By Black Sheep
Get this: Geoscientists Canada is asking industry and government to weigh in on what geoscientists should know before entering professional practice.
I haven’t personally seen a consultation quite like this before. My first reaction? Imagine the conversations if a similar survey landed asking employers what lawyers or engineers should learn before being admitted to their professions. LOL.
But after roughly 25 years in geoscience, my bigger reaction is this: we had better answer it.
Because, in my experience, we geoscientists have too often been our own worst enemies when it comes to defending our profession and explaining its value.
What the survey actually says
The GKE Review Survey: Industry and Government Input 2026 seeks feedback on Canada’s Geoscience Knowledge and Experience Requirements for Professional Registration.
According to the introduction, geoscience uses national baseline academic requirements rather than the institutional accreditation model used in engineering. This review is intended to assess whether the knowledge requirements adequately prepare people for competent practice.
So yes, it specifically concerns geoscientists. That alone does not establish that we are being unfairly targeted. Reviewing professional standards is a reasonable exercise. What matters is who gets heard, what changes follow, and whether those changes strengthen the science.
What the preamble tells us: a national reference, provincial authority
The March 2019 Geoscience Knowledge and Experience Requirements for Professional Registration in Canada publication explains the structure behind these standards.
Its preamble describes Geoscientists Canada as the national consortium of the provincial and territorial geoscience regulators. The Canadian Geoscience Standards Council (CGSC), with representation from those regulators, helps develop mutually agreed requirements for professional registration.
The publication is a common reference for regulators, but it also serves students, educators, career guidance counsellors, and the public.
Importantly, it summarizes agreed requirements for new applicants seeking registration for the first time. Existing registrants seeking to transfer should consult the regulator in their destination jurisdiction.
And here is the part worth paying attention to:
“this document is not legally binding upon any regulator.”
That is from section 1.1. Each regulator operates under its own legislation, sets its registration requirements, and makes the final decisions on admitting applicants and issuing licences.
A national reference does not automatically mean identical requirements or decisions everywhere.
The preamble itself cautions that this is a summary: it cannot cover every aspect of registration or every difference between jurisdictions. Readers are directed to the relevant regulator for specific requirements.
That raises a practical question for this review: how will updated national guidance translate into the requirements applicants actually face?
A five-year review mandate—and a timeline that needs explaining
Section 1.1, Background to this Document, traces the first common licensure requirements to work undertaken in the late 1990s and a publication released in 2000.
It also states that the CGSC is required, as part of its mandate, to review Geoscientists Canada’s registration-requirements documentation every five years and recommend revisions.
Then it says:
“The most recent review process began in 2016 and has culminated in this replacement document.”
That is the background given in the March 2019 publication.
Now compare that with the 2026 survey introduction, which says the knowledge standards have been in their current form since 2008 and have not been formally reviewed since 2013, despite an intended five-year review cycle.
Those statements may concern different things—the knowledge standards matrix versus the broader registration-requirements publication. I am not treating them as proof of a contradiction.
But readers should not have to guess.
What exactly was reviewed between 2016 and 2019? What remained unchanged from 2008? What does “not formally reviewed since 2013” refer to?
If the review operates on a five-year mandate, explain the sequence clearly, including any gaps. That would help people understand why their input is being sought now and what this review is intended to change.
From “rocks for jocks” to a career nobody quite understood
This has been a pet peeve of mine since my first geology classes.
Remember the “rocks for jocks” jokes? The suggestion that geology was the easy option. That studying rocks somehow required less intelligence, less rigour, or less ambition.
Then came the question: “Why would you want to become a geologist?”
I spent a career encountering versions of that attitude.
Meanwhile, society expects someone to find the mineral deposits, understand the groundwater, interpret the subsurface, assess geological hazards, and explain what lies beneath the next major project.
Apparently, the rocks become important once somebody needs the answers.
Funny how that works. LOL.
Too willing to keep our heads down
I’m generalizing from my own experience here. There are outspoken geoscientists, and plenty who have fought hard for the profession.
But too often, I have seen a culture of keeping your head down, avoiding conflict, and hoping good work will speak for itself. The easygoing, Type B stereotype taken too far.
Sometimes the professional pecking order has felt like high school all over again.
We can debate a geological interpretation for hours. Yet ask us to defend our profession’s standing, challenge a dismissive policy, or explain our contribution publicly, and suddenly the room gets quiet.
Being agreeable is not a substitute for having a voice.
Geoscientists and engineers: the Fraggles versus the Doozers
At times, working alongside engineering has reminded me of Fraggle Rock.
The engineers were the Doozers. We geoscientists were the Fraggles. LOL.
The Doozers are the industrious builders: designing, constructing, and keeping everything organized. That is the engineering side of my comparison.
The Fraggles bring the curiosity, exploration, imagination, and personality. Think of Gobo exploring the tunnels, Uncle Traveling Matt heading into the unknown, and Mokey with her artistic, intuitive love of nature.
That is where I see us geoscientists.
Out exploring, following clues, reading the landscape, and imagining what lies beneath it. We need the measurements and the mathematics, but we also need the ability to see a possibility that nobody else has recognized yet.
Both groups bring something essential. My frustration is what happens when the builders’ contribution gets the professional recognition while the explorers’ insight gets brushed aside.
Given what we contribute to society—finding oil, gas, and minerals, understanding the ground beneath our feet—you would think we would be rock stars.
And then there is the sheer fascination of it: panning for gold, finding fossils, studying dinosaurs, and piecing together the history of the Earth. How did a profession with that much substance and imagination become the one people brushed aside?
We paint the Mona Lisa—and get treated like we’re finger-painting
Geoscience is rigorous science, but interpretation also involves an art: seeing relationships, imagining structures in three dimensions, and building a defensible picture from incomplete evidence.
There’s an old oil-patch saying I’ve always liked: “Oil is found in the minds of men.”
Dated wording, yes. The point is the interpretation—the idea that helps you understand where to look before the drill bit tests it. That ability belongs to women and men alike.
Back in the day, the engineers had their BlackBerrys and calculators, and seemed to get onto Excel as soon as it arrived. In the offices I worked in, they generally had greater confidence with mathematics, spreadsheets, and the economic models.
Add the different personality types, and that became part of the divide: the methodical Doozers with their numbers, and the curious Fraggles with their maps, rock samples, and geological interpretations.
Look at the illustration accompanying this article. The engineer Doozers have the spreadsheet, calculator, and BlackBerry. The geoscientist Fraggles have the geological map, rock hammer, rock sample, and fossil, with their red-and-black plaid shirts beneath their safety vests.
The matching safety vests are the shared visual joke. The tools tell the rest of the story. LOL.
Of course, geoscientists use mathematics and engineers use imagination. This is a caricature of the office culture I experienced, not a literal boundary between the professions.
But in my experience, we would develop the geological concept, then find ourselves pushed aside while the engineers ran the economics and became the people deciding whether our projects deserved to proceed.
They mastered Excel, ran the numbers, and somehow became the main act. LOL. Engineering involves far more than that, and economics matters. But so does the geological interpretation that gives those calculations something meaningful to evaluate.
We paint the Mona Lisa, for God’s sake, and get treated like we’re finger-painting.
Maybe it all went wrong back when we pulled out the Prismacolor pencils to colour our geological maps. Apparently, some people saw the colours and missed the science behind them. If you’ve been there, you know what I’m getting at.
And we, as a group, too often let that professional hierarchy settle in without challenging it.
And if you were a woman geologist…
Now add being a woman geologist to that picture—especially back in the day.
Well, look the fuck out. Say no more.
Actually, we should say more. Being underestimated as a geologist was bad enough. Having your competence questioned because you were a woman added another barrier, and women’s experiences deserve to be heard in their own words.
A profession that wants respect should be prepared to give it to its own people.
Time for the Fraggles to speak up—and give every geoscientist’s contribution its due.
Science must remain open to challenge
My frustration also extends to how climate policy and resource debates can be presented as though every scientific question and every policy choice belong in the same settled package.
They do not.
Geoscientists should bring evidence to those discussions, test assumptions, and distinguish scientific findings from political decisions. That includes challenging our own preferred interpretations.
I am not suggesting this survey contains a climate agenda; the introduction provided does not establish that.
I am saying that professional education should develop independent scientific judgment, including the confidence to question a conclusion and the discipline to change your mind when the evidence warrants it.
Answer the survey—and ask what happens next
For those who fit the survey’s industry or government audience, this is an opportunity to put practical experience on the record.
Tell them what graduates need to know. Tell them where preparation falls short. Tell them what fieldwork, technical interpretation, quantitative skills, and professional judgment look like in the real world.
And ask:
- What specific changes to the knowledge requirements are being considered?
- How does the 2016–2019 review relate to the survey’s statement that the knowledge standards have not been formally reviewed since 2013?
- How will regulators apply the revised national guidance, and how will differences between jurisdictions be explained?
- How will working geoscientists’ input influence the final requirements?
- Will a summary of the feedback and reasons for the changes be published?
- How will the revised standards preserve scientific rigour while reflecting modern practice?
The supplied survey introduction gives a completion deadline of October 16, 2026, and says it takes less than 20 minutes.
Take a read. If you fit the intended audience, complete it.
Complete the GKE Review Survey here.
We have spent enough time wondering why people do not understand what geoscientists contribute.
Let’s give them an answer—in our own words.
— Black Sheep
Sources: GKE Review Survey: Industry and Government Input 2026, introduction supplied by the author; Geoscience Knowledge and Experience Requirements for Professional Registration in Canada, March 2019, particularly the background section on page 3.
Source document: GKE Review Survey—Industry and Government Input 2026
The survey introduction below is reproduced from the text supplied for this article. It is the organizers’ wording, separate from the commentary above. Formatting has been cleaned up for readability.
Open the survey on SurveyMonkey
1. INTRODUCTION
The Geoscience Knowledge and Experience Requirements for Professional Registration in Canada (GKE) publication (issued March 2019) is utilized by academic, industry, government, and regulatory sectors as a reference document to support entry into, regulation of, and ongoing practice of geoscience as a Professional Geoscientist (P.Geo.) in Canada. Unlike the engineering profession, which utilizes formal accreditation of academic engineering institutions to ensure that baseline educational qualifications of candidates are met, the geoscience profession relies on a set of national baseline academic requirements rather than specific institutional accreditations. Applicants who meet the academic requirements are first registered as Geoscientists-in-Training (GITs), before completing work experience competencies to be designated as fully licensed P.Geos.
The GKE publication includes an important geoscience knowledge standards matrix that identifies compulsory and supplementary science/geoscience and other courses, deemed critical for providing a strong academic standard for the regulation and practice of geoscience in Canada.
Geoscientists Canada, through the Canadian Geoscience Standards Council (CGSC) and the Geoscience Admissions Officials (GAOs) (GAOs are the admission officials who work for the Regulators), is updating the current GKE publication and its associated geoscience knowledge standards to ensure it reflects the advancement and evolution of the academic, industry and government geoscience landscape in Canada. The geoscience knowledge standards has been in its current form since 2008 and, although a review was intended every five years, it has not been formally reviewed since 2013.
As part of the formal review, CGSC is seeking feedback on the current geoscience knowledge standards, as outlined in the GKE, from provincial regulators, academics, industry, and government.
This survey is seeking input from professionals in two key areas of geoscience practice:
- Industry, including individuals involved in hiring, supervising, or directing the work of P.Geos. GITs, as well as those who regularly work with or interface directly with P.Geos. and GITs.
- Government, including individuals involved in hiring or supervising P.Geos., GITs within local, municipal, provincial, territorial, federal or other government agencies.
Your experiences and insights are essential to updating the GKE. Your feedback will help assess whether the current knowledge requirements and skills adequately prepare geoscientists for competent professional practice.
All responses will be treated as confidential and used only to support this review. The survey will take less than 20 minutes, and respondents can change their answers on any survey page until they complete or exit the survey.
We sincerely appreciate your time and contribution to this important national initiative.
Please complete this survey by October 16, 2026.
If you have any questions, please contact:
Janis Dale, PhD, P.Geo., FGC
Chair – CGSC
daleja9@gmail.com
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