ACEC-NB Luncheon InfoSession on “Interprovincial Trade Agreements - Lesson Learned” Dec. 1/11

The ACEC-NB Luncheon InfoSession on “Inter-provincial Trade Agreements - Lessons Learned” on Dec.1 at the Fredericton Delta Hotel featured presentations on Inter-provincial Trade Agreements from John Gamble, President of ACEC Canada, a Consulting Engineering company’s perspective from Herb Kuehne, Chair, ACEC Canada , P.Eng. of Associated Engineering and an overview of the current Atlantic Canada Inter-provincial Trade Negotiations from Andrew Hashey, Senior Policy Advisor, Department of Intergovernmental Affairs.  Read more about the Session in the Resource Centre.

ACEC-NB advocates for the application of QBS for selecting Consulting Engineering Services and the continued exclusion of Engineering Services from Inter-provincial and External Trade Agreements. The procurement provisions of the latest interprovincial trade agreements in Western Canada treats professional engineering services as a commodity and not as a value-added professional service. The unintended consequence of this is that it encourages professional engineering assignments to be awarded based on the lowest price offered at the expense of other more critical criteria. Effectively, it is a barrier to public agencies adopting the Best Practice for Selecting a Professional Consultant developed by the National Guide to Sustainable Municipal Infrastructure (InfraGuide). InfraGuide is a collaboration of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the National Research Council and Infrastructure Canada. We do not believe that this would be the intent of any future Atlantic Canada inter-provincial trade agreement.