I was speaking more of basic competency. A graduate school-level geologist who does not understand fairly basic geologic processes, much less be able to communicate them in the working language, english, is a useless hire into a professional position. I work for a consulting company and we have hired a fair number of new immigrant "geologists" over the years into technician roles. The only one that I know of who went on to actually work in a Professional role had a Master's degree from Manitoba and became a landed immigrant on completion of his degree (another back-door).
That's not to say I am in love with professional beurocracies like APEGGA, I have no use for them outside of those whose works include projects and structures that could endanger the public. I once dropped my business card into the APPEGGA draw at the oil show that looked like:
Bownesian, B.Sc., E.I.T.
Reservoir Enginner
...and they wrote me a nasty letter saying I had to prove that had changed my business card to remove the word Engineer from it, despite being clear about my professional status (E.I.T.). Looking at the law fully, one could not even use the phrase Enginner In Training because it has the word Engineer in it. I have seen dozens of business cards like that in the years since and it's clear the industry doesn't care what APEGGA thinks either. Actually, I'm pretty sure that my current title "Manager, Geologic Engineering" would be illegal as well because I am not a professional Geologist, despite being in the middle of a Master's Degree in geology.
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