Alberta did the rest of the country a solid this week by offering to pioneer the method of reining in professional-turned-political regulators.
In a Wednesday video, Premier Danielle Smith and Justice Minister Mickey Amery announced a government review into 67 regulated professional bodies spanning 118 professions which, depending on the review’s findings, will inspire a future government bill to protect their free expression. In an interview Thursday, Amery said that new legislation might be tabled in fall 2025.
“(Regulators) need to be making sure that our doctors are providing the best medical care that they can possibly provide. They need to make sure that our lawyers are providing competent and capable legal advice,” the minister explained. That work, however, does not extend to regulating “free speech, the ability to express political or social views on important events or on community issue that have little or no connection” to professional competence.
It’s a review of national significance because regulatory bodies have been overstepping everywhere. While the job of law societies, doctors’ colleges, professional engineering associations and the rest of their kind is to guarantee a certain standard of work, some of these regulators have added social justice to their roles: some have sprinkled progressive politics into their continuing education requirements, while others have taken to regulating the political speech that members make in their free time.
Most of the jobs covered in the review — such as land surveyors, water well drillers and timber scalers — probably haven’t seen their regulators fall into moralizing unrelated to the job. But for those that have, change requires leadership at the government level.
That’s because, though many regulated professions are self-governed apart from government, they receive that privilege from government. The task is delegated down. So, when professional regulators use their powers to trample on the free expression of its members, far beyond enforcing basic competence, it’s ultimately up to government to put them back in line.
The country’s most noteworthy case of mission creep is that of the College of Psychologists of Ontario, which, in 2022, investigated psychologist Jordan Peterson, for his online conduct and later ordered him to undergo media training (though, no willing media trainer can be found).
Among Peterson’s sins: a reference to a they/them-identifying city councillor as an “appalling self-righteous moralizing thing”; the misgendering of a now-trans-identifying Canadian actor; the calling of former prime minister’s office staffer Gerald Butts as a “prik”; and, on the Joe Rogan podcast, the delivery of critical comments about the response to COVID-19.
His words were abrasive, sure, but worth sanction? The college seemed to think so, claiming they posed a risk to the public and undermined the profession. By casting rhetoric as a safety concern, and correcting political speech that just so happened to criticize left-wing sacred cows, the regulator showed itself to be off-course.
All of this has had a chilling effect, and the Alberta justice minister has taken note. Amery told me he’s particularly concerned about the “countless professionals who have indicated that they are self-silencing … to not face consequences from these regulators.” It’s an issue that’s been raised consistently since he took office.
In Alberta, these battles have been a bit lower in profile. The law society, for example, made a rule in 2020 that allows itself to set out “specific continuing professional development requirements” for its members — and suspend those who don’t comply. It was immediately used for the all-encompassing political mission of reconciliation, which became trendy when the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its calls to action.
Lawyers in Alberta have thus been required to take an Indigenous “cultural competency” course loaded with values instruction. Some of their number organized to have the rule repealed in 2023 (Indigenous education was important, one said, but shouldn’t be forced), but they ultimately failed, with 75 per cent of voting members supporting the rule.
The law society also went after former (Conservative) justice minister Tyler Shandro by hearing out politically charged complaints about his conduct as a cabinet minister; he was ultimately cleared of wrongdoing earlier this year, but the process was arduous. The ordeal was escaped by a previous justice minister in 2018, who faced a professional complaint after commenting on a case. She, however, was on team NDP; the law society never took the matter to a hearing.
Meanwhile, in medicine, the physicians’ regulator in 2022 decided to dedicate itself to the cause of anti-racism and anti-discrimination, which, in practice, often means offering better treatment to groups considered underprivileged to level the scales of social justice. The social workers’ regulator expects its members to “strive to advocate for changes in policy and legislation to improve social conditions in order to meet basic human needs and promote social justice. ”The psychologists’ regulator formally requires its members to “take reasonable steps to familiarize themselves with the current and historical injustices suffered by Indigenous peoples prior to providing services.”
While it’s one thing to expect proper care to be delivered to all, it’s quite another to pontificate about “current injustices,” which are largely a matter of personal opinion.
An additional problem in all this, Amery says, comes from the fact people who’ve never interacted with a professional in their work setting can often file complaints about their conduct and trigger the discipline process.
The main downside to such a comprehensive review is time. If it wanted to move fast, Alberta could forward a bill to protect the free speech of workers in fields of concern within weeks. With such a wide-ranging review, legislation, if it comes, might be a year away.
The upside of such a thorough review is this: Alberta can pioneer an approach to regulating professions that respects freedom of thought and expression, giving other provinces a template bill to work from with haste.
Professionals with specific complaints, says Amery, can “reach out to their respective ministries and to raise these issues with the assurance that those issues will remain confidential and that correspondence will be taken seriously.” For the sake of free speech across the country, let’s hope they do.
National Post