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this page Meet Your Councillor - George H. Wahl, P.Geo. - (APGO, NAPEGG), MAusIMM George works as an independent resource estimation consultant for several mining engineering firms and directly with some mining companies. Most of his work is on overseas projects in Asia, Africa and South America, however, because of the upturn in the metals market he is beginning again to work more in Canada. The focus of his work is conducting resource audits, preparing exploration databases for feasibility study and estimating mineral resources. What are George's views on professional registration and its effects on the work of the geoscientists? Professional registration affects the various geoscience disciplines differently. For environmental geoscientists, George suspects the current provincally-based models work quite well. For those in the resource sector, however, the requirement for registration in every province geoscientists work in amounts to nothing more than unnecessary bureaucracy. The system must be improved to make it easier for geoscientists to hone their skills on a variety of deposit-types found across Canada. Its George's experience that first hand exposure to a wide variety of deposit types is critical to developing well-rounded exploration geologists. The requirement of professional registration in multiple jurisdictions should not be an impediment to geoscience practitioners building a broad base of experience. When asked, how has professional registration, made a difference in your life and in your workplace? George said, "The bureaucracy of needing to register, as a professional in each Canadian provincial jurisdiction that I work in, has turned into a nightmare of differing provincial regulations, interpretations of what constitutes “practice” and differing membership requirements. I have found that for short-term assignments it is easier to accept work outside of Canada, than to register in yet another province. On the plus side, George views professional registration as a useful tool that can help protect the public from the next exploration fiasco.
His message to members " I recently attended a meeting of the Canadian Council for Professional Geoscientists. John Buckle, current President of the APGO Council, made an impassioned plea for other Canadian professional jurisdictions to improve mobility of geoscientists across Canada. It was unfortunate to hear a number of responses from other jurisdictions against improving the mobility of Canadian geoscientists. The negative responses were all from joint engineering/geoscience professional associations. It begged the question as to why. Three points stand out. Geoscientists are often a very small minority in these joint professional associations.Secondly, In most cases, the vast majority of members appear to be from a community of professional practitioners who essentially have no need to be mobile, and lastly, Mining engineers and exploration geoscientists careers are built on traversing Canada’s provincial and international borders on a regular basis and the interests of this industry group are not being heard or well represented by Canada’s joint professional associations. We in Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia can be very thankful our voices are well represented by the geoscience-only professional associations. At the national level, however, I believe our interests and the public's national interests on issues such as mobility of geoscientists are not being well served."
What are APGO's challenges and how can members assist? If geocientists in this country value the ability to move across the country unimpeded by differing professional requirements in each province, make your voice heard and demonstrate your support for a single registration and common regulatory system. When not doing geoscience. When asked to name the most exotic place where his career has taken him, George's answer was the place that was the most harrowing for him. It was the rain soaked jungles of Ecuador climbing over one thousand meters vertically on muddy trails,while riding mules fashioned with wooden saddles. I thought many times that there was a better way to make a living, however, I've had so many terrific experiences practicing geoscience, they've more than made up for my Ecuadorian saddle sores. |
For more information on APGO, please contact info@apgo.net |
As a teenager, George had the good fortune of reading his great uncle's diaries, which triggered his interest in geoscience. George's uncle was both a geologist and mining engineer and explored many areas of Siberia in the early 1900's. He immigrated to North America and while driving a taxi in New York City he managed to land a job with Anaconda as an exploration geologist. He traveled around the globe exploring the jungles of the Amazon and Congo. George's uncle hired porters to carry diamond drilling equipment and sufficient supplies for trips lasting nine months at a time and typically in completely unmapped territory. Thankfully, the life of the exploration geologists is much easier nowadays.