18-Geom-B5 Survey Law · May 2016
Nivaar worked solution (AI-drafted; not reviewed by a licensed engineer)
National Exams — May 2016 — 04-Geom-B5 Survey Law. Three hours; CLOSED BOOK, NO CALCULATOR. NINE (9) questions constitute a complete paper; most answers require sentence-and-paragraph format, and clarity and organization are marked. All nine questions (including every lettered sub-part) are solved in full below. Content is framed in the Canadian common-law and Ontario land-registration context named by the source (Surveyor General's Instructions, the Ontario township survey systems, Registry/Land Titles, the Expropriations Act).
Reference texts: Survey Law in Canada (Canadian Council of Land Surveyors / Carswell, 1989); Brown, Robillard & Wilson, Brown's Boundary Control and Legal Principles (7th ed., Wiley, 2017); Association of Ontario Land Surveyors (AOLS) Survey Review and educational materials; the Surveys Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. S.30, the Registry Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. R.20, the Land Titles Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. L.5, the Boundaries Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. B.10, and the Expropriations Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. E.26.
Question text not reproduced: the examination questions are © Engineers and Geoscientists BC. Open the official past paper (linked at the top of this page) to read the question, then follow the worked solution below.
The passage states the best-evidence rule for retracement: when the original monuments are gone and there is no direct evidence of where they stood, the surveyor does not leap straight to a fresh, "accurate" measurement. Instead the best available evidence is the practical location of the boundary — the way the lines were actually laid out and acted upon on the ground at a time when the original posts were still in existence and well known. Long-settled occupation is treated as a faithful witness to the lost monuments.
Applied to current surveys, the principle governs the order in which a surveyor reaches for evidence once originals cannot be found:
1. Exhaust the search for originals first. Only after a diligent search fails — digging for buried posts, checking corner ties, examining adjacent surveys — does the surveyor move to secondary evidence.
2. Prefer contemporaneous practical location. The best secondary evidence is physical and testimonial proof of where the line was practically located when the monuments existed: long-standing fences, walls, hedges and buildings; older survey posts set by earlier surveyors who found the originals; the plans and field notes of those earlier surveys; and the testimony of long-time residents as to occupation. A fence maintained for generations along a line laid out when the posts were fresh is strong evidence of the original position.
3. Use that evidence to reconstruct the original line, not to invent a new one. The surveyor honours the practical location because it reflects the parties' reliance on the original marks.
4. Resort to measurement and proportioning only as a last resort, when even practical-location evidence is absent. A mathematically perfect re-survey is the least persuasive way to place a boundary that was long ago established and occupied on the ground.
In short, the modern surveyor "follows in the footsteps" of the original surveyor by reading the footprints that occupation and earlier surveys have left — giving long-established practical location priority over hindsight measurement, exactly as the Chief Justice directed.
