President’s Message – Winter 2021

Calvin Bourassa SLS, CLS, P.Surv. President

It has been a busy fall season and now another winter is upon us here in Saskatchewan.  I hope that everyone was able to take a break during the holiday season and spend some quality time with family and friends, before we get back to work in the cold months ahead.

Your Council and Committees have been hard at work over the past few months.  We have two new co-chairs of the Education Committee, Jared Adams and James Jacobson, and the Education Committee put on a successful Fall Education Seminar.  I would also like to thank Heather Maloney and Wade Pennell for their help with the Seminar during the transition to the new co-Chairs.  We had good attendance at the online seminars, and I would like to thank all those members who presented and provided input.

The Government Policy Review Committee is one of our newer committees and I would like to thank all the Committee members for all of the work they did to prepare such an interesting and informative session.  A lot of discussion was spurred by the presentation, and I look forward to seeing the results of continued work of this Committee.

The Peer Competency Review Committee was created by Council in October 2021.  We have had three members volunteer to be part of this Committee, Kristof Dumais, Rachel Kohlman and Trent Wahl.  Adam Kraszlany has also volunteered to be the Council liaison for this new Committee.  This Committee will have a lot of work putting together our proposed Peer Competency Review program so that the membership can vote on implementing the program at one of our next meetings.  During the Fall Seminar the members voted that compiling a Peer Competency Review Manual, which would include all the assessment criteria, policies, and procedures, was one of the priorities that the Association should be looking at.  This recommendation will be passed to this Committee as well.

The Public Relations Committee has continued its work on our new website, and they are hoping that it will be live by the end of the year.  I look forward to seeing the new website as it was time for it needed an update.  The membership also voted at the Fall Seminar that the website should clearly detail the registration process, requirements, review/appeals, assessment criteria, timelines, and fees.  This priority has been passed on to the Committee so that it can be included in the new website.

Council has been busy reviewing information from Committees and our sister Associations across the country and providing responses and guidance where needed.  At our December meeting Council also decided not to publish the 2022 Suggested Schedule of Fees on our website.  There was a lot of discussion on this topic at this meeting, and it had was discussed at length last year prior to the publishing of the 2021 Suggested Schedule of Fees.  After the discussion Council held a vote and decided not to publish the 2022 Schedule.  Council also spent time discussing the proposed 2022 budget and decided to go over the budget again in January with the goal of having a balanced budget for the year.

Aside from my time spent on Association business I spent quite a bit of time over the past week reviewing old plans, and field notes when available, to determine how some boundaries had been originally surveyed and later re-established.  This research and the associated field searches and surveys are the part of my job that I enjoy the most.  It can be difficult to determine what was done in the past by reviewing the plan information only, the field notes can be very helpful when they are available.  It reminds me of the importance of keeping good field records and that these records could be very helpful in the future long after I am no longer surveying.  This brings up the question of how these field records and notes are stored so that they are available after a surveyor has retired.  Other Associations are looking at this question as well.  If a surveyor retires, or passes away, who is responsible for taking over the storage of this important information?  If the surveyor worked for a large company, and that company decides to no longer employ Land Surveyors, where do the field records and notes go?  When survey companies merge or are acquired and they had different methods for storage and retrieval of these records, what happens when no one is left from the original firm that knows how to search for and find the records needed?  With the possibility that the field notes and records may not be available at some time in the future, it is important that our plans filed in the SLSD show clearly what was done when creating or re-establishing boundaries, and it also shows the importance of submitting a field report to provide any information that can’t be shown on the plan.  Your survey report may be valuable information to a surveyor doing research 100 years from now on how you established that boundary they are re-establishing.

Merry Christmas everyone and I look forward to seeing you all in person at our AGM in June.

Sincerely,

Calvin Bourassa