2010 -  Dual
Plan Registration
With the grandeur of the 100th annual general meeting now
behind it, the Association returned to the reality of an economy in recession.
Land surveyors from other jurisdictions were no longer flocking to Alberta but
Alberta Land Surveyors were taking advantage of labour mobility and heading
elsewhere.
Post sales, which had reached a height of 295,540 during
the boom of 2005-2006,
were projected to fall to 130,000 in 2009-2010
and the membership demanded that a contingency plan be put in place if sales
fell a further 25% beyond that.
Clearly, something had to change and a plan was put in
place to keep a tight control on expenses. First, non-statutory committees were
allowed one face-to-face meeting per year but all others were held online.
Regional meetings were reduced from three per location to two. Public awareness
initiatives, such as a barbecue for first-year University of Calgary students
and the Trig-Alta math contest for high school students were both cancelled. Two
Association staff contracts were not renewed; one staff member quit; they were
not replaced.
By the end of the fiscal year, post sales were 116,130.
Cost savings, increased membership dues and a healthy return on investments kept
the Association from bleeding red ink in
2009-2010.
The Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association had more than money
matters on its mind that year. Systematic Practice Review was struggling to keep
up as the membership had grown by 50% since the program first started in 1994
and there had been tremendous difficulty finding staff. Meanwhile, a year
earlier, the membership had approved a recommendation encouraging members to
submit information regarding their professional development activities on a
voluntary basis with a view to introducing mandatory reporting in the next
one-to-three years.
Council decided to tackle both issues at the same time by
forming the Continuing Competency Working Group, chaired by Connie Petersen,
with members from both the Practice Review Board and the Professional
Development Committee. The group decided to combine the best parts of practice
review and continuing education into one program that would be streamlined,
cost-effective and sustainable. The result was a new Continuing Competency
Review program that would come into effect June 1, 2010. The new program was
designed to be ALS-based instead of office-based. When
the Alberta Land Surveyor’s name was selected, the land surveyor would be asked
to complete an online questionnaire that covers practice review, education &
training, professional association involvement and other accomplishments. While
the cost to run the new Continuing Competency Review program was expected to be
similar to Systematic Practice Review (approximately $350,000 per year), the number of reviews completed each year
was expected to grow substantially.
However, the most controversial topic and what devoured
most of Council’s time this year was an issue that came to be known as dual plan
registration.
When a statutory monument is
placed by a land surveyor for Sustainable Resource Development surveys, must a plan be registered at the Land Titles Office?
Many Alberta Land Surveyors and the Association’s solicitor said yes. The
Director of Surveys and Alberta Justice said no. Council was then left with the
difficult task of trying to reconcile the two opinions. Which one should be
followed? Council members spent plenty of time over several Council meetings
trying to deal with these questions and searching for the right answers and a
clear solution.
Council considered several
alternatives to try to get clarity on this matter. Some alternatives included
getting a court decision and approaching the Minister of Sustainable Resource
Development. Involving the court for a declaratory judgement and approaching the
Minister were eventually
ruled out.
In the end, Council decided
not to contest the Government of Alberta on the issue. It was apparent that the
Surveys Act was not clear on this question and that the membership had
differing interpretations of the Act and the intent of the Act. Possibly these
could not be easily resolved even by amending the Act.
If Alberta Land Surveyors
wanted to continue to register plans at both Sustainable Resource Development
and Land Titles, they could do so. However, Council was of the opinion that
should Alberta Land Surveyors only file with Alberta Sustainable Resource
Development, it will be deemed that Alberta Land Surveyors have met their legal
obligations under the Act, as explained in the Government of Alberta opinion.
On the national scene, things were changing too. It was
decided that the Canadian Council of Land Surveyors needed to be replaced with a
new organization. Many provincial associations had become disillusioned with
CCLS and CCLS did not have the funding sources it felt it needed to undertake
national initiatives.
The new organization became known as Professional Surveyors
Canada (PSC). The focus of the new PSC would be member driven. While the
provincial associations mandate is protection of the public, registration, peer
review and discipline, PSC would be a voice and platform for all registered
surveyors across Canada. It would also deliver member specific services which
may fall outside the scope of the provincial associations or that are not
financially viable at a smaller scale.
The new Professional Surveyors Canada would not be
responsible for boundary uncertainties; that would remain in the hands of the
self-governing associations. In Alberta, the Association had more than enough
funds to deal with boundary issues thanks to the surcharge on iron post and
marker post sales even if post sales were down. The Alberta Land Surveyors’
Association, however, did not have the volume of cases it expected and was not
able to deal with them as efficiently as hoped. So Council decided to hire a
consultant to figure out why.
Although the Association was clearly looking to the future,
it had not forgotten its past. The former Banff home of
A.O. Wheeler was set for demolition
by Parks Canada. The home had long been left vacant and was deemed to be in a
protective wildlife corridor. The Association worked with the Association of
British Columbia Land Surveyors and descendents of the founding president of the
Alpine Club of Canada to see if the home could be saved.
As the year wound down, the Association reached 400 Alberta
Land Surveyors for the first time in its history and there were still a strong
number of students in the articling system. there was no doubt that the
Association’s second 100 years was going to be as full of change as the first.
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