ABOUT
Council Election Results for 2016
The 2016 Council election was the sixth to be conducted online. The voter turnout was positive with 1203 out of 6593 eligible members casting at least one ballot. There were no paper ballot packages requested or received.
Council Election
P.Eng.
There were 1182 ballots submitted to elect the following P.Eng. councillors for two year terms:
- James Blatz, Ph.D., P.Eng., FEC
- Jay Doering, Ph.D., P.Eng., FEC, FCSCE
- Ruth Eden, P.Eng.
- Janet Gauthier, P.Eng.
P.Geo.
There were 862 ballots submitted to elect the following P.Geo. councillor for a two year term:
- Douglas Bell, P.Geo., FGC
MIT Representative
There was no vacancy for the MIT Representative position in 2016.
By-law Proposals
There were 777 ballots submitted regarding the proposed By-law changes.
- Council - Proposal 'A': By-laws 7 & 9 that amends dues relief
Result: PASS (For: 644, Against: 62, Abstain: 71) - Council - Proposal 'B': By-law 7 that adds a membership category for Members On Leave
Result: PASS (For: 662, Against: 57, Abstain: 58) - Council - Proposal 'C': By-law 11 that incorporates Specified Scope of Practice Licensees into ProDev requirements
Result: PASS (For: 603, Against: 86, Abstain: 88) - Council - Proposal 'D': By-laws 3 and 4 that recognize the Act change providing for an Intern Councillor
Result: PASS (For: 597, Against: 80, Abstain: 100) - Council - Proposal 'E': By-laws that provides consistency with the terminology of the new Act and existing Code of Ethics
Result: PASS (For: 629, Against: 61, Abstain: 87) - Council - Proposal 'F': By-laws that are to be repealed
Result: PASS (For: 619, Against: 58, Abstain: 100) - Council - Proposal 'G': By-laws that recognize the Act change providing for Specified Scope of Practice Licensees
Result: PASS (For: 600, Against: 74, Abstain: 103) - Council - MODIFY BY-LAW 3.1.6 - Voting Procedures
Result: PASS (For: 586, Against: 92, Abstain: 99) - Council - MODIFY BY-LAW 3.1.7 - Counting of the votes
Result: PASS (For: 580, Against: 92, Abstain: 105) - Council - MODIFY BY-LAW 3.3.1 - Registrar
Result: PASS (For: 576, Against: 97, Abstain: 104) - Council - MODIFY BY-LAW 3.3.2 - Secretary
Result: PASS (For: 556, Against: 109, Abstain: 112) - Council - MODIFY BY-LAW 3.3.3 - Chief Executive Officer
Result: PASS (For: 558, Against: 112, Abstain: 107) - Council - MODIFY BY-LAW 4.2.2.1 - Vice-President Election
Result: PASS (For: 559, Against: 103, Abstain: 115) - Council - CREATE BY-LAW 4.1.5 - Governance & Council Code of Conduct
Result: PASS (For: 590, Against: 85, Abstain: 102) - Council - MODIFY BY-LAW 4.3.2 - President
Result: PASS (For: 591, Against: 89, Abstain: 97) - Council - MODIFY BY-LAW 4.3.7 - CEO
Result: PASS (For: 587, Against: 92, Abstain: 98) - Council - CREATE BY-LAW 4.5.5 - Audit Committee
Result: PASS (For: 585, Against: 85, Abstain: 107) - Council - MODIFY BY-LAW 5.8 - Meeting of the Council
Result: PASS (For: 591, Against: 81, Abstain: 105) - Council - MODIFY BY-LAW 17.5 - Voting Procedure
Result: PASS (For: 576, Against: 98, Abstain: 103) - Council - MODIFY BY-LAW 17.6 - Counting of Votes
Result: PASS (For: 581, Against: 94, Abstain: 102) - Individual - MODIFY BY-LAW 3.1.6 - Voting Procedure
Result: FAIL (For: 255, Against: 386, Abstain: 136) - Individual - MODIFY BY-LAW 3.1.7 - Counting of the votes
Result: FAIL (For: 262, Against: 379, Abstain: 136) - Individual - MODIFY BY-LAW 3.3.2 - Secretary
Result: FAIL (For: 263, Against: 356, Abstain: 158) - Individual - MODIFY BY-LAW 3.3.3 - Chief Executive Officer
Result: FAIL (For: 275, Against: 353, Abstain: 149) - Individual - MODIFY BY-LAW 4.2.2 - Vice President
Result: PASS (For: 318, Against: 287, Abstain: 172) - Individual - AMEND BY-LAW 4.3.1.1 - Governance
Result: FAIL (For: 239, Against: 384, Abstain: 154) - Individual - MODIFY BY-LAW 4.3.2 - President
Result: FAIL (For: 243, Against: 375, Abstain: 159) - Individual - MODIFY BY-LAW 4.3.6 - Secretary
Result: PASS (For: 365, Against: 260, Abstain: 152) - Individual - MODIFY BY-LAW 4.3.7 - CEO
Result: FAIL (For: 246, Against: 374, Abstain: 157) - Individual - CREATE BY-LAW 4.5.5 - Council Audit Committee
Result: FAIL (For: 246, Against: 368, Abstain: 163) - Individual - MODIFY BY-LAW 5.8 - Meeting of the Council
Result: FAIL (For: 237, Against: 378, Abstain: 162) - Individual - MODIFY BY-LAW 17.5 - Voting Procedure
Result: FAIL (For: 249, Against: 382, Abstain: 146) - Individual - MODIFY BY-LAW 17.6 - Counting of Votes
Result: FAIL (For: 249, Against: 372, Abstain: 156)
E-mail reminders were sent out on October 6, 11, 14, 17, 18, and 19th.
Anonymous Feedback
There was an opportunity for anonymous feedback after all the ballots were submitted:
- Thanks so much for the hard work on these proposals! There was no clarification if EITS would need business cards changed to say "intern" which adds costs at no value.
- You didn't clarify if we must reprint business cards for EITs to change their description to interns which adds cost and no value. Thanks so much for the hard work on all of these proposals by all parties
- After reading through and voting on 33 by-law change proposals, many which are direct council responses to individual proposals, it is clear that a very small number of non-council members (I assume close to the 6 member minimum) have, for the most part, wasted the valuable time of the entire membership, and especially council: I recall this non-existent "voter fraud" risk issue coming up several years ago at an AGM with near zero support then (Once again, assuming the same member(s)); and, it seems ridiculous that our council of elected professionals cannot decide how best/ethically/efficiently to perform their duties. This is not a way to encourage an increase in voting percentage within the membership, an ongoing issue, and now more so for By-Law changes I'm sure. And, having volunteered on a different board I can relate to the council's experience of the annoyance of ridiculous and unwarranted obstruction from members. I'm very tempted to propose a change to By-Law 17.1 which increases the # of signatures necessary. (although I better check that's consistent with the Act, unlike some submitters)
- Just a note that changing the Engineer-In-Training title to Intern can have ramifications for those of us who work for global companies, especially those managed by U.S. business units. In the US, and some other countries an Intern is someone who does not get paid, or is paid very little. Some education of our US counterparts will be required, but nothing insurmountable.
- None of the platforms indicated the profession changing to non-P.Engs practicing as senior designer/director, etc. whose work is impossible for APEGM to regulate. This also leads to lower salaries for real P.Engs.
- The engineering professions should be consulted by mainstream news medias and politicians with respect to all energy related issues. Provincial Engineering professions are entirely ignored..... This must change and the Provincial engineering associations need to take a strong lead. Most current alternative renewable energy strategies cannot keep up with societies energy demands and are becoming epic failures, e.g., wind and solar in particular.
- This year the bylaw revisions should have been introduced and discussed in a general meeting a few months in advance of the ballot. I am concerned about the repeal of some - but with this system its all or nothing. I therefore went with nothing.
- The By-law change proposals submitted by individuals are revolutionary and worth considering them in the future after exploring the moderate approach submitted by Council first. I believe that the Council's proposal, with the self auditing approach , supports the idea of self regulation and Independence.
- Don't think that the President should be attempting to 'tell the intelligent engineers and geoscientists how to vote'.
- Let's hope that Council becomes stronger and can begin to take care of all governance matters instead of letting the CEO continue to say and do things which are unacceptable.
- Way too many bylaw changes. Council should be working to resolve opposing views on bylaw changes prior to membership votes.
- I believe that it is extremely unfortunate that ballot for councilor states whether the person was nominated by the nominating committee or self nominated. I believe it is unfortunate for two reasons. The first is that the information is simply wrong, according to by-law 3.1, all candidates, whether they were proposed by the nominating committee or membership-at-large must be nominated by six members of the association. It is those six people who sign the nomination form that nominate the candidate, not the candidate or a committee. Therefore the concept of a committee nominating a member or a member "self-nominating" is simply incorrect. The second reason is more of a question. What signal is the Association trying to send by the inclusion of that information? I hope and believe that the answer is none. However after a year where the council was wrongly accused, in my opinion, of nefarious acts towards fellow councilors and it governance policies, why would the association include this information on the ballot where some may think that council are signaling choices. The only information that should be included is a verification that a valid nomination was made, being on the ballot should demonstrate this requirement, and the information that the nominee believes is salient to their campaign. If the nominee believes it is important to note who proposed their nomination, they can bring that up in their platform.
- while I appreciate the heads-up provided prior to voting for the by-law proposals, it does give one pause. To clarify, it could give one the illusion of tampering akin to having politicians in polling stations talking to voters just prior to casting a ballot. In my opinion, this should be handled outside the voting system itself.
- It was overkill and heavy-handed for the president's letter to be shown again in the voting area for the by-law changes. It was sufficient for it to be included in the section describing the by-law changes. Once we got to the voting area, all extraneous commentary should not have been included here. Note that I did NOT vote for the member initiated by-law changes and I say this so that you don't take my comments as being biased in favour of the member proposals, but they are just being made in favour of fairness for all. Thank you.
- The by-law changes were annoying to read through; the single document with columns didn't make it easy to compare changes on a screen; I did a lot of flipping between pages. Too much clicking to look at all the changes. My employer calls our summer engineering students "interns" - do they need to change that practice?
- There is a very disproportionate representation from the various disciplines. There wasn't a single representative from mechanical/manufacturing/industrial. How can all of the members be accurately represented if council is primarily from one discipline?
- There were a large amount of by-law changes with several competing changes proposed by members - the way that the information was presented was confusing and should be improved.
- The tone seems to reflect discord at the executive level of the association. My expectations are for transparency and open dialogue and focus on aiding/assisting a positive economic future for the province.
- There are still some minor spelling errors. Consideration should be given to capitalizing defined terms throughout all documents, such as Practitioner and Intern. Also Members alone should not be substituted for Professional Members (again, a defined term).
- There needs to be a feature to allow votes to be saved but not submitted, so that this can be completed in stages. There is no way I can go through 77 pages of proposals in one shot.
- The candidates' platform descriptions in future elections should allow for a quarter of a page for the candidates to describe their platform. I want to get a sense of which candidates are committed to supporting the profession as opposed to padding their resume. I suggest council focus on building strong EGM governance processes, by not adding bureaucracy and costs but by promoting best practices in governance on council and with the EGM.
- The layout of the by-law voting did not make sense and allows the possibility of two conflicting by-laws to both be adopted, which would be impossible to reconcile. Where by-law proposals conflict, the voting should be in the form of "Select one: [option 1], [option 2], Neither, Abstain" or the like. By having "For" and "Opposed" options for ALL by-law proposals, including conflicting proposals, you allow the possibility that people can vote "For" for two conflicting by-laws. There would be no clear way to reconcile the by-law in this event.
- The presentation of the proposals could be a whole lot less confusing (and save time and encourage more voting) if the competing proposals were shown side by side. Dave Ennis
- An easier way for members to get into the ballotting locations shold be developped. i.e, identification by both Member Number and Password is unnecessarily complicated - particularly the Password requirement.
- first time voting! I like the ease of it and that there was links to all the relevant sections to be modified. I would've liked if you'd used the candidates whole names because I'd only listed them out by first name and had to go back to each pdf to see who was who.
- For the by-laws, there were essentially two competing sets of proposals. It is possible to vote yes to mutually exclusive proposals which does not make sense. Although the cover letter points this out, there is still the possibility that it could happen. In this unusual situation, it would have been helpful if the voting was arranged so that in each case, only one of the oompeting options could have received a "yes".
- I would like to see some additional questions asked in the criterium for Councillor.
- The president wrote some very hostile things about the individual submissions. This probably should not be allowed. Overall a very poorly written and poorly thought out set of By-law amendment proposals. Maybe it is time to return to the process where by-law changes are discussed at the AGM before voting. That might fix some issues. Also, with my name at the top of each ballot page, it leads one to wonder whether privacy is being properly maintained with this system.
- Please get your act together, we don't want to lose our right to self-governance, like Quebec. In-fighting does not present our profession well. Transparency is vitally important.
- Worst set of by-law proposals in my many years of involvement. Poorly thought out and poorly crafted! Bring back the Legislation Committee reporting to the Council.
- All members of APEGM and all other associations should drastically enhance the levels and qualities of the spiritual fundamentals for their professional engineering and geoscientific practice as high as required by the rapidly rising standards of human life on Earth as in Heaven!!!!!!
- A video with someone summarizing the proposed By-law changes would be helpful. Or high-level bullets of changes...
- It was painful going through the long list of by-laws. If APEGM wants more meaningful representation from its members, it should consider doling the pain on wading through the by-laws in smaller dosages! President's feedback remarks were handy in helping make decision. I hope that they were correct!
- Hi APEGM, Thanks to the team cooridinating the election. I must respectfully suggest that in future elections voters are not required to rank all candidates - only the candidates they wish to vote for. There are 9 engineering candidates for three positions. I am generally familiar with all candidates but only focused my effort to become educated on the platform of three candidates who I was most interested in. The ranking of candidates #4 through #9 is completely meaningless. I suggest that very few voters will invest the effort to know the minutia of the campaigns of candidates they do not support. However, assigning a rank to the lower half of candidates suggests that a voter has gone to that effort. I was unable to vote without ranking every candidate. I can say that my ranking of candidates 4 to 9 was completely fabricated. Other provincial engineering organizations do not follow this practice. It becomes completely impractical for large candidate rosters (e.g. APEGA recent elections, 15+ candidates) that a voter be sufficiently familiar with all candidates to rank them. I strongly suggest APEGM revise their approach to this style of voting for future elections. Best Regards.
- Perhaps the Association should take note of how the TV show The Voice is run and not use videos as part of the election process as it could affect results.
- The online format made it easy to get through the many by-laws this year. Thanks for the council comments. It was helpful for understanding what is really going on.
- Whether this is real or perceived, optically it did not appear that the council supported the submission of bylaw changes from individual members.
- something is going on, not sure what it is
- WAY to hard to follow all the proposed changes.
- Spelling mistake in bylaws
- Nominating Committee could do a better job of providing qualified candidates.
- Your password has been reset using the 'Forgot Password' process.
- It was rather difficult to find the button which launched the voting process. It needs to be more prominent next time. Otherwise, a great process.
- APEGM fails to represent engineers, our profession's compensation is degrading, the interest of young people is fading, the quality of our graduates is getting lower. I think APEGM has done a very poor job representing the interest of professional engineers in Manitoba.
- I enjoyed reading the platforms of the candidates for Council; however, I was alarmed by the number of men who dashed off "the same old, same old." The question about the importance of self-regulation, in particular, seemed to trip them up, evidenced by what essentially reads as "we are the experts, so of course we should self-regulate." I sincerely hope these fellows do not succeed in becoming councillors. Lack of ability to fully accept and thoughtfully interpret nuanced questions bodes ill for the Association.
- 33 changes ? You people need to get a life. How can you expect a rational vote ?
- Adding videos was very helpful. There was no option to save my selections for By-laws to review and complete them in different sessions. I had to review and vote all at once.
- Thank you for your excellent work. I do agree with the third party for reviewing any and all ballots. I wish you all the best of success in representing the Association.
- I have voted against the Registrar, CEO and Secretary proposals by Council solely because I think the Secretary should not be combined with the CEO position, and I am uncertain whether it should be combinable with the Registrar. I am also uncertain whether the CEO position should be combinable with the Registrar position.
- he President's remarks on member sponsored bylaw change lack substance. The fact that there is a disagreement with other bylaws is not an appropriate answer. The differences should be addressed.
- I was confused by the note prior to submitting by ballot that I had not voted on all the bylaw amendments when I had voted on all of them
- I was going to vote but cancelled by ballot because I feel selecting the candidates in order of preference from 1 to 9 is not an appropriate way to select the council members. After reading each candidates platform I knew the three people I would vote for, however I did not rank the candidates from 1 to 9. I've never seen a voting system like this and will likely not vote in the future if this is the voting system that is continued to be used.
- There were too many changes in the bylaws for a single year. I couldn't vote in good conscience without spending hours looking at these changes to see if they make sense so I abstained and leave the judgment to the elected council to make the best choices.
- I have multiple PEng licenses and would very much appreciate it if you would simplify the process . It has taken me 1.5 Hrs to finalize my voting for the Ballot submission. Thanks for your patience
- could not view any of the candidate videos and could not view the by-law documents.
- The President should resign.
- Appreciated the President's comments. I think EGM is doing a good job.
- 1. Council is wrong to usurp the Member task of bylaw change proposal. It seems that the early set of Council-changes was done correctly. Then Council copied and weakened each member-change. This is so blatantly wrong that it makes a mockery of APEGM. 2. Council is wrong to place biased advocacy messages in so many places, apparently not to inform, but rather to sway voters. IF whoever wrote those messages is this biased, are their comments even true? 3. The Nominating Committee is wrong to not support current Councillors and to restrict candidate information to meaningless questions. What is left in the Platforms does not help, in our quest to pick the best candidates.
- Clearly a change is needed at the position of CEO for APEGM.
- How much did it cost to change our association's name? What a waste.
- Good luck to the new council members!
- Lots going on. Thanks for effort
- Excellent and easy voting system. Thank you.
- I like the electronic voting. straight forward and environmentally friendly.
- Great voting process and excellent information package. Thanks.
- Thanks.
- Very good, easy to use, voting system with backgrounds linked. I appreciate it!
- Voting process is very efficient
- Really appreciate the on-line voting set-up. Time saving and easy to use
- Very good layout and information. Keep up the good work.
- The voting system was easy. Reviewing the by-law proposals took a long time but the changes were identified very well.
- On-line voting system works well, easy, better than former mail-in ballots
- These activities take time and effort. Thank you everyone for hard work!
- Great system for voting!
- Efficient voting system
- Voting via this online portal was clear and timely.
- I liked the link to each of the documents which clearly showed what is proposed to be changed and why
- Voting this way is very convenient
- No. Thanks.
- no feedback
- no commet
- No
- None.