Summary:  As of February 5, 2021, the practice rights under PGA remain the status quo.  That is, the same as they were under the previous statutes.

Initial implementation of practice rights under the PGA involves carrying forward the status quo from the statutes to be repealed and expressing them in a consistent format under the framework of the Professional Governance Act (PGA), with some modernizations. This means that each regulatory body will

• Regulate the same registrants it was regulating under its former statute (regulated practice);
• Have authority to confer the same titles (with some modernizations) as in its former statute (reserved titles); and,
• Continue protecting any practice rights reserved for the profession (reserved practice), if authorized under the former statute (the Foresters Act or the Engineers and Geoscientists Act). This means that, upon initial implementation, reserved practices are only granted for professional forestry, engineering, and geoscience. No new reserved practices are being established upon initial implementation of the PGA

With respect to Applied Biologists and Agrologists, work is already underway to establish reserved practice for registrants of these professions. We expect that the Applied Biologists Regulation and Agrologists Regulation will be updated to set out the impending reserved practice in the coming months following a further period of consultation.  The introduction of these new reserved practices will include a reasonable transition period identified well in advance of the reserved practices being introduced.

The OSPG also intends to begin a process with ASTTBC and EGBC to discuss the opportunities and challenges associated with, and potential approaches to, reserved practice within the engineering discipline for technologists and technicians.