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2005 - Laying Down
the Lines
2005 marked one hundred years since the Province of Alberta entered Confederation. The province planned a number of community activities and many organizations planned their own celebrations. The Alberta Land Surveyors' Association arranged to have Laying Down the Lines: A History of Land Surveying in Alberta published as its biggest centennial project. The book was printed just in time for the 2005 annual general meeting although the project was many years in the making. In 1997, then-president Stan Longson announced in ALS News that Council had resurrected the Historical & Biographical Committee and one of the things the committee might do is "obtain information and stories from members before they are on the wrong side of the grass." Doug Barnett served as the committee's first chairman before having to step down. Bob Baker filled in as he always seemed to do for the Association. For the first several years, the Historical & Biographical Committee met with senior members of the Alberta Land Surveyors' Association to record their stories and reminiscences. In 2001, Council approved hiring author Judy Larmour to research and write the book. Hardcover books were sold to members of the Association and sales were brisk at the 2005 AGM; the book's publisher, Brindle & Glass, sold the softcover version of the book to retail outlets. While 2005 was a time to look back, the Alberta Land Surveyors' Association also looked ahead. Council had formed the Future of the Association Ad Hoc Committee to develop a plan to attract potential Alberta Land Surveyors to the profession and to review the Association's registration process to ensure that articling pupils are learning what they need to learn. In order to effectively plan for the future, the ALSA identified the need for an objective third-party current state assessment of the profession and hired a consultant to do that assessment. The goals were to understand the dynamics of the profession, identify external and internal factors that influence the profession, and the possible impact on the profession’s future viability. The consultant concluded that there may be a shortage of Alberta Land Surveyors in the next five years depending on how quickly the economy grew. A shortage of Alberta Land Surveyors was not immediately evident in 2005. Twenty-nine members received their commission in 2005; the most since 1978. The total number of active members grew to a record 338. When the national board of examiners initiative fell through in 2004, the Association of Canada Lands Surveyors proposed that they and the Western Canadian Board of Examiners form a new board to, hopefully, facilitate the later development into a true national board. By early 2005, each of the western provincial survey associations and ACLS had agreed to the formation of the new board. This year also saw two new business motions from previous years bear the fruit of a lot of hard committee work. In 2000, the membership approved in new business a motion to provide an avenue to resolve boundary uncertainties and disputes as an alternative to resorting to the court process. What finally came out of that motion was the Boundary Resolution Process. There were two components to the Boundary Resolution Process. First, if the involved Alberta Land Surveyors cannot informally resolve the situation themselves, the Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association may assist with mediation. Second, if mediation has failed or does not apply, there is a referral from the Executive Director to the Boundary Panel who would convene to determine if the boundary uncertainty is best resolved by Section 9 of the Surveys Act or some other means. Council approved the Boundary Resolution Process on a trial basis in 2005.
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