Resources:
The College uses a uniform two‑year CE cycle for all registrants, beginning January 1 of each odd‑numbered year and ending December 31 of the following even‑numbered year (e.g., January 1, 2025 – December 31, 2026).
All ‘Active Class’ registrants are subject to the CE requirements of the CVBC’s Continuing Competence Program. Registrants who are in an ‘Inactive Class’ are exempt from completing and reporting CE while they remain in an Inactive class. (NOTE: See Question 4 if you are presently in an Inactive class of registration but did hold Active registration for part of the current CE cycle)
Active classes of registration are the Private Practice class, Specialty Private Practice class, Public Sector class and the Temporary class. Requirements apply equally to full, provisional and provisional supervised registrants in any active class of registration.
Inactive classes of registration are the Non-Practicing, Retired, and Suspended classes.
Registrants must complete 30 CE credit hours during each two‑year cycle*. This represents a registrant’s minimum required CE for the cycle period, though some registrants may choose to complete more if they wish. However, excess hours cannot be carried forward to future cycles.
*CE requirements for new registrants and for registrants who transfer between Active and Inactive classes of registration during a CE cycle are prorated based upon their dates of registration.
*Because Temporary (TEMP) registration is granted only for a maximum of 1 year (per application) and occurs outside of the annual (January 1 – December 31) registration and renewal cycle for full registrants, CE requirements are adjusted to reflect the one-year TEMP registration period, and the required hours must be completed during the dates of the TEMP registration (= 15 hours of CE must be completed between the effective date and the expiry date of the TEMP registrant’s 1-year registration period). A TEMP’s compliance with their CE requirements will be verified as part of any future application for registration by that individual (if they apply for another period of TEMP registration or seek registration in a different class).
For any individual who only holds active registration with the CVBC for part of a CE cycle (new registrants or registrants who transfer from active to inactive registration), their minimum-required CE for that cycle will reflect the amount of time during the cycle that they held active registration.
Each annual registration period is divided into quarters for both fee- and CE-calculation purposes (Jan through March, April through June, July through September, October through December).
Calculations for CE requirements over each 2-year cycle therefore consider 8 equal accrual periods, and each period bears a value of 3.75 credits of CE requirements.
CE requirements are prorated based on the date within the current cycle that the registration event (new registration or transfer between classes) occurred.
See the CCC Policy: Defining the 2-Year CE Cycle and the Guidelines to the Bylaws: Inactive Registration and CE Requirements for further explanation of proration calculations.
Yes. A new graduate veterinarian (where their degree was awarded in the same calendar year as their CVBC registration is first granted) is not required to complete CE for the remainder of that year. Their CE accrual begins January 1 of the year following their veterinary degree completion.
No. The rationale behind the proration is that the College’s authority to require your compliance with the requirements of the Continuing Competence Program only begins upon your date of registration, therefore a new registrant is only responsible for meeting the CE requirements for the remainder of the current CE cycle and it is expected that the required hours of CE are also completed during the applicable time period (registration date to end-of-cycle).
If a new registrant wishes to use CE that was completed during the current cycle but before they became a registrant of the College, they may but if they do so they waive the proration of their CE requirement and must report 30 CE hours as for the entire 2-year cycle. Compliance with this aspect of CE reporting compliance will be confirmed through the use of random audits conducted after the end of the 2-year cycle.
If you have been either a Non-Practicing or Retired registrant for the entire 2-year CE cycle, then you will not have any required CE for the cycle and will not be required to report any CE in order to successfully complete your registration renewal for the following year. Your transcript should show your “Credits Required” to be 0.00
However, if you should apply to reactivate your registration to an active class after having been an inactive registrant, you will at that time be required to provide proof of having completed CE hours equivalent to the number of hours you would have been required to complete had you held active registration for the time you held inactive registration.
For example:
Registrants can access their current CE transcript (as well as any previous transcripts) within their online registrant account (portal.cvbc.ca) by clicking on “CE Transcripts” in the “Continuing Education” section of their account Dashboard. You can select the current 2-year cycle transcript (eg. 2025 – 2026) from a drop-down menu near the top of the page where it says “CE Cycle Transcript Selected”. Your transcript record for the chosen CE cycle will indicate your “Credits Required” for the CE cycle as well as a tally of your “Credits Submitted” to date, along with a list of any CE courses you’ve reported.
For all new and transferring registrants, the College also includes individualized instructions regarding the registrant’s CE requirements within their registration/ transfer confirmation letters.
No.
The bylaws require all registrants to complete their minimum-required CE hours during the respective 2-year cycle.
Resources:
Any continuing education course or program that a registrant wishes to use to satisfy their CE hour requirements must:
In addition to these basic requirements, the Continuing Competence Committee has further laid out requirements of an acceptable CE session with regards to course content, presenter qualifications, format and proof of completion (see the ‘CE Approval Criteria Policy’).
No.
If a registrant is unable to determine acceptability for themselves based upon the policy, they may submit an application for approval to the College for consideration.
Yes. Registrants cannot receive CE credit for any of the following:
No. The College’s bylaws focus on eligibility of individual courses – an individual course either satisfies the requirements of the bylaws and criteria policy or it does not.
However, CE undertaken by a registrant should be relevant to their current and/or intended scope of practice and, during a CE audit, a registrant may be required to justify the relevance of their CE choices to the auditor and the Continuing Competence Committee.
Given that the Code of Ethics bylaws establish the registrant’s duty to strive to ‘maintain [their] own level of competence’, to ‘use the level of care, skill and knowledge expected of a competent practitioner’, and to ‘provide only those services for which the registrant is reasonably confident [they are] qualified and competent to provide’, registrants should aim (over the course of time) to complete sufficient CE (across all relevant subject matters and core competencies) to be able to maintain and further their skills and knowledge in all areas of their declared scope of practice.
The Continuing Competence Committee encourages (but cannot require) registrants to seek a balance in their CE, with an aim to completing at least 50% of their required CE during each cycle in material that is grounded in evidence-based medicine, pertains to conventional therapeutic modalities (ie. those universally taught as part of the curriculum of accredited veterinary schools) and reinforces or builds upon entry-level knowledge and skills.
No. The College’s bylaws do not create an opportunity for the College or the Continuing Competence Committee to select specific learning topics that registrants must complete as part of the Continuing Competence Program.
However, if CE requirements are imposed upon an individual by the Investigation and/or Discipline Committee as an outcome of a complaint investigation or discipline hearing, the respective committee will generally specify the required topic(s) to be addressed by the CE, in response to the issues identified by the complaint investigation/discipline hearing.
Resources:
While registrants may report CE they complete at any time during the CE cycle, the established reporting requirements are as follows:
For the 2025-2026 CE Cycle which ends on December 31, 2026, registrants must:
No.
The College’s bylaws establish that the Continuing Competence Program’s 30 CE-hour requirement for each 2-year CE cycle applies to all registrants and that the required hours must be completed during the cycle period. Then the bylaws for registration renewal establish that demonstrating compliance with the College’s Continuing Competence Program (by reporting completion of the required CE hours during the 2-year cycle by the final renewal deadline) is one of the requirements for completing registration renewal. If any requirement for registration renewal is not completed, the Registrar is required by the bylaws to cancel registration. The bylaws do not establish authority for any body (the Continuing Competence Committee, the Registrar, or the College’s governing Council) to grant exceptions to the requirements of the Continuing Competence Program or the registration renewal bylaws.
CE completion is reported through your online registrant account (portal.cvbc.ca) within the “CE Transcript” section. The CE Course reporting template reflects the required session details established in the Continuing Competence Committee Policy: Reporting of Continuing Education Credit Completion.
The site also allows you to upload your proof of CE completion (usually a certificate issued by the provider) and, for multi-session conferences, to also upload a list of the sessions that you attended. While uploading your certificates to your account is encouraged, it is not a requirement of the CE reporting that must be done by the reporting deadline. However, registrants are required to be able to provide formal verification of their reported sessions upon request.
Registrants must retain proof of attendance or completion for all reported CE for at least one year after the end of the CE cycle and provide documentation upon request. These retention requirements apply even if you have uploaded your certificates into your transcript.
The Registrar is required by bylaw to cancel the registration of any registrant who doesn’t complete all requirements for registration renewal, which includes reporting completion of all of their required CE hours by the reporting deadline (= end of the first business day following the end of the CE cycle). An individual who has their registration cancelled because they failed to report their CE completion by the required deadline will need to apply for and be granted new registration before they will be able to return to veterinary practice in BC.
Some registrants may be required by one of the College’s committees to complete CE as part that Committee’s processes (eg. as part of a provisional registration decision by the Registration Committee; as an undertaking within a Remedial Action by Consent (RAC) ordered by the Investigation Committee, or as a sanction imposed following a discipline hearing by the Discipline Committee).
In most instances, these requirements are stated by the respective committee to be in addition to the registrant’s requirements for CE for continued registration with the CVBC. In that case, CE courses completed and reported to the respective committee in fulfilment of their requirements must not also be reported by the registrant as part of their CE requirements for the 2-year CE cycle.
Resources:
Yes.
Following the completion of a 2-year CE Cycle, the Continuing Competence Committee (CCC) will conduct a random audit of at least 2.5% of active-class registrants. The CCC may also order directed audits of individual registrants, if there is concern about compliance.
Other instances where CE submissions are audited for compliance include:
An inspector verifies that each audited registrant’s reported CE:
and
If verification of completion or reported sessions has not already been uploaded by the registrant, and/or if deficiencies are otherwise identified during the auditor’s initial review of a registrant’s reported CE, the registrant is notified by email of the identified issues and given 30 days to respond. Depending upon the identified issues, a required response may include:
A registrant who is determined to be short on completed hours of acceptable and verified CE may be given the opportunity to resolve the deficiency by applying CE hours completed during the new CE cycle (eg, during 2027-2028) to the outstanding hours of the previous CE cycle (eg. 2025-2026). CE hours used during an audit to resolve a deficiency in the previous CE cycle cannot also be reported for credit in the current CE cycle.
Failure to respond appropriately or to resolve issues in a timely manner, or if it is discovered during the course of an audit that a registrant made a false CE report may result in referral of the matter to the Investigation Committee.