Software Engineers in Canada can be P.Eng if they choose to. What makes you think she/he's not?
You are supposed to submit work experience under supervision of another P. Eng. which are not very common place in our industry. I believe you can apply for exceptions to this rule though.
I personally haven't bothered following through with my P. Eng. status as I am not yet convinced it buys much in our profession (vs. the other fields of Engineering).
For someone not requiring it there are often provisions on each regulatory body's to get it down the line by providing cases of past work experience validated by a P.Eng. no matter when it happened.