Alberta premier promises to review professional regulators, legislate limits

EDMONTON — Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says her government will review professional regulatory bodies and introduce legislation next year to limit how they can police their own members.

In a social media video released Wednesday, Smith said it’s not appropriate for the government or any professional association to compel Albertans to “some official version of truth.”

“George Orwell’s fictional ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ should remain fiction,” she said.

Associations and colleges set standards for their members, including doctors, lawyers, psychologists and engineers, and can discipline those who don’t meet those standards.

Smith said groups like the Law Society of Alberta and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta have an important role in protecting the public interest.

However, she said some professional colleges in Canada have gone too far.

“What a doctor or lawyer believes or says about politics or religion is not a reflection of their competency to practise medicine or law,” she said.

The premier said Albertans need to be confident that regulated professionals are competent and practise ethically, but those professionals should also have freedom to express their personal views, especially outside their jobs.

“We will bring legislative changes next year to ensure that professional regulatory bodies are limited to regulating their members’ professional competence and conduct, and not their speech,” she said.

University of Calgary law professor Lorian Hardcastle wrote on social media that Smith’s announcement amounts to “the freedom to spread misinformation without professional consequences.”

Smith has long railed against what she called “mission creep” by regulators and complaints she’s suggested came from “woke” colleagues.

Driven by COVID-era grievances, members of Smith’s United Conservative Party voted in 2023 to adopt policy aimed at protecting Albertans from censorship.

That included pushing the government to protect health-care professionals from having their licences threatened for publicly expressing opinions, like concerns about vaccines.

Justice Minister Mickey Amery said Wednesday many professionals in Alberta have been investigated or disciplined for expressing political or policy opinions outside their professional practice.

“They’re often subjected to a long, burdensome and expensive disciplinary process based on bad-faith complaints from people they have never dealt with professionally,” he said.

Amery also pointed to psychologist and media personality Jordan Peterson, who was directed by the College of Psychologists of Ontario to undergo training after complaints about his online comments.

Alberta Opposition NDP justice critic Irfan Sabir said in a statement the moves would take away a profession’s ability to guard its reputation and integrity.

“Albertans deserve better than this dog-whistle and divisive politics,” he said.

“Instead, we have a premier and ministers focused on protecting the freedom of its fringe base to say vile things,” he said.

Pointing to former justice ministers who have been censured by the province’s law society, including Smith’s former deputy premier Kaycee Madu, Sabir suggested the premier might want to protect “others in her camp from a similar fate.”

“This comes right after Jordan Peterson’s appropriate citations and is nothing more than the premier grandstanding for fringe actors for her political survival,” Sabir said.

Smith’s leadership is up for review at the UCP’s annual general meeting in just over a week.

Amery said the government’s review will gather input from professionals and their regulators. There are 118 professions and trades governed by 67 different regulatory bodies in Alberta.

The review is to look at whether oversight is going beyond professional competence and conduct when it comes to freedom of belief, opinion and expression, mandatory training not related to professional competence, and vexatious and bad-faith complaints.

The Law Society of Alberta and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta said in statements Wednesday they welcome the chance to participate in the review.

Dr. Scott McLeod, registrar and CEO at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, said it supports the stance that professionals should retain their right to free speech.

“However, as the premier pointed out, the public interest requires balance when such views intersect with professional practice in a way that crosses certain boundaries established by the profession’s practice standards,” said McLeod.

The Law Society of Alberta’s CEO and executive director, Elizabeth Osler, encouraged all members of the legal community to participate in the conversation through an online survey.

“As the regulator of the legal profession, our duty is to uphold and protect the public interest in the delivery of legal services, and we are optimistic this will be reflected in the outcome of this process,” she said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 23, 2024.

Lisa Johnson, The Canadian Press