(LifeSiteNews) – Canada’s top constitutional legal group launched an online portal to call on Alberta’s Minister of Justice to bring forth a law that would “prohibit” regulatory bodies from forms of compelled speech or ideological enforcement.
The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) said that those who sign the portal will be able to send a letter to Alberta Minister of Justice Mickey Amery and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith “urging them to amend provincial legislation governing regulatory bodies to prohibit any form of compelled speech or ideological enforcement.”
“When regulators directly or indirectly compel members to express certain views or embed political ideologies into mandatory courses or codes of ethics, they erode public trust and compromise the essential independence of the professionals they oversee,” the JCCF noted.
The online portal, launched by the JCCF, was prompted in part by the case of Roger Song, a lawyer from China. In 2019, Song was called by the Law Society of Alberta to undergo “cultural competence” training. According to Song, this reminded him of Communist China’s mandatory ideological conformity training.
According to the JCCF, “Thousands of Albertans — including doctors, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, psychologists, lawyers, teachers, and social workers — belong to professional regulatory bodies that are increasingly trying to control or even compel the speech and political beliefs of their members.”
The JCCF said that “no one” should be judged on “ideology instead of competence.”
“Today, you can take action. Our new one-click email platform lets you send a prepared letter to lawmakers urging them to introduce new legislation to keep Alberta’s professional regulators out of politics.”
As for Song, he launched a constitutional challenge in 2023 against the Law Society of Alberta with lawyers provided by the JCCF to challenge society rules and codes. Specifically, one rule being challenged is Rule 67.4, which enables “the Society to impose a wide range of politicized requirements — not limited to Indigenous content.”
In On October 9, JCCF lawyers filed an appeal in Song’s case.
JCCF president and founder John Carpay, an outspoken critic of government COVID mandates and overreach, was disbarred from practicing law in Alberta earlier this year by the Law Society of Alberta in what he said was a “vindictive” manner.
The reasons for Carpay’s disbarment come from an incident that occurred in 2021, when he hired a private investigator to tail a Manitoba judge to determine whether he was complying with COVID dictates.
Carpay later took a two-month leave of absence from his role as JCCF president in early July 2021 after admitting he had Chief Justice Glenn Joyal of the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench and other government officials followed by a private investigator to see whether they were breaking local COVID rules.
In 2023, Carpay was fined $5,000 and banned for life from practicing law in the province of Manitoba because he hired a private investigator.
