PEO celebrates centennial

Logo courtesy PEO.

Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO) is celebrating a century of regulating the practice of engineering across the province.

PEO was established on June 14, 1922. Under the authority of the Professional Engineers Act, it currently governs more than 91,500 licence and certificate holders, with a mission to advance the practice of engineering to protect the public interest.

 “This is a proud moment for PEO,” says president Nick Colucci, P.Eng. “As we pause to reflect on this wonderful accomplishment, we recognize the need to continuously evolve as a regulator to ensure we effectively fulfil our legislative mandate for the next 100 years.”

To this end, PEO has begun a series of ‘transformation initiatives’ to become more modern, enlightened and responsive. This work began in 2018 with an independent review of PEO’s regulatory performance, which subsequently led to several new developments, including:

• A high-level action plan to address recommendations from the review.
• A two-year ‘road map’ to enhance the effectiveness of PEO’s governance.
• A digital national professional practice exam as part of the licensing process, allowing for a flexibly written, psychometrically sound examination of applicants.
• An anti-racism and anti-discrimination review, which yielded the Anti-Discrimination and Equity Code, which codifies PEO’s fairness, human rights and public interest obligations.
• A gender audit of PEO’s licensing process and internal operations.
• A plan to implement a mandatory continuing professional development program for all PEO licence holders in January 2023.

“We are unwavering in our commitment to enhance all our public protection activities, including licensing, complaints and discipline processes, performance guidelines and standards and actions against unlicensed individuals who illegally describe themselves as engineers,” says Colucci. “PEO’s regulatory mandate helps to make Ontario a better, safer place in which to live.”