I’ve heard of stolen valor, but stolen geekery is a new one.
Regardless of country, ‘conservatives’ are just liars.
They see unethical behavior as their competitive advantage over their moral opponents.
As the article points out, this is a sanctionable offense in Canada (that the AHJ generally aggressively pursue). He certainly will be given notice, and if he doesn’t comply they just start ramping up fines aggressively until he does ($25k to $50k each, eventually into court orders and injunctions). These are legally enforceable.
It’s even more aggressive in other provinces - the professions strictly regulate title usage. Most people voluntarily comply immediately.
Gassi said he studied mechanical engineering technology
By this dipshit’s standard, I’m an engineer too!
Nope, just a technologist (but technically not that, because I didn’t maintain my ASET membership).
Isn’t it illegal to falsely represent yourself as an engineer in Canada?
Yep.
A bit off topic but please indulge me:
“Only holders of a P.Eng. licence are legally permitted to use the title P.Eng.’ or the term ‘engineer’ in their job title, or to use any other term, title or description that may lead to the belief that they are authorized to practice professional engineering,” McCutcheon said.
That’s interesting to me. We’re looser with the term “Engineer” here in Switzerland. So I wanted to ask, do you have Network Engineers in Ontario? If not what are the people who design, plan and implement new computer networks called instead?
I am a P. Eng. in Ontario, Canada. It’s “Professional Engineer” license. As someone else has mentioned, you can be a mechanical engineer, a software engineer, an electrical engineer etc and a P. Eng. The requirement for P. Eng is passing an Engineering Ethics exam, receiving an engineering degree from accepted universities/college (doesn’t have to be a Canadian school) and completing an certain number of years of Canadian engineering work experience (ie. the work must be qualified as engineering type work, and must be in Canada). Now, I received my P. Eng more than a decade ago so the rules may or may not change.
Professional Engineers of Ontario (PEO) is our organization which regulates the exams and licensing. It is also a sort of watch dog which ensures that engineers are ethical and don’t cut corners. PEO also provides networking (they may organize a plant tour or conferences etc) and volunteering activities for engineers. We, engineers, pay annual fees/dues to PEO but if you work for an engineering company, your company may pay your dues for you.
In the United States, it’s loose. A PE license is required to stamp plans, which is very important if you’re a civil engineer working on buildings or infrastructure or an electrical engineer working on utilities.
That said if you’re a mechanical engineer, you probably aren’t going to work on anything that requires you to be a PE. (Though the Federal Aviation Administration has the DER [Designated Engineering Representative] qualification, which is separate from the PE but useful in aviation.) Because of that, most mechanical engineers don’t bother. The same is true for a lot of disciplines.
That said, this guy didn’t get his undergrad degree in mechanical engineering and worked as a millwright. At that point, we’re definitely stretching what counts as an engineer.
A key derivative of PEs having the right to stamp plans is that certified (stamped) plans are often a requirement or stipulation in all sorts of laws, permits, and settlements. Fraudulently certified plans can unravel all sorts of legal liabilities far beyond the engineer.
The answer is that it depends on Province.
It seems that Quebec is particularly strict here, with Microsoft losing a battle to use the term “Engineers” over two decades ago, https://www.canadianconsultingengineer.com/quebec-order-of-engineers-wins-legal-battle-with-microsoft/
Similarly, it seems there was a lot of activity a couple of years ago in Alberta to protect the term as per https://edmonton.taproot.news/news/2022/10/17/tech-leaders-seek-easing-of-rules-around-software-engineer-designation - with the result that the law is being changed to explicitly exempt “software engineer” from protection as per https://globalnews.ca/news/10084623/engineers-canada-urges-alberta-to-reconsider-change-to-rules-around-engineer-title/
In Ontario specifically - which is the most populated province of Canada - my layman’s reading of https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/90p28 12 (1),
When licences or certificates required
Licensing requirement
No person shall engage in the practice of professional engineering or hold himself, herself or itself out as engaging in the practice of professional engineering unless the person is the holder of a licence, a temporary licence, a provisional licence or a limited licence.
Similarly, looking at https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/s10016 5(1)
“practice of professional engineering” means any act of planning, designing, composing, evaluating, advising, reporting, directing or supervising that requires the application of engineering principles and concerns the safeguarding of life, health, property, economic interests, the public welfare or the environment, or the managing of any such act; (“exercice de la profession d’ingénieur”)
where use of the software impacts the health, safety or property of its users. PEO considers non-licensed use of “Software Engineer” to be a violation of our Act.
But most software development is not, for example, directly related to health & safety.
Basically in Ontario it seems “professional engineer” is the main regulated term, and “engineer” is only restricted in a subset of limited cases. (Note that this might be a relatively recent change though - the Professional Engineers Act is dated to 1990, but the Open for Business Act from 2010 made a number of changes to it. And it’s specific to just Ontario.)
Edit: Now it seems that the Ontario branch of Engineers Canada, Professional Engineers Ontario, isn’t quite happy with this state of affairs. They make their case here, https://www.peo.on.ca/public-protection/complaints-and-illegal-practice/report-unlicensed-individuals-or-companies in the “Software engineering and misleading certifications” section near the bottom:
PEO has taken action against the use of the term “engineer” by several software companies. PEO negotiated with Banyan Systems to revise its training materials to replace the term “Certified Banyan Engineer” with “CBE”. PEO also requested that Microsoft Canada Inc., replace the terms “Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer” and “Microsoft Certified Professional Systems Engineer” with alternate terms that do not use the word “engineer”, to avoid violating the Professional Engineers Act and trademark legislation.
On July 25, 2002 Microsoft Canada announced that they will continue to use the term ‘engineer’ as part of the Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) designation.
The rest of the page is just about how to report misuse of the “professional engineer” term, e.g.
use the title “professional engineer” or an abbreviation or variation as an occupational designation
It’s quite telling then that the vast majority of jobs in Canada with the title “Network Engineer” are for companies based in Ontario, at least looking at https://ca.indeed.com/q-network-engineer-jobs.html?vjk=4d0293c813a90300
There are other cases of courts declaring engineering to be unprotected, see for example https://www.smartbiggar.ca/insights/publication/canadian-council-of-professional-engineers-fails-to-prevent-registration-of-engineering-mark
BC is also pretty strict. Those who do software development in areas where failure could cause threat to life, health, or the environment are required to be (or overseen by) Professional Engineers, and non-PEngs can’t call themselves software engineers. The major universities offer accredited software engineering programs which are separate degrees from computer science, focus less on theory, and include first year sciences and professional ethics courses.
In practice, you still see people calling themselves “network engineers” and “software engineers” in Canada, even without a P.Eng
A lot of people do use the term loosely even though it’s illegal to do so here, but then there are some people who use the term Network Architect instead.
Architect can be a protected title too
Generally, we have levels of technical expertise based on how many years of schooling you did.
- Technician: 2 years of college (diploma)
- Technologist: 3 years of college (advanced diploma)
- Engineer: 4 years of university (bachelor’s degree) plus 5 years of training as an Engineer-in-Training (EIT) and a successful attempt at the Professional Engineer (PEng) exam
Of these, only “engineer” is a protected title in Ontario. But you can get additional certification through OACETT to become a Certified Technician (CTech) or Certified Technologist (CT).
So, depending on the person’s education and training, they could be called a Network Technician, Network Technologist, or Network Engineer.
Slight correction - in Ontario it is 48 months of experience and EIT designation is not required. In fact, PEO paused that program to new applications (though they are working on a new one to be implemented at a later date). The exam is the NPPE (National Professional Practice Examination).
Source: recent engineering grad.
It seems that it’s actually quite difficult to get qualifying experience if one does software, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11220591 (since the experience has to be obtained under a P.Eng and it has to fit the safeguarding of life, health, etc criteria (so the work to develop a new gaming app likely isn’t going to count).
This is probably why so few folks in software actually have P.Eng as per https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25826520 (regardless of if they use a title with Engineer in it or not).
In common parlance they will call themselves software or network engineers, but their official title will be something else, a title my company uses is “senior software engineering 1/2/3” the -ing considered enough to change it. It’s usually not a big deal unless you falsely represent yourself like this guy is doing or you’re going through a legal process (I got a US work visa and the lawyers stressed that I should not refer to myself as an engineer during any immigration process unless I really was one for instance).
My work generally does the same thing, but for the record if PEO starts to pay attention to software engineers then adding the ----ing will absolutely not be distinct enough.
They made EITs switch to calling themselves EITs rather than Engineer In Training.
In Ontario, basically the professional engineering organization complains about people using the term Software Engineer, and occasionally goes after a big company because of it, meanwhile on a day to day basis everyone uses the term anyways.
If you’re applying for jobs from companies that are not based in this province, and refuse to call yourself a software engineer, you’ll be passed over for someone equally qualified from one state over who will.
When you’re on a team and you’re the only one in Ontario, you’re not going to insist that you don’t refer to your team as the engineering team.
If you’re applying to an Ontario company, that’s usually when you’ll start seeing them respect the distinction more, but even then, jobs will almost always just be posted for developers because most places don’t actually care about the distinction and want both to apply.
Anyone who considers themselves to be a mechanical engineer who isn’t registered… is someone I wouldn’t want doing anything related to engineering or public speaking.
Words have meaning; there’s a reason some of them have meaning that’s backed by legal status.
“I said it but I didn’t really mean it.”
What a noodle.
He is just doing it to get into Mechanic Engineering bathrooms to be a pervert.
He still shouldnt call himself an Engineer when he’s not a licensed Engineer, but to be slightly fair, with his experience, in say Alberta, he would likely be a Professional Technician and would be allowed to stamp engineering drawings.
In Ontario there is no path to stamping drawings from being technologist, and again, he still shouldnt call himself an engineer, but i also don’t necessarily agree that it inherently means he doesn’t actually know engineering. Lots of PEngs I worked with were garbage engineers and lots of Techs I worked with were great at engineering.
Yeah, this is kind of where I am. If I was an MET and someone asked my profession in a casual conversation, I might well say engineer. If it was anything more significant or official, or the person was aware of the field enough to know the difference, I’d go with MET. Running for office definitely falls in the second category.
Yea in the UK plumbers and gasfitters are called engineers… That said even with my B.Eng and MA.Sc from accredited Canadian schools I am not a professional engineer in any province/territory of canada. I have not paid dues or fees or completed the ethics exam.
While it may be beneficial for me to obtain my license in the future, the work I was, and I am currently doing is not an act of engineering or if it briefly was it was licenced under another engineer.
I was advised at one point to not obtain the engineer title due to some shady practices going on at the time with insurance for engineers. After that job, opportunities didn’t require the title so I haven’t bothered
Personally I think administrating the licences at at provincial level seems silly for the work I do. As it usually is traveling fast over all the provinces and the laws on the books are mostly for bridges and are often ill equipped to guide me to beat practices for the work I do. Maybe in the future it’ll be federally managed maybe that will make it more consistent and they can consider things other than bridges
Yeah, he probably drives the gravy train.
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- Politics is not a game show. He’s a candidate, not a “contestant”.
- While in Canada “engineer” is a semi-regulated term, globally this is not a thing. I live in the UK now and am regularly referred to as an engineer despite having never completed an engineering degree at university.
- There are plenty of reasons to shit on the Conservatives, but this is a reach, a reach well past a wide array of low-hanging fruit.
All good points. Here’s a few low dangling reasons not to like the guy:
New to politics, Gassi said it was during the COVID-19 pandemic that local and national issues seriously caught his attention and he became seriously concerned with what is occurring around the world.
“I advocate for the values of liberty, faith, family, morals freedom and the promise of a healthy future for our children and grandchildren,” he told The Sault Star. […]
“I’ve become very disenchanted with where our country is moving, and when I was approached about seeking the nomination, it didn’t take too long for me to decide,” he said.
“This is less about politics and more about ideologies and agendas,” he said. “This is about good versus evil.”
“This fight is about goodness, morality, family, God and freedoms, against evil, tyranny, oppression, greed, controls and global governance. During the past several years, the Trudeau-led Liberal government has turned their backs on Canadians. The results of their corrupted policies, and fiscal irresponsibility have placed our current and future generations in a position of risk,” he said. [Sault Star, Jan '24]
[T]he Trump tariffs were also being discussed by Michael Gassi, a former Algoma Steel general manager.
“I don’t understand Canadians, with their anti-Trump and anti-American rants over the tariffs,” wrote Gassi, who’s seeking the local federal Conservative nomination, on Facebook.
“All this hatred over potential 25 per cent tariffs, but the same Liberal and left-wing Canadians have no concerns with being punished and bankrupted by Justin Trudeau with his 28-per-cent carbon climate hoax tax? The hypocrisies are amazing.” [SooToday Feb '25]
Hoooooly shit. Yeah, fuck this guy.
