Alberta premier pledges to protect right of professionals to express personal views

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 1984 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 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 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 to practise threatened for expressing opinions, like concerns about vaccines, publicly.

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

Amery said the government's review will gather input from professionals and regulatory bodies.

It 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.