{"id":297481,"date":"2025-11-21T12:34:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T12:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/297481\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T12:34:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T12:34:17","slug":"peterson-law-alberta-bill-to-limit-power-of-regulatory-bodies-on-member-behaviour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/297481\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Peterson law\u2019: Alberta bill to limit power of regulatory bodies on member behaviour"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith\u2019s government plans to limit what behaviour professional regulators can police in the interest of strengthening freedom of expression.<\/p>\n

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A bill introduced in the house Thursday aims to narrow what kind of behaviour regulated professionals \u2014 from architects to welders \u2014 can be disciplined for by their regulators.<\/p>\n

Smith is calling it Alberta\u2019s \u201cPeterson law,\u201d after Ontario psychologist and social media personality Jordan Peterson<\/a>, who was sanctioned by his province\u2019s professional regulator for controversial public statements.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen regulators begin disciplining people for simply speaking their mind on their own time, that\u2019s overreach and, at its worst, it becomes an outright threat to free expression,\u201d Smith told reporters before the bill was introduced.<\/p>\n

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She added her United Conservative Party government wants regulators focused on the professional competence of their members.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think anybody\u2019s shy about criticizing our government. I think what we have heard, though, is that there are people who are concerned that they\u2019re going to get punished by their professional college if they support our government,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

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She said she has heard from nurses, doctors and teachers who have been punished or had their licences threatened for off-duty comments made on social media, at protests or at city council meetings.<\/p>\n

Under the Regulated Professions Neutrality Act legislation, regulatory bodies would still be able to discipline members for conduct outside their practice in some circumstances.<\/p>\n

That includes when a person threatens violence, is convicted of an offence for their expression, or misuses their position \u201cwith the intent to harm an identifiable person.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bill, introduced by Justice Minister Mickey Amery, would also limit what professional training members might be compelled to take.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny education or training that addresses political, historical, social or cultural issues can only be required if it\u2019s directly related to professional competence or ethics and necessary for that purpose, and it must not attempt to prescribe the range of acceptable opinions on those issues,\u201d said Amery.<\/p>\n

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He declined to speculate on specific examples of what would be prohibited, saying it might be determined on a case-by-case basis.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it is to further a political, social or cultural objective, and that is a debatable issue in general, then this act will prevent that from happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the bill is meant to guide professional regulatory bodies, but \u201cthe decision-making process will lie within the regulators themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

If an organization goes too far, he said, \u201cthen we\u2019ll certainly hear about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Law Society of Alberta and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta said they\u2019re taking the time to review the bill and its implications.<\/p>\n

Alberta Opposition NDP justice critic Irfan Sabir told reporters the bill represents political overreach by interfering with self-regulated professions.<\/p>\n

He said it would get rid of things like Indigenous competency training for the legal profession.<\/p>\n

\u201cEssentially what it says is that people should be able to say all kinds of vile, inappropriate, incorrect things outside their professional work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Sabir said the legislation would also prevent regulators from imposing mandatory training for members on diversity, equity and inclusion, cultural competence or unconscious bias.<\/p>\n

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\u201c(Smith) is bringing in this legislation essentially signalling to her base \u2014 extreme right-wing fringe people \u2014 to say whatever wild inappropriate thing they want without any accountability.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alberta Premier Danielle Smith\u2019s government plans to limit what behaviour professional regulators can police in the interest of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7611,5152,65920,43,133821,44,714,133822,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-297481","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-alberta-legislature","9":"tag-dei","10":"tag-freedom-of-expression","11":"tag-headlines","12":"tag-jordan-peterson","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-politics","15":"tag-regulated-professions-neutrality-act","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}