Engineering Traditions in Canada - Licensing

Licensing

Many engineering students become licensed Professional Engineers after graduation which gives them the right to practice in public. It is usually a structured 4 plus year period of work experience following graduation. Professional status entails both responsibilities as well as privileges, and is not, as some may think, the automatic result of graduation. In every province of Canada and every state in the USA, it is by law mandatory for an Engineer to be registered with the appropriate association before he or she may practice as a Professional Engineer. In Canada, registration as a Professional Engineer is granted only to those whose personal qualifications and professional experience, as well as academic training can be proven to the satisfaction of the in their province for example Professional Engineers Ontario. This is a matter of law and not choice in order to protect the public. Upon graduation, engineering graduates are permitted to apply for the status as an Engineer-in-Training as the next step in becoming a fully qualified Professional Engineer. By law, only Professional Engineers can call themselves by the name "Professional Engineer", "Mechanical Engineer" and "Electrical Engineer" and their abbreviations. The use of the term "Engineer" is restricted in Canada if it implies one is a Professional engineer. And the term "engineer" or engineering" can never be used in the title of a business unless approved by the professional licensing body. In this case a business requires a "certificate of authorization" enabling it to advertise and offer engineering services to the public. However there are occasions where engineer may be loosely used used to describe people working in the field of Engineering as Technologists, Technicians and Trades. For example the Canadian Coast Guard and the Canadian Navy has "Marine Engineers", "Power Engineers" and "Military Engineers" terms only used within the organization, not publicly. "Locomotive Engineers" have been an integral part of the Canadian railroad industry since its inception.

In a related field, accreditation of baccalaureate programs in Computer Science, Software Engineering, and Management Information Systems are performed by the Canadian Information Processing Society. In Canada some professionals in the software development field are as certified as Information Systems Professional (ISP) while others prefer to be accredited as a Professional Engineer under the discipline known as Software Engineering.