Message from the Chair of the Legislation Review Committee
February 1, 2020 - The AAA Legislation Committee has been active since 2012 when the AAA was requested by the Government of Alberta to update the
Architects Act and
General Regulation. Since then, the AAA has navigated its way through three different governments with three very different philosophies and sets of priorities.
A considerable amount of work has been done towards legislative renewal in the past eight years by both volunteers and AAA administration, but unfortunately, we still do not have a new
Act in place. Many factors have contributed to the slow pace of progress, including the very nature of this process itself; changing faces within AAA administration; changing faces within the Ministry of Labour; and changing leadership at the elected level.
For quite some time, the update to the
Architects Act was in line behind a number of other pieces of legislation being put forward by professional regulatory bodies. The
Regulated Forestry Profession Act (drafted in 2017 and proclaimed in 2019) was the last legislation to be amended for a self-regulatory profession.
The good news is that the
Architects Act is now on the short list of professional regulation to be updated. Unfortunately, in the past year government priorities have shifted to the point that currently the Ministry has no resources available for legislative review, nor have we been given any sense of when they may be willing to look at our proposed changes.
The current
General Regulation has an expiry date of October 21, 2021. Later this year we will likely work with the government to extend the expiry date or remove the date altogether in order to keep our regulation in effect.
In the meantime, the AAA is putting forward updated information on our website for our membership and other industry stakeholders.
On this website you will find current information on the
13 Guiding Principles that our membership voted on in 2014, and the policy decisions that have been made related to each of those principles. These decisions, in turn, have been framing the conversations between AAA and government and will ultimately lead to the drafting of the legislation itself.
I encourage you to review the policy decisions on this website and provide the AAA with any feedback you have so that your comments can be gathered and included in the information provided to the Government of Alberta as we work through this process.
Thank you to the many volunteers on the legislation
task forces and for all of our members who have provided such valuable input to this process. We continue to work towards renewed legislation that first and foremost serves the public, but also will allow the AAA to do a better job of regulating the professions and providing value to our membership.
Sincerely,
Patti Swanson, Architect, AAA
Chair, Legislation Review Committee