1957 - Professional Business Practice       The 1957 Annual Meeting commended the Council for its energy, but made sure that after these successful efforts it would not relapse into idleness. Problems connected with the determination of water boundaries came up for discussion, and the Council was asked to produce some ideas for their solution. A resolution proposing an amendment of the by-laws to prohibit land surveyors from associating themselves in a business capacity with individuals or companies not engaged primarily in the practice of land surveying or engineering generated a warm debate, and after being adopted against some fairly strong opposition was referred to the Council for further consideration. The Council was also asked to see that copies of all committee reports were distributed to the members at least two weeks in advance of the annual meeting. During the year an opportunity arose for the Association to gain some favourable publicity when a Royal Commission on Northern Development which the provincial government had appointed invited the submission of briefs on matters within its terms of reference. The Council put together a brief proposing the execution of a basic survey program in northern Alberta which was well received by the Commission and given some prominence by the press. In its report to the government, the Commission supported this proposal, and government action to implement it was subsequently taken in 1953, when the Surveys Branch commenced a program of baseline extension surveys in the northern parts of the province. The attempt to regulate professional business practice by the by-law amendment proposed at the annual meeting was not followed up. Tentative approaches to the government soon after the annual meeting had revealed that there was no longer any dissatisfaction in that quarter over the supply of qualified surveyors and that if the Association so requested, consideration would be given to the restoration of articling requirements and to revisions of the disciplinary provisions of the Act. The Council in consultation with its legal counsel, Mr. L.D. Hyndman, therefore drafted amendments of those parts of the Act, and on Mr. Hyndman's advice, the new disciplinary provisions were framed in general terms that vested the Council, acting as a disciplinary committee, with power to determine what did or did not constitute unprofessional conduct. This obviated any need to spell out the specific character of any actions or arrangements that might be regarded as improper, and made the proposed by-law amendment superfluous. The government also suggested during the course of the negotiations that the bonding of new surveyors meant very little if stronger disciplinary provisions were enforced, and the requirement for the execution of bonds prior to registration was accordingly eliminated. These changes in the Act were made ready in time for submission to the 1957 session of the Legislature, and were passed without opposition to become effective from July 1st of that year. The Act having thus been restored to even better condition than it had been in before 1952, the Council instructed the Committee on Legislation to review the by-laws and bring them into line with the new disciplinary provisions of the statute. The Committee took the opportunity to rearrange the sequence of the by-laws into logical relationship with one another, and this revised version of the by-laws was adopted at the 1953 Annual Meeting. Meanwhile, the Association had continued to grow, and in 1957, the number of active members registered had reached three figures, with a total of 101, for the first time in the Association's history.   Back - 1956 - New Grist for the Mill Forward - 1958 - Water Boundary Struggles