PEO voters want to terminate OSPE agreement

In November, members of Professional Engineers of Ontario (PEO) were asked to vote on whether PEO should terminate its legal agreement with the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers (OSPE).

The results of the referendum were published on the PEO website on December 5. Almost 80% (15,878) of the licensed members who voted were in favour of terminating the agreement with OSPE. Approximately 20% (4,097) of the voters did not want the agreement to be terminated.

OSPE was launched in 2000 as an organization to advocate on behalf of professional engineers. The idea originally was to separate functions that were to be done on behalf of engineers — such as government lobbying, insurance and education — from functions that were related to licensing and governing the profession. The latter were to remain with PEO.

However, membership in OSPE was voluntary and a decade later it has less than 10,000 members, far fewer than the 73,000 engineers licensed by PEO.

OSPE now wants to take over more programs from PEO. The four programs OSPE wants to take over are the Ontario Centre for Engineering and Public Policy; the Government Liaison Program; Province-Wide Mentorship Program; and the Ontario Professional Engineers Awards.

PEO says the 2000 agreement has outlived its usefulness “and is a barrier to a new progressive relationship between PEO an OSPE.”