6.1 The OACETT Act, 1998 & Self-Regulatory Status

The OACETT Act, 1998 & Self-Regulatory Status

Professional self-regulation is a privilege that a provincial legislature grants to a body it trusts to set standards and discipline its own members. For engineering and applied science technicians and technologists in Ontario, that privilege rests on a short private statute: the Ontario Association of Certified Engineering Technicians and Technologists Act, 1998. The Act has only 16 sections, and the Practice section of the Professional Practice Exam (PPE) expects you to know what each part does and, just as important, what the Act does not do.

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1. Legislative History of OACETT

The 1998 Act is a private Act. OACETT applied for it, and the preamble records that the association asked the Legislature to re-enact its governing statute, change its objects, structure and administration, add designations, and describe the work its members perform. Section 14 repeals the 1984 Act, and under section 15 the 1998 Act came into force on Royal Assent.

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2. What Each Part of the Act Does

The Eight Statutory Objects (Section 2)

1. To establish, maintain and conduct an institute or association within Ontario for technicians, engineering technicians, applied science technologists and engineering technologists, for the purpose of granting membership and registration to persons who meet the standards of the Association.
2. To maintain discipline among its members.
3. To assist members in advancing their status, recognition and welfare, and in increasing their knowledge, skill and proficiency.
4. To establish and maintain consistent registration requirements for technicians, engineering technicians, applied science technologists, engineering technologists and other classes of members.
5. To establish, promote and enforce high ethical and professional standards of conduct for members.
6. To accept donations, gifts, legacies and bequests for use in promoting its objects and carrying on its work.
7. To carry on benevolent work in connection with the families of dead, retired or incapacitated members who are in need.
8. To co-operate with other organizations whose objects are, in whole or in part, the same as or similar to its objects.

Objects 2 and 5 are the statutory foundation for OACETT's Code of Ethics, Rules of Professional Conduct, and discipline process. Object 3 explains why the association also delivers member services and continuing education. Exam questions often test whether you recognize that OACETT is both a certifying body and a professional association serving its members.

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3. Classes, Titles and Title Protection (Sections 8, 10 and 11)

Section 8(2) creates four classes of registration, and section 10 attaches a designation to each:

Section 11 makes it an offence for anyone not registered in the relevant class to use the designation "alone or in combination with any other word, name, title, initial or description," or to "imply or hold out" that they belong to that class. Because the abbreviation C.E.T. historically served two classes, s. 11(5) allows only a certified engineering technician or a certified engineering technologist to use "C.E.T." Today OACETT certifies new members as C.Tech. or C.E.T.

Section 11(6) states that a person who contravenes any provision of section 11 is guilty of an offence. The Act sets no fine of its own. Prosecution would proceed under Ontario's Provincial Offences Act, whose general penalty in section 61 (a fine of up to $5,000) applies where a statute specifies none.

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4. Title Protection vs. Right to Practice

The single most tested idea in this part of the PPE is that OACETT's Act protects titles, not work.

What Members Do: Section 12

Section 12(1) describes the work of all four classes as providing technical services:

• (a) within the framework of practices, codes and standards established or enforced under an Act of Ontario or of Canada;
• (b) within the framework of published standards in the applicable industry or field; and
• (c) under the technical direction of a licensed member of an appropriate profession or, where no licensed professionals practise in the field, under the technical direction of an expert in the field.

Section 12(2) adds that this description does not authorize anyone to provide services that only persons authorized under an Act of Ontario or Canada may provide. A C.E.T. therefore cannot use section 12 as authority to practise professional engineering.

What Non-Members Keep: Section 13

Section 13 preserves the right of any person to describe themselves as a technician, engineering technician, technologist or engineering technologist, and to perform the work described in section 12(1). Only the specific protected designations are reserved.

The Professional Engineers Act (R.S.O. 1990, c. P.28) defines the practice of professional engineering as any act of planning, designing, composing, evaluating, advising, reporting, directing or supervising that requires the application of engineering principles and concerns the safeguarding of life, health, property, economic interests, the public welfare or the environment, or the managing of any such act. OACETT certification is not a PEO licence. Where a statute reserves work to a P.Eng., architect or land surveyor, a C.E.T. works under that licensed professional's direction (s. 12(1)(c)).

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5. The Association as a Self-Governing Body

• Corporation without share capital: OACETT has no shareholders. By-law 20 (s. 1.2.3) requires any surplus to be applied to the association's objects and never divided among members.
• Governed by its members: The council, called the Board of Directors in By-law 20, manages OACETT's affairs. Most Board members are elected by Certified Members, and By-law 20 requires that at least 51% be elected or acclaimed.
• Accountable to the public: The register (s. 9) and the by-laws (s. 7(3)) are open to public inspection. OACETT also files an annual Fair Registration Practices report with Ontario's Office of the Fairness Commissioner under the Fair Access to Regulated Professions and Compulsory Trades Act, 2006.
• Self-funded: Application fees, annual dues and examination fees, approved by the Board under By-law 20, s. 8.1, pay for admissions, the PPE, CPD audits and discipline.

Common Exam Traps

• The Act was passed in 1998 and replaced the 1984 Act. OACETT itself dates from 1962.
• The Act creates title protection, not an exclusive scope of practice (ss. 11 and 13).
• The Act does not contain the Code of Ethics or the discipline procedure. Those are in the Board-approved Code of Ethics and Rules of Professional Conduct, By-law 20 (s. 2.5), and the RPPC Terms of Reference.
• A by-law passed by the Board expires at the end of the next annual meeting unless the members confirm it (s. 7(2)).