Rest assured, Alberta’s Bill 13, the so-called Regulated Professions Neutrality Act, has little to do with protecting freedom of expression.
Despite Premier Danielle Smith’s claim during a news conference announcing the legislation that “professionals should never fear losing their licence or career because of a social media post, an interview, or a personal opinion expressed on their own time,” Bill 13 might more accurately be entitled the Making Quackery Great Again Act or, in the case of non-medical professions, the Protecting Egregiously Unprofessional Behaviour Act.
Its inspiration is most certainly deeply rooted in Premier Danielle Smith’s well-known preoccupation with COVID-19 conspiracy theories and quack COVID cures, and the impact her inability to moderate those obsessions on the air had on her career as a right-wing talk radio bloviator toward the end of the pandemic.
“Unfortunately over the last few years far too many topics have become unchallengeable and the mob of political correctness thinks nothing of destroying a person’s career and reputation over some perceived slight, real or imagined,” Smith whinged bitterly in 2021 after stepping away from her microphone at CORUS Radio. “I’ve found that as a result there are many topics I simply choose not to cover anymore.”
She insisted at the time she had jumped and wasn’t pushed after six years on the air. But methinks the lady doth protest too much. Three days later, she told another interviewer: “I haven’t slept through the night in probably for nearly a year because of this question: ‘Did I say anything today that is going to incite the mob?’”
Smith has been a public figure in Alberta for more than 25 years. Anyone who has followed her career will have trouble believing she couldn’t sleep for worrying about repressing the topics of her cranky bloviations. The woman has no filter and no shame.
So, no, these don’t sound like the words of someone who gave up their job willingly.
Being a right-wing talk radio shock jock may not be a profession or a trade, but it is said here that just the same the Regulated Professions Neutrality Act is Smith’s revenge.
“Every Albertan must be able to express their opinions and beliefs freely without fear of losing their job or being punished,” Amery said in the government’s news release about the bill. That’s pretty rich coming from a fellow whose government just passed legislation forbidding 51,000 schoolteachers, members of a regulated profession, from advocating an illegal strike or even talking publicly about a work-to-rule strategy.
“This legislation makes that protection real and holds professional regulatory bodies to a clear standard,” Amery’s pious canned quote continued. (Except, of course, when it doesn’t.)
No, this is about legitimizing false narratives and open bigotry associated with the MAGA movement in the United States, now spreading virally across the world’s longest undefended border.
The government news release predictably included several supportive quotes, two from nurses who were disciplined by their professional colleges, one for what the B.C. College of Nurses called statements intended “to elicit fear, contempt and outrage against members of the transgender community” and another who was investigated in Saskatchewan after she faced complaints about her opposition to vaccine mandates.
It’s important to note that in the latter case, the College of Registered Nurses of Saskatchewan ruled in the nurse’s favour and dropped the complaints – a fact ignored by the Alberta government’s propaganda.
Given the outrage at the UCP’s use of the Notwithstanding Clause to interfere with the medical treatment of transgender patients, the government’s strategic brain trust must have thought they were being devilishly clever to include a supporting quote saying, “It is very important to me that Alberta’s regulator of professional engineers is not allowed to restrict how I speak about my personal trans identity.”
However, a spokesperson for the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta said today that while Scott (Sheila) Cunningham has been a registrant of the regulatory body since 1998, “we can confirm that they have never been subject to any disciplinary action by APEGA.” Member Engagement and Communications Director Gisela Hippolt-Squair added that “APEGA is in the process of reviewing the Regulated Professions Neutrality Act and looks forward to clarity in regulatory responsibilities related to off-duty expression and professional obligations.”
A quote in the news release from a member of the Law Society of Alberta states that “I am encouraged that moving forward, lawyers will not be compelled to endorse political or ideological positions or engage in ideological education programs as a condition of practice.”
That lawyer likewise has no discipline history whatsoever with the Law Society, which rather leaves the impression Bill 13 is a solution in search of a problem. Nevertheless, the reference to “ideological education programs” is a signal of the UCP’s true intent.
As members in good standing of the MAGA movement, Smith and her ideological Praetorian guard are death on diversity, equity and inclusion programs and training. Indeed, the news release states, the legislation will “restrict mandatory training unrelated to competence or ethics, such as diversity, equity and inclusion training.”
The moment the elaborate effort to justify Bill 13 as an exercise in the defence of free expression really jumped the proverbial shark, though, was when Smith proclaimed that the government will henceforth know the legislation as the “Peterson Law,” after former University of Toronto professor and cross-border nuisance Jordan Peterson.
Dr. Peterson’s cranky views have made him a hero to incels on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border. In 2022 he was required by the College of Psychologists of Ontario to complete remedial training on professionalism in public statements after making comments the college termed degrading, demeaning and unprofessional.
Dr. Peterson challenged the college in the courts and got nowhere. Since then, he has decamped for the United States.
On the plus side, Bill 13 may eventually prove to be a boon unions that represent workers who are also members of regulated professions. That would include members of the teaching profession – barring further use of the Notwithstanding Clause, of course.
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