CALGARY, AB: The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms announces the launch of a national campaign urging all provinces to adopt legislation that restores professional regulators to their proper role of overseeing competence and ethics, rather than compelling speech or imposing political ideology on regulated professionals who serve the public.
Across Canada, professionals such as doctors, nurses, teachers, social workers, engineers, dentists, lawyers and many others are governed by regulatory bodies created to uphold technical competence and ethical standards. Instead of focusing on those core responsibilities, however, many regulators have begun embedding political or ideological content into mandatory courses, codes of ethics and continuing education requirements.
At the same time, professionals are increasingly being investigated or disciplined not for misconduct, but for expressing personal views or declining to endorse political positions.
To help Canadians take action, the Justice Centre has created an online tool with a ready-to-send letter that goes directly to the provincial representatives responsible for the relevant legislation. All the user needs to do is select their province and enter their information, and the tool automatically delivers the letter to the appropriate recipient.
The prepared letter outlines three essential legislative amendments:
- prohibiting regulatory bodies from pursuing political objectives;
- prohibiting regulators from monitoring or controlling the speech of their members; and
- prohibiting regulators from embedding political or ideological content into definitions of competence and ethics.
Alberta is the first province to take meaningful steps toward addressing this growing problem. Its proposed legislation, called the Regulated Professions Amendment Act, is designed to prevent regulators from compelling speech, advancing political objectives or embedding ideology into definitions of competence and ethics.
The Justice Centre encourages all Canadians to visit our website today to take action and help protect the independence of regulated professionals.
