We provide resources to assist our stakeholders in understanding our regulatory role and how we protect the public interest.
As part of its regulatory mandate, PEO establishes, maintains and develops: standards of knowledge and skill; standards of practice for the profession; standards of professional ethics; and promotes public awareness of its role. The following are resources to assist PEO stakeholders--licence holders, applicants, and the public--in understanding their roles and responsibilities and the regulator’s work protecting the public interest.
Resources
Ontario professional engineers are part of a community of more than 87,500 PEO licence and certificate holders committed to enhancing the quality of life, safety and well-being in the province.
As Ontario’s engineering regulator, PEO relies heavily on its volunteers. More than 1,000 professional engineers, engineering interns and non-engineers volunteer their time each year on behalf of the association through their participation.
PEO's mandate, as described in the Professional Engineers Act, is to ensure that the public is protected and that individuals and companies providing engineering services uphold a strict code of professional ethics and conduct.
Online Learning Modules
PEO’s Online Learning Modules provide licence holders, volunteers, staff and applicants with various learning and development opportunities.
Learn More regarding Online Learning ModulesPractice Advice Resources and Guidelines
PEO offers a variety of practice advice resources to assist licence holders in providing professional and ethical engineering services.
Learn More regarding Practice Advice Resources and GuidelinesFrequently Asked Questions
Your licence status reflects whether PEO allows you to practise professional engineering, and there are two licence status options available: “Eligible to practise” and “Not currently eligible to practise.” Licence statuses are displayed on the public-facing PEO directory.
The Professional Engineers Act describes the practice of professional engineering as: “any act of planning, designing, composing, evaluating, advising, reporting, directing or supervising that requires the application of engineering principles and concerns the safeguarding of life, health, property, economic interests, the public welfare or the environment, or the managing of any such act.” If your work—paid or unpaid—involves any of these elements, you are practising professional engineering.
Acceptability of the validator is at the discretion of PEO. Family members and relatives are normally not acceptable as validators and will be assessed on a case by case basis.
No. Candidate self-assessments and validator ratings are submitted to PEO independently. Validators should rate competencies and submit the ratings in confidence to PEO.
You can start working on your CBA at any time in the online application portal; however, you won’t be able to submit your application until you can show at least 48 months of engineering experience and have completed the experience entries for all competencies.
If you applied before May 15, 2023, you can submit your experience using or your CBA form at any time after you pass the National Professional Practice Exam.
Work experience from any country showing knowledge of engineering standards used in Canada or the international equivalent can demonstrate these competencies. For example, an applicant working at Shell Nigeria may use the same American Petroleum Institute standards as someone working for Shell Canada.
Visit https://peo.on.ca/apply/become-professional-engineer to see the CBA application process steps and get started.
No. Undergraduate engineering experience completed before the conferral of a bachelor’s degree does not count toward the minimum two-year experience requirement. However, it may count toward the CBA if it meets the criteria.
The competency-based assessment (CBA) framework does not credit post-graduate studies toward work experience. However, applicants can include post-graduate or industry-sponsored research work experience under the CBA if they think it addresses one or more competencies and have a qualified validator to validate that work.
Candidates must assign a new validator for the competencies assigned to the validator who declined.