1925 - Adverse Possession       The law of adverse possession received a further castigation at the 1925 Annual Meeting when Mr. James McCaig, Solicitor for the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, read a paper on “The Status of Certificates of Title in Alberta.” Although Mr. McCaig had a corporation axe to grind in presenting this paper, it was of value in presenting a clear exposition of the general state of the law respecting the ownership of land under the Land Titles Act and it contains much material that deserves the attention of the practicing land surveyor today. During the preceding year the Council had received a complaint apparently concerning the employment of one of the members of an unqualified person who had performed certain surveys without proper supervision. The file on this case cannot now be found and there are only scanty references to it in the recorded proceedings of the Council, but it was serious enough to lead to a considerable expenditure on legal advice and to cause the Council to propose several changes in the existing provisions of both the Alberta Surveys Act and the Alberta Land Surveyors Act relating to the personal supervision of field work and unauthorized practice as a surveyor. The intention was evidently to make these provisions more stringent and the amendments that the Council had drafted were endorsed by the annual meeting. Later records indicate, however, that the Association did not succeed in getting these changes accepted by the government until 1931 when they were incorporated, at least in part, in a completely revised Alberta Surveys Act that was passed in that year. Apart from this matter, only routine items of business were transacted at the 1925 meeting, and it would seem that the better times which had been predicted had yet to materialize. Neither of the Cautley brothers, who had formerly been dependable initiators of some lively argument, was present on this occasion, and although Mr. Pearce, Mr. Doupe and other formidable debaters were on hand, there was apparently nothing in the discussions to excite their participation. One gains the impression that this was the first of a succession of annual meetings that can only be characterized as dull, and that the stirring times of the preceding few years had petered out.   Back - 1924 - Mr. Cote Goes to the Senate Forward - 1926-1928 - Poor Attendance