scott McCannell

“This report represents an important step towards fixing professional reliance in B.C.,” said Scott McCannell, Executive Director of the Professional Employees Association (PEA). “The government’s commitment to moving forward on the two main recommendations of the report are admirable.” A significant recommendation emphasizes the need to identify opportunities to improve ministry staffing levels and resources to enhance government oversight. “Due to staffing level cuts in the past, some ministries aren’t able to meet basic levels of oversight,” said McCannell. “The government needs to improve ministry staffing levels to bring back balance to stewardship and development in B.C.” The report points to significant failings in the professional reliance model and makes clear that professional reliance compromises the public interest and resource development oversight.

The B.C. government has released its review of the professional reliance system… The new report makes 121 recommendations on how to improve the system… “It’s really comprehensive,” said Devon Page, director of Ecojustice, calling the report “thoughtful” and “thorough”. Author Mark Haddock describes in detail the failings of professional reliance … — especially in forestry.  “Most problematic are the Forest and Range Practices Act and Riparian Areas Protection Act due to the extent to which they restrict government’s authority,” he wrote. “Given the breadth of professional expertise required for forest management, government should consider whether the current laissez faire approach to the use of professionals is adequate.” Translated from government-safe language, this is a damning assertion: Haddock spends more than 10 pages detailing the ways government has abdicated its own responsibility for managing forests, putting that authority instead in the hands of industry.

Edie Thome

The Association for Mineral Exploration (AME) has concerns regarding today’s release of the final report of the review of professional reliance in natural resource decision-making. …“We are concerned that the report released today does not reflect the scope of the review that we felt we were being consulted on,” says Ms. Edie Thome, President & CEO of AME. “In fact, the recommendations are largely focused on broad-sweeping changes to 28 regulatory regimes that go well beyond governance improvements, which we believed to be the focus of the engagement. We are hopeful that the government implements only recommendations that allow for continual improvement in the oversight of qualified professionals and their governing associations, and in a way that does not adversely affect, but builds on the current standards already in practice in British Columbia.