GUEST COLUMN: THE ASSOCIATION OF BC LAND SURVEYORS Dave Swaile, BCLS, CLS
Life as an ABCLS Board Member and an LTSA Employee . . . So Many Hats! Reprinted with permission from The Link magazine, published by the Association of BC Land Surveyors, August 2019.
W
e land surveyors are used to playing a few different roles . . . “wearing different hats” . . . from time to time.
like a subdivision application. We maintain the confidentiality of our clients’ projects, while freely sharing our boundary evidence with professional colleagues to get to the right boundary decision.
We impartially maintain the survey fabric of the province, while perhaps taking a bit of an advocate role in representing our client on something
I am not an LTSA representative on the ABCLS Board; rather, I am a Board member who happens to be an employee of the LTSA.
©iStockphoto.com/SergeyVButorin
In my 9 years with the LTSA, I’m tasked with wearing quite a number of additional hats: Statutory decision-maker; agent for the Crown; sounding board and dispenser of advice to land surveyors and provincial staff; and LTSA Liaison to ABCLS committees, to name a few.
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Now that I’m also on the ABCLS Board of Management, my hat collection continues to grow. I thought it might be interesting and enlightening to write about the hats worn by my Board colleagues and the unique role in which I find myself. I am not an LTSA representative on the ABCLS Board; rather, I am a Board member who happens to be an employee of the LTSA. To me that is a very important distinction. My fellow Board members are very aware that I am not to be put in BC Notaries Association
a position around the Board table of speaking for the LTSA. Certainly, I do have some specialized knowledge because of my position that sometimes brings additional context to Board discussions, but I am in no way there to represent the LTSA’s interests. I try to be mindful of the various discussions and consider whether I should recuse myself or abstain from voting on items that could be perceived as a conflict with my position at the LTSA. All Board Liaisons to ABCLS committees wear a unique hat: We are nonvoting members responsible for being the conduit for information to and from the Board. I’ve tended to be someone who likes to be an active participant in the discussions on committees, despite my Board Liaison role and nonvoting status. Other Board members may choose to play more of an observer role on their committees, which is fine, too. I’ve just taken on the role of Board Liaison to the Continuing Professional Development Committee and look forward to supporting the great work that committee does. I have a very unique—perhaps complicated—role on the Survey Rules Committee (SRC). With the recent introduction of the Survey and Plan Rules and the corresponding Survey Rule Change Request procedure, my Volume 28 Number 3 Fall 2019
