Is a provincial government actually listening to our recommendations?!
In a press release released by the Government of Alberta this past Wednesday, Danielle Smith’s government has announced intentions to introduce legislative changes to “safeguard freedom of expression for regulated professionals”. If you’ve been following the Canadian Constitution Foundation for almost any length of time, you might know that this has been an issue we’ve been active on in both the courts of law and the court of public opinion.
Simply put, freedom of speech is increasingly under threat from professional bodies seeking to regulate what their members can and cannot say. In most cases, this censorship would not be constitutional if it were imposed directly by legislation, but courts are overly deferential when the restrictions are imposed by arms of the state like professional regulators.
Of course, it remains to be seen what will actually happen following this release. And we will be here of course doing our job if what comes out of this doesn’t actually better protect professionals from busybody regulators. But that all said, it is admittedly encouraging to see a government taking this issue seriously. We’ll have more to say when we have more concrete details.
Read more:
- “The new censorship” by the CCF’s Christine Van Geyn for MLI
- Strom v. Saskatchewan case victory (CCF intervention)
- Jordan Peterson v. College of Psychologists of Ontario
