As a result of increasingly large-scale and complex projects with large interdisciplinary teams, many consulting engineering firms have been faced with varying and sometimes inconsistent interpretations of conflict of interest or unfair advantage by clients and their procuring agencies. Perception of such situations can occur by the very nature of today’s megaprojects. For example, consultants and sub-consultants who have been involved at early or previous stages of projects (i.e. planning, preparation or drafting of the Environmental Assessment, Preliminary Design, and Business Planning stages) have at times prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in subsequent phases of the project.
To help manage and mitigate conflict and unfair advantage situations, ACEC adopted a national guideline based on a conflict of interest guideline produced by Consulting Engineers of Ontario (CEO) in 2015 that anticipated these very scenarios. The ACEC guideline has been adapted to address conflict of interest and unfair advantage in a national context and has been expanded to address concerns arising from recent interprovincial and international trade agreements.
Accordingly, this revised and updated national policy:
• provides public and private organizations with a well-defined framework for making informed decisions on a sustainable basis prior to project start;
• minimizes impacts to both the public and private sectors and ensures that both parties enjoy the benefits that can be derived from capital investments by public agencies and their private sector partners; and
• considers not only the benefits to the public and private sector parties involved in infrastructure projects, but also to the community at large.
ACEC’s Annual Report provides an overview of the association’s activities over the course of the fiscal year of April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024.
Read GlassSKY Consulting’s report on the summary findings from a national research project on advancin women and diversity in consulting engineering.
ACEC, provincial and territorial member organizations, and member firm press releases.
ACEC Standard Contracts - Free to Download
ACEC provides these documents for the convenience of its members. ACEC recommends that legal counsel should always be consulted when executing contractual agreements.
This report is only available in English.
This document describes the fundamental concepts, components, and considerations inherent in an asset management plan as a
municipal best practice.
This valuable tool promotes the principles of Qualifications-Based Selection (QBS), rather than price-based selection, as the best method for hiring professional services.
The concept of sustainable projects is a rapidly evolving one that will take on new directions and mature in ways that are not currently contemplated.
The Importance of Public Infrastructure Investment
This document is the result of a 2015 study by Engineers Canada that projects supply and demand in fourteen engineering disciplines.
The Importance of Public Infrastructure Investment
The report focuses on the extractive or harvesting part of three natural resource industries: forestry and logging, metal and mineral mining, and oil and gas production.
This report was commissioned by ACEC to synthesize the key information about P3s in a single document.
