In honesty, I may be being slow here, but I'm trying to understand exactly what the distinction is here between licensing engineers and professional registration (Eng. Tech, I.Eng, C.Eng). I'd be interested to know what the Canadian criteria are for licensed engineers and whether the thrust is any different to the professional registration process as set (for I.Eng & C.Eng) by UKSPEC (Eng. Tech is not covered by UKSPEC).
I undertake most of my work in the rail industry, which is a safety critical industry and, for anybody undertaking the role of Project Engineer in Network Rail, you have to hold an authority to work, which is based on competence assessment for specific categories of systems, equipment or applications. Maybe this is what the original post had in mind? I think that, to achieve the outcomes being described, it is important to have that in place, ideally in conjunction with Professional Registration or other means of checking not only technical competence but the level of professionalism exhibited by an individual. However, the problem I foresee with the authority to work concept is that it is highly specific to the sector, type of system/infrastructure/application concerned, and likely to be difficult to harmonize across all industries, or individual areas of application. I feel this can only be regulated within the individual industries involved. I'm no specialist in buildings, so stand to be corrected, but I would hope that building regs would be the correct vehicle for defining requirements in the Grenfell Tower scenario, in which case, the better approach would seem to be audit of compliance with the regs, rather than trying to implement any common approach to regulating the individuals involved in carrying out the works. This has the advantage of using benchmarks that are specific and relevant to the individual areas of application, rather than trying to achieve generic criteria that apply across the board, which are most likely, in the very act of generalising them, to miss the mark on the specifics.
If audit/monitoring (and penalties for non-compliance) are sufficiently carried out, the responsible bodies (building owners, operators, maintainers etc, it the equivalent in other areas of application) will naturally be forced to develop and implement their own means of ensuring compliance, which are likely to include assessment of individuals fitness for the task, including indicators of their professionalism, such as Professional Registration, and of their competence, such as the authority to work requirement used in rail.
Of course, I accept that there are flaws in the registration system, in particular the inadequate numbers of registrants at Eng. Tech and I.Eng level, which is well known and the subject of much attention, but I doubt that licensing is going to change that. Additionally, developing the legislation is likely to be an uphill struggle, given the poor understanding in UK government, and across the UK population, of the importance of standards for Engineers - if only there were a similar appreciation of this for engineering as there is for law or finance! Audit and monitoring of the application of regulations such as building regs, wiring regs, etc., including improving them to reflect lessons learnt from such incidents as Grenfell Tower, if they need it, is far more likely to be something they buy into.

In honesty, I may be being slow here, but I'm trying to understand exactly what the distinction is here between licensing engineers and professional registration (Eng. Tech, I.Eng, C.Eng). I'd be interested to know what the Canadian criteria are for licensed engineers and whether the thrust is any different to the professional registration process as set (for I.Eng & C.Eng) by UKSPEC (Eng. Tech is not covered by UKSPEC).
I undertake most of my work in the rail industry, which is a safety critical industry and, for anybody undertaking the role of Project Engineer in Network Rail, you have to hold an authority to work, which is based on competence assessment for specific categories of systems, equipment or applications. Maybe this is what the original post had in mind? I think that, to achieve the outcomes being described, it is important to have that in place, ideally in conjunction with Professional Registration or other means of checking not only technical competence but the level of professionalism exhibited by an individual. However, the problem I foresee with the authority to work concept is that it is highly specific to the sector, type of system/infrastructure/application concerned, and likely to be difficult to harmonize across all industries, or individual areas of application. I feel this can only be regulated within the individual industries involved. I'm no specialist in buildings, so stand to be corrected, but I would hope that building regs would be the correct vehicle for defining requirements in the Grenfell Tower scenario, in which case, the better approach would seem to be audit of compliance with the regs, rather than trying to implement any common approach to regulating the individuals involved in carrying out the works. This has the advantage of using benchmarks that are specific and relevant to the individual areas of application, rather than trying to achieve generic criteria that apply across the board, which are most likely, in the very act of generalising them, to miss the mark on the specifics.
If audit/monitoring (and penalties for non-compliance) are sufficiently carried out, the responsible bodies (building owners, operators, maintainers etc, it the equivalent in other areas of application) will naturally be forced to develop and implement their own means of ensuring compliance, which are likely to include assessment of individuals fitness for the task, including indicators of their professionalism, such as Professional Registration, and of their competence, such as the authority to work requirement used in rail.
Of course, I accept that there are flaws in the registration system, in particular the inadequate numbers of registrants at Eng. Tech and I.Eng level, which is well known and the subject of much attention, but I doubt that licensing is going to change that. Additionally, developing the legislation is likely to be an uphill struggle, given the poor understanding in UK government, and across the UK population, of the importance of standards for Engineers - if only there were a similar appreciation of this for engineering as there is for law or finance! Audit and monitoring of the application of regulations such as building regs, wiring regs, etc., including improving them to reflect lessons learnt from such incidents as Grenfell Tower, if they need it, is far more likely to be something they buy into.