Recommendations coming to light: Elliot Lake report guiding new engineering standards.

• Author: Kelly, Lindsay
• Position: DESIGN-BUILD

A year after Justice Paul R. Belanger issued his report from the Elliot Lake Inquiry, progress is being reported on recommendations to make the engineering profession safer.

The province issued an October update, noting that a number of the final report's 70 recommendations have been implemented or are being carried out.

To date, the province said it has established an expert panel to provide advice on how to make buildings safer; promised support for municipalities that request help in emergency situations; trained Ministry of Labour inspectors in emergency policies and procedures; and developed a best practices guide for use by future public inquiry commissions.

Professional Engineers of Ontario (PEO), meanwhile, has been working to respond to the nine recommendations that require action from the engineering industry, said Gerard McDonald, registrar at the PEO, the licensing and regulating body for engineering in the province.

One set of recommendations calls for a structural adequacy report for buildings, and the PEO is now working on guidelines for structural condition assessments before putting it into regulation.

The recommendations also suggest the reports should be filled out by an engineer with a "structural engineering specialist" designation. McDonald said the PEO is still considering how to implement this, since if the organization creates a specialist designation in one area, it may call for specialist designations in other areas as well.

And it wouldn't be as easy as identifying certain engineers to carry the designation, since different engineers can have expertise in different areas of the profession.

"It becomes very complex," McDonald said. "There are obviously many types of buildings, different types of structures, so how do you ensure the person has all of the different requirements to fill out that particular report?"

Another recommendation suggests engineers should have to complete mandatory continuing professional education, which McDonald said the PEO was working on even before Belanger issued his report.

The PEO proposes a tiered program that takes into account an engineer's area of expertise, in addition to the different stages of an engineer's career; for example, someone who is non-practising or retired will have different requirements for continuing education than someone in...