Regulatory overreach has the potential to drive professionals away from the close-knit communities that make up rural Alberta, Justice Minister Mickey Amery said Oct. 24.
Albertans care little about what opinions and political stances happen to pop up when they search for a family doctor, Amery said.
“Meeting the challenges of finding rural doctors is already difficult enough,” he told The Macleod Gazette. “The fact is that the vast majority of Albertans, at least in my view, simply want to go to a doctor who is medically capable, competent and compassionate.”
Premier Danielle Smith and Amery last week announced a review of the practices of regulatory bodies that they say will make sure protected rights and freedoms aren’t trampled upon.
Regulated professionals of every ilk should be able to run their lives and enjoy rights and freedoms in the same way as other citizens, said Amery.
The review will also help ensure Alberta’s business and professional environment is fair and inviting, regardless of where professionals stand on the political spectrum, he said.
Albertans whose professions are regulated through bodies underneath the government number in the hundreds of thousands.
The total exceeds 200,000 for major and well-known professions alone — doctors, nurses, teachers, lawyers, accountants, architects, engineers and geoscientists.
The NDP’s justice critic, however, said the review is unnecessary interference that panders to an extreme faction of the UCP base.
Irfan Sabir called the review of 189 regulated professions across 11 ministries a waste of time and resources by a government that should focus on solutions to known problems.
In an e-mailed statement to The Gazette, Sabir said: “The last thing Albertans want from this government is another review. It’s long past due for this government to treat Alberta’s professionals with the respect they deserve and work with them to address issues facing Albertans.”
Government data show that emergency facilities face shutdowns almost daily because of staff shortages, said Sabir, the member for Calgary-Bhullar-McCall.
Close to a million Albertans don’t have access to a family doctor, resulting in lengthened hospital wait times.
In a separate statement distributed to media, the shadow minister said: “Albertans deserve better than this dog-whistle and divisive politics. They deserve a government that is focused on addressing delays facing the justice system, providing it with adequate resources and preserving its integrity. Instead, we have a premier and ministers focused on protecting the freedom of (the government’s) fringe base to say vile things.”
The review seeks information and views on whether regulatory oversight exceeds professional competence and ethics in areas such as:
• Freedom of expression and opinion.
• Training not related to professional competence.
• Vexatious and bad faith complaints.
• Third party complaints.
• Protection for those Albertans in roles beyond those of their regulated professions.
The government said ministries will connect with professionals and regulatory bodies to gather information and viewpoints. If necessary, ministries will turn to other groups and experts, too.
The review responds to “increasing concerns that regulated professional bodies may be going too far in limiting individual freedom and imposing compulsory training beyond the scope of their professional practice,” a provincial news release says.
Amery, the member for Calgary-Cross, characterizes the months-long review and engagement as comprehensive and complicated.
Any action to change Alberta’s approach to self-regulation would filter through amended or new provincial legislation and regulations into the governance of the bodies themselves.
The work is important and necessary, said Amery, pointing to issues in other jurisdictions like the high-profile Jordan Peterson case.
Peterson is an Edmonton-born psychologist and academic who rose to international fame via the Internet for his views on gender, religion and more, and for his self-help guidance for men.
His Ontario regulator ordered him to take remedial social media training after complaints about his tweets and other public statements, and the Court of Appeal for Ontario upheld the order early this year.
Amery also spoke of a Saskatchewan Court of Appeal decision in support of a nurse who had been fined by her regulator and ordered to pay part of its costs for actions it deemed professional misconduct. The nurse had posted her views on the health care that her since-deceased father was received in his final days.
“Nurses, doctors, lawyers and other professionals are also sisters and brothers, and sons and daughters,” the court’s decision said. “They are dancers and athletes, coaches and bloggers, and community and political volunteers. They communicate with friends and others on social media. They have voices in all of these roles. The professional bargain does not require that they fall silent.”
Amery agrees. He said people are defined by more than their work.
“Our professionals have families, they have hobbies, they have interests, and they have views on many things. There is nothing worse than creating an atmosphere where the best and brightest in our province are silenced because they’re concerned about what they might say and how that might impact their professional careers.”
“It is fundamentally important to me to make sure that we do not stifle public debate and discussion.”
Professionals should be able to fully participate in democracy, commenting on “important things like local politics, international events, community safety and awareness, and things that go beyond what an individual does within their profession,” the justice minister and deputy government house leader said.
The review and any actions that follow “will enable our doctors, our lawyers, our engineers, our accountants, and the countless other professionals that operate within rural and urban Alberta to flourish in their professions in a competent way.”
But Sabir sees the review and engagement as politically motivated, calling it “a move that clearly adds to Danielle Smith’s self-serving agenda to be in control of everything.” He called the review “nothing more than the premier grandstanding for fringe actors for her political survival.”
The UCP government is “planning to meddle with Alberta’s self-regulating professions’ ability to govern for themselves. They want to take away their ability to guard their reputation and integrity,” Sabir said.
He added that it looks like the premier wants to force the Law Society of Alberta to ditch an awareness course on Indigenous culture and history, which its members made mandatory through a vote.
“Being uncomfortable with the truth is no reason to do away with important training on the work we all must do to walk the path of reconciliation,” said Sabir.
