Professional Engineers Ontario - Discipline Committee (DIC) member

Discipline Committee (DIC) member, Professional Engineers Ontario

Area of Law: Administrative Law/Adjudication

Experience: Minimum 3 years of experience

Position type: Committee member

Background: Professional Engineers Act R.S.O. 1990, Chapter P.28.

Call for members:

Are you a lawyer with an interest in  administrative law and a keen drive to use your expertise to help safeguard the public welfare?

Join the Discipline Committee (DIC) at Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO)!

For over 100 years, PEO has been licensing and regulating professional engineers and engineering in the province. We are seeking new members for the DIC, which performs the critical role of ensuring those brought for discipline are treated fairly and impartially while supporting our mandate to serve and protect the public interest.

Function:  

The DIC has the authority to make a determination of professional misconduct or incompetence when a member and/or holder has been investigated and referred by PEO’s Complaints Committee. It is a quasi-judicial proceeding, and the people involved in this critical work make decisions that affect someone’s future. Most importantly, committee members ensure the public interest is protected, which is PEO’s primary mandate under our governing legislation.

See s.27 of the Professional Engineers Act: Professional Engineers Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. P.28 (ontario.ca)

Rules of the Discipline Committee and other related information is available on DIC’s web-page: Discipline Tribunal | Professional Engineers Ontario (peo.on.ca)

Term: A member of the DIC is initially appointed for a 1-year term, following which they may be re-appointed for a maximum of ten years.

Duties and Responsibilities include:

  • Performing an adjudicative role in a quasi-judicial setting;
  • Hearing and deciding matters referred to them;
  • Lawyer members responsible for providing the first draft of all Decisions and Reasons documents to the rest of the panel;
  • Adhering to the principles of natural justice or procedural fairness; the right to be heard and the right to an impartial decision maker; and
  • Holding decision-making powers under the Professional Engineers Act.

Panels: 

The DIC Chair appoints panels of at least three members to hear a matter. Hearings occur regularly; their duration varies from one to multiple days in succession or spread over a few months. Persons approved by the Attorney General are expected to take the lead role on writing timely Decisions and Reasons with the assistance, where necessary, of independent legal counsel. Each member is expected to volunteer for multiple (not less than 3) hearings per year and attend any DIC meeting of the committee as a whole, which typically meets twice a year to discuss its business.

Requirements:  

The selection process for the appointment of members of the DIC is a competitive process. The criteria applied in assessing candidates include:

  • Experience, knowledge or training with respect to administrative law and issues;
  • Aptitude for impartial adjudication;
  • Knowledge of the Statutory Powers and Procedures Act (SPPA) is an asset; and
  • Knowledge of the Professional Engineers Act and Regulations 941 and 260 is an asset.

Remuneration: Modest per-diem currently set at $398/for seven hours or $56.86 per hour – this amount is currently under review.

How to apply: Please submit a letter of interest and a current resume to adminstaffdic@peo.on.ca 

Application deadline: Friday, April 21, 2023

Expiry Date: 
Friday, April 21, 2023 - 5pm