A major component of the AIBC’s transition to the Professional Governance Act (“PGA”) is the development of new bylaws and an updated Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct (“Code of Ethics”) to meet the requirements of the PGA.
Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct Overview
Under section 57(2) of the PGA, the AIBC’s bylaws must include an updated Code of Ethics that contains 12 specific ethical principles, in addition to, or as supplements to, the standards already established for the profession. While the current Code of Ethics already contains most of these principles, such as avoiding conflicts of interest and maintaining competencies, there are some new requirements or variations on existing standards. Some PGA-mandated principles of note include:
- Registrants must clearly identify each registrant who has contributed to professional work, including recommendations, reports, statements, or opinions;
- Registrants must present clearly to clients and employers the possible consequences if professional decisions and judgements are overruled or disregarded; and
- Registrants who provide professional opinions must distinguish between facts, assumptions, and opinions.
The Bylaw Review Committee and staff, with input from the Council PGA Working Group, created an excerpt of the Code of Ethics specific to the 12 PGA principles, with draft commentary.
Each of the PGA principles in the updated Code of Ethics will include informational commentary to help architects and other registrants understand how to comply in professional practice. Readers will have seen that some existing AIBC Bylaws/Council Rulings in the Code of Ethics have been amalgamated in this excerpt, notably in the area of ‘compliance with laws’ and ‘conflicts of interest’. The PGA principles provide an opportunity to distil multiple professional standards, or variations on standards, into shorter standards statements with more comprehensive interpretive commentary.
Of note, none of the PGA principles to be incorporated in the Code of Ethics constitutes a substantive change to professional practice.
Read the Excerpt from the Draft Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct (PDF)
After the transition to the PGA, the Code of Ethics will become a ‘schedule’ to the new AIBC Bylaws under the legislation. The final AIBC Bylaw document under the PGA will be a much more comprehensive, single-source document for the regulation of the architectural profession in B.C., alleviating the need to refer to multiple regulatory documents.
Consultation
Architects and other registrants were invited to review and provide feedback on the excerpt from the draft Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct by emailing pga@aibc.ca. The AIBC encourages active participation in the consultation process – in the past, bylaw suites have often been amended based on thoughtful and insightful comments from registrants.
Under the PGA, bylaw authority resides with AIBC Council. This means registrants did not vote on the draft Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. However, as noted above, there is still an active consultation process and we encourage architects and other registrants to review the material and submit all feedback to pga@aibc.ca.