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this page Ontario Ethics Survey Results – How are we doing and where do we go from here?By George Wahl, P.Geo. The North American securities industry has seen a wave of regulation pass over them since the Enron, Anderson and Bre-X scandals. The wave has washed over Canada with revised National Instrument 43-101 disclosure requirements relying on ethical code-abiding registered professionals, and to the creation of our own self-regulating body of geoscientists in Ontario. The movement to encourage ethical behaviour has spread across North America driven by the U.S. based Sarbanes-Oxley legislation passed in 2002 requiring corporations to implement ethical codes. Much of this regulation is based on qualified individuals adhering to either a corporate or professional code of ethics, or both. Since the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation, a groundswell of debate on ethical issues has sprung up. Not to be left behind, we thought it appropriate to take a critical view of ourselves as a newly formed self-regulating organization. The following is a limited view on how we perceive ourselves as practicing ethical professional geoscientists in Ontario based on a recent Association of States Boards of Geology (ASBOG) study. Last year the Canadian Council of Professional Geoscientists (CCPG), of which APGO is a member organization, participated in a joint American-Canadian ASBOG survey of geoscientists across North America. A total of 118 APGO registered Ontario geoscientists participated in the survey, which included 13 questions on ethics. In the ethics portion of the questionnaire, Ontario geoscience participants were asked to rate the frequency that they encountered ethical breaches. The results are tabulated in Table 1. A percentage frequency response from all Ontario respondents was generated for the four available responses: never, seldom, occasionally and often. Results from British Columbia practitioners are included for comparison purposes. Table 1 Percentage Frequency of Encountering Unethical Conduct
The results indicate that more than 20% of the Ontario respondents suggested a high incidence (often encountered) of the following breaches: “Getting and receiving gifts”, “Failure to disclose regulatory violations”, “Insufficient scope of work”, “Practicing outside area of competence” and, “Selective data acquisition, analysis or disclosure”. There are clearly a number of problem areas in our practice that need to be addressed. The philosophical approaches open to us in dealing with unethical practice is to take a solely punitive approach or to undertake open and honest critical self-analysis and allocate limited resources towards prevention of unethical paths of practice. This can be accomplished through simple, inexpensive, and well-targeted education. Field Notes invites members, who believe there is merit in the path of education, to submit anonymous “ethical cases” which we would like to publish in future issues of Field Notes. We also seek comments on ethical cases that are included in this and future issues of Field Notes. We hope by remaining anonymous, we can facilitate an open and productive dialogue. The end goal is to encourage and help younger practitioners assess and develop their own moral compass and hopefully, over time, decrease the incidence of ethical breaches. Field Notes also will endeavor to bring to the member’s attention, situations that have risen and have been dealt within other jurisdictions. For example, click here to review the third case that is relevant to ethics. |
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