Paging APEGA (Alberta, Canada) Engineers, need help with licensing 2

[Peter_Can_Eng]

Wasn't sure where to put this; there doesn't look to be a forum to deal with licensing issues.

Hello, I'm a fully license Professional Engineer in the province of Ontario. A client wants a job stamped in Alberta, so I'm looking to get my license there. I need to get costs and timelines squared away before I send them an estimate.

I have questions for any APEGA members, and especially any Alberta P. Eng. members who transferred licenses from other provinces.

1. If you submitted a transfer application, how long did it take to get your license? Website says 5-10 business days.
2. For any APEGA member - how long did it take to receive either a physical or digital stamp once you ordered it, and how much did it cost?
3. For anyone that's dealt with a digital APEGA stamp, does it require special software to use like Adobe Acrobat?

Kind Regards,
Peter

 

[KootK]

I'm an APEGA licensee. That said, AB was my first Canadian license so I've never walked your particular path. Here's what I've got:

1) For goodness sakes, call APEGA. They provide pretty good customer service and, you know, the whole horse's mouth thing.

2) Ideally you'll have five years experience or whatever such that you trigger the inter province mobility thing. With that settled, it's just transfer paperwork. Without that, you may have to work a little harder with respect to references, experience documentation etc.

3) For the license, you'll need to pay the initial application fee and the first year's annual rate at around $400/yr.

4) You'll probably need a permit to practice as an organization which will be another application fee and a first year's annual rate at around $250/yr.

5) Once you've got the license, I suspect that you can get the physical stamp and digital stamp image inside of a week. The costs are nominal to the extent of being on par with office supplies.

6) In Alberta, you need to do your digital stamping via a "real" digital signing setup. Almost everybody uses Notarius so talk to them about fees and timelines. If you don't have a notarius seal from another province, this may be your timing bottleneck. They have a mail based verification process that can take a 2-3 weeks to complete.

 

[Peter_Can_Eng]

Thanks so much! This was a really detailed and informative answer.

-Peter

 

[KootK]

You're welcome Peter. Canada's a small country so we P.Eng's have to stick together. Me, you, Bryan, Shania.

 

[skeletron]

Coming from the perspective of transferring AB to BC and YK licenses:
1. Some of these bodies only meet quarterly, and that is when they go finalize the applications. It could take 1 month, it could take 3.
2. Rubber stamp is 6-8 weeks in the mail. You can expedite it by paying a cost.
3. Digital stamp is something like 2-3 weeks. From contact to final email.
4. Notarius software. I've seen people use Bluebeam and Acrobat, but Notarius is the only one that is explicitly defined as meeting the requirements.

I think the main bottleneck will be getting the P2P because you need to have your practice plan in place and (maybe) some of the continuing education training is mandatory like BC. As noted above, phone into APEGA and also confirm with emails...I have had experiences where they had "oopsies" that were caught only because of the written confirmation.

 

[WinelandV]

Me, you, Bryan, Shania.

What, no Celine?

 

[KootK]

1. Some of these bodies only meet quarterly, and that is when they go finalize the applications. It could take 1 month, it could take 3.

There's no way that it takes three months for a comity application. I know a TX registrant that got his AB P.Eng in a week.

2. Rubber stamp is 6-8 weeks in the mail. You can expedite it by paying a cost.

I work with an EIT who got his P.Eng last week and has his rubbers now.

I think the main bottleneck will be getting the P2P because you need to have your practice plan in place and (maybe) some of the continuing education training is mandatory like BC.

Maybe not. The practice plan isn't mandatory until 2023. The only hiccup is if the transition period only applies to existing registrants rather than the newly minted.

I suspect you're transferring some of BC's hard-ass ways to AB. We're catching up in that regard but are, currently, still a bit cowboy-ish.

 

[KootK]

What, no Celine?

No, that's a common misconception though. Celine and Wayne are actually technologists rather than P.Eng's.

 

[skeletron]

There's no way that it takes three months for a comity application. I know a TX registrant that got his AB P.Eng in a week.

Yes. AB is probably looser (probably do to the heavy bias towards O&G industry). That being said, my experience from comity applications:
AB -> BC = 30 days from paid invoice to approval
BC -> YK = 15 days (applied mid-month)

I work with an EIT who got his P.Eng last week and has his rubbers now.

My experience was ordering one May 19 and receiving it September 19 = 125 days (SNAFU bound)
The portal says 45 days max + 2-3 weeks shipping = 59-66 days (upper bound)
My estimate was 6-8 weeks = 42-56 days
There's definitely an option to expedite and have it <14 days.

Maybe not. The practice plan isn't mandatory until 2023. The only hiccup is if the transition period only applies to existing registrants rather than the newly minted.

Transition periods are kind of whack. OP is likely planning to do work in the future that requires field review, etc. which should follow (and eventually will have to follow) current guidelines. OP is also asking questions that are explicitly handled in the guidelines (ie. how to digitally authenticate work).
As you have originally suggested, most of these questions should just be asked directly to APEGA. But I feel like burning a Friday morning coffee on this amusing back and forth.

 

[TLHS]

I'm pretty sure Notarius does identity verification by video call unless something has changed. That being said, verification appointments were super backed up last year because of pandemic demand. Don't know if that's changed now though.

 

[KootK]

I'm pretty sure Notarius does identity verification by video call unless something has changed.

You're probably right. The last time I went through this was 2010 I think.

 

[KootK]

But I feel like burning a Friday morning coffee on this amusing back and forth.

#MeToo. Hopefully OP returns our generosity by reporting back here once the dust settles to tell us what the current lay of the land is when it comes to APEGA reciprocity applications.

 

[Peter_Can_Eng]

Thank you all for weighing in. For now, my company has decided against moving forward with this job. The main reason is that I'm not a sole practitioner, but a P. Eng. working for a small company. Which, according to KootK, means my company needs a permit to practice as an organization, which means registering our business in Alberta, and getting liability insurance for Alberta, which is all together too much time and money for what is a limited job.

Thanks to you all for your time.

-Peter