In other cases, they look at your academic and work history, and may ask you to take FE and/or PE exams and/or an ethics exam and may ask you to complete specific engineering courses. It's actually possible to obtain accreditation through work experience alone (10 years IIRC).
You can even take the FE and PE exams in Canada for this purpose (and for Canadian grads that want to work in the US). Note that if you get an engineering degree in Canada, you don't have to take the FE exam or equivalent to start as an engineer in training, because the engineering schools themselves are accredited with very similar curriculum.
Personal anecdote: I have a Canadian engineering degree but I personally had no problem using work experience abroad as part of my four years experience towards my P. Eng.
I'd encourage you not to discount professional bodies as irrelevant, or incapable of becoming more relevant, our industry could benefit from it in many ways - perhaps most frequently on-topic on HN is the ethical and whistle-blowing aspect. Also plenty of professional development and networking, and that only improves as more people that get involved from different (or rather one's own specific) areas.
One Canadian university's Comp Sci dept. started offering Software Engineering program one time and it ended up in a lawsuit the outcome of which is... complicated.
Canada is, I feel, very... lot of red tape.
The traditional term "engineer" isn't even a very good description of software dev anyway.
Software dev people should just make a new word up and abandon "Engineer".
[0] - https://www.canadianbusiness.com/lists-and-rankings/best-job...
For engineering disciplines in the railroad industry such as structural, mechanical and electrical, a P. Eng. is indeed required.
Sure, you have to have minimum a bachelor's from an accredited Canadian university, pass an ethics exam, and have supervised experience (or prove that you obtained the equivalent) to join in the first place, but if you don't pay the yearly fee you can only call yourself a "holder of an engineering degree".