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Professionals - Engineers. Salehi v. Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario
In Salehi v. Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario (Ont CA, 2025) the Ontario Court of Appeal considers the legal status of the 'Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario' and it's corporate 'bad faith' immunity:[3] Mr Salehi is a professional engineer who is licensed and regulated by APEO under the Professional Engineers Act, R.S.O 1990, c. P.28. Mr. Salehi expressed confusion about APEO’s status, especially since, by order dated June 14, 2014, Myers J. changed the title of proceedings in Mr. Salehi’s lawsuit against “Professional Engineers Ontario” (“PEO”) to use the proper name, “The Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario”. I infer that this is the order to which Mr. Salehi is referring in his request that the court “Reconsider the court hearing by changing the original defendant (PEO).”
[4] But this relief is unnecessary. In formal terms, the APEO uses the name, “Professional Engineers Ontario”, and operates under the Professional Engineers Act. It has the capacity of a natural person. APEO can be sued and can be served at its corporate office. It has been the proper party to these proceedings throughout. It would have been appropriate for Mr. Salehi to serve APEO with the notice of motion that brought him before me.
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[11] This court added, at para. 11, that “if the APEO owed the appellant any duty of care, in light of s. 45(1) of the Act, the absence of bad faith in this case is determinative of the result.” Section 45 of the Professional Engineers Act immunizes APEO from liability for “any act done in good faith in the performance or intended performance of a duty or in the exercise or the intended exercise of a power under this Act, a regulation or a by-law, or for any neglect or default in the performance or exercise in good faith of such duty or power.” . Ahmad v. Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario
In Ahmad v. Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario (Ont Div Ct, 2025) the Ontario Divisional Court considered the appeal route and SOR under the Professional Engineers Act (PEA):Jurisdiction and Standard of Review
[6] This court has jurisdiction over this appeal pursuant to s. 31 of the Professional Engineers Act, RSO 1990, c. P.28. An appellate standard of review applies to the appeal: Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65, [2019] 4 SCR 653, para. 37; Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario v. Rew, 2020 ONSC 6018, paras. 50-51 (Div. Ct.):
Questions of law, including questions of statutory interpretation, are subject to a correctness standard of review. Questions of fact are subject to the palpable and overriding error standard of review. Questions of mixed fact and law are also subject to the palpable and overriding error standard of review unless a legal principle can be easily extricated from the legal issues in which case the legal issue is subject to a correctness standard of review… (Villa v. Professional Engineers of Ontario, 2022 ONSC 6104, para. 8 (Div. Ct.)).
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