The governance structure of professional regulatory organizations in Alberta is strictly dictated by the Engineering and Geoscience Professions Act (EGPA). To ensure that self-regulating professions do not become insular and continuously act in the best interests of the public rather than just their members, the legislation mandates the inclusion of public representation on the governing councils. For ASET, the EGPA specifically requires that the ASET Council include not fewer than 3 members of the public. These public members are appointed directly by the provincial government (typically the Minister responsible for the Act), rather than being elected by the ASET membership. Their primary role is to provide an external, non-technical perspective and to ensure that the Council's decisions regarding registration, discipline, and professional standards remain transparent and firmly aligned with the protection of public welfare. This mandated presence of three public members is a critical cornerstone of the social contract that grants self-regulatory privileges to professions like engineering and applied science technology.

This scenario involves intellectual property rights, copyright law, and professional integrity. Textbooks purchased for studying are generally the personal property of the buyer (the physical copy, not the copyright of the text) and can be legally resold on the secondary market under the "first-sale doctrine." Therefore, selling the textbooks is perfectly ethical and legal. However, practice exam questions created and distributed by ASET are the exclusive intellectual property of the regulatory association and are protected by copyright. They are often provided under a strict user agreement intended for personal study only. Copying, reproducing, distributing, or selling ASET's proprietary exam questions is an act of copyright infringement and intellectual property theft. For a regulated professional to engage in such behavior is a severe breach of the ASET Code of Ethics, which mandates members act with integrity and uphold the law. Thus, the member must only sell the textbooks and destroy or keep the copied exam materials.

The right—and duty—to refuse unsafe work is a fundamental pillar of both provincial Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) legislation and the ASET Code of Ethics. Regulated members are ethically bound to hold paramount the safety of the public and the workplace, and to only undertake assignments when qualified by training and experience. Explosives are highly regulated, intrinsically dangerous materials that require specialized, legally certified blasters or disposal units to handle. Because neither the member nor the construction staff has the requisite training, attempting to dispose of them or even "supervise" untrained staff is illegal and catastrophically dangerous. The absolute first mandatory action is to immediately invoke the right to refuse unsafe work. The member must formally notify the work site supervisor that the disposal cannot and will not be carried out by the current team, explicitly citing the lack of specialized training and the severe safety hazard as the reasons for refusal. Only after the task is halted can safe alternatives (like hiring an explosive disposal contractor) be pursued.