Why? the Details of the Alberta Regulated Professions Neutrality Act

The Alberta legislature passed two bills in December 2025 that are particularly important to the regulation of the legal profession. The many separate ramifications of the Justice Statutes Amendment Act, 2025, some of which I have previously written about,[1] are important though perhaps not immediately obvious. The Regulated Professions Neutrality Act, in contrast, has a clearly unifying purpose that is readily apparent – but its nuances and details deserve more attention.[2]

My view has long been that the regulation of the extra-professional conduct of lawyers, including their expression, is an important aspect of the role of the provincial and territorial law societies.[3] Having said that, the overarching goal of the Regulated Professions Neutrality Act – to prevent professional regulators from policing expression, conscience, and extra-professional conduct by their members[4] – is a completely legitimate policy choice in the exercise of provincial jurisdiction over the practice of professions, including law. As it happens, it is a policy choice that fundamentally misunderstands the concept of professional responsibility, the role of professional regulators, and the maintenance of public confidence in the regulated professions.[5] Nonetheless, the regulatory power of the Law Society of Alberta, like all provincial law societies, is delegated from the provincial legislature by statute and that delegation can be changed by statute.[6] In other words, the Regulated Professions Neutrality Act may be a bad policy decision that fundamentally undermines professional regulation, but absent any constitutional constraints, that is the legislature’s legitimate decision to make.

However, the details of this Act seem problematic and overbroad in implementing that policy choice. While these problems may well apply to many if not all professions covered by the Act, I focus here on implications for the legal profession and the Law Society of Alberta.

Among other things, the Act targets training or educational requirements imposed by regulators.

Section 7(1) provides that a professional regulator “may require a regulated professional or person seeking to become a regulated professional to complete education or training only if that education or training relates to professional competence or ethical standards for the practice of the regulated profession.”[7] However, section 7(2) clarifies that such requirements may “addres[s] a political, historical, social or cultural issue” only if three conditions are met. Such material must “specifically addres[s] a matter of professional competence or minimum ethical standards for the practice of the regulated profession”, “[be] necessary to provide the regulated professional or person seeking to become a regulated professional with effective education or training with respect to” that matter, and “not seek to dictate, expressly or by implication, the range of acceptable or unacceptable opinions or beliefs on any political, historical, social or cultural issue or on a matter of conscience.”[8] These provisions seem to be a fairly reasonable implementation of the legislature’s policy choice, understanding that the overarching goal of the Act is easier to articulate than to implement precisely in legislation.

The glaring problem comes in section 8, which narrows the scope of section 7 on the basis of an open-ended list of three phrases that can be extended by regulation:

Despite anything to the contrary in section 7, a regulatory appeal body or regulatory body must not require a regulated professional or person seeking to become a regulated professional to complete education or training that addresses one or more of the following matters:

(a) cultural competency;
(b) unconscious bias;
(c) diversity, equity or inclusion;
(d) any other matter specified in the regulations.[9]

Although I have elsewhere criticized an apparent trend to broad regulation-making authority in Canadian statutes,[10] its use here seems unsurprising.[11] The problems with section 8 are that these prohibitions are absolute and these phrases are not defined. This problematic lack of definitions is by no means a groundbreaking critique, but to my surprise I have not seen it addressed elsewhere. While defining them may be difficult, not defining them seems more problematic.

Consider, for example, the Code of Conduct rule on “clients with diminished capacity”:

When a client’s ability to make decisions is impaired because of minority or mental disability, or for some other reason, the lawyer must, as far as reasonably possible, maintain a normal lawyer and client relationship.[12]

The ability of lawyers to recognize capacity issues, an understanding of the ways in which to maintain that “normal” relationship, and knowledge of the responsibilities of lawyers in that kind of situation would seem to go directly to “professional competence” and “ethical standards” under section 7(1). Consider, for example, defence counsel and representing criminal accused with severe Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, such as in the context of plea bargaining.[13] Although FASD and its impacts would seem to be reasonably characterized as “a social issue” under section 7(1), the requirements for such issues under section 7(2) would seem to be met. However, this training would reasonably seem to be within the scope of the term “equity, diversity, and inclusion” in section 8. Thus it would presumably be prohibited.

Likewise, some communities – including cultural communities but also geographic communities – may include different understandings of the role of the Crown attorney and the judge in criminal litigation,[14] the impact of incarceration on the needs of the family and the community, and the impact of a criminal record.[15] These considerations could be important for lawyers in the contexts of criminal law and family law, among others.[16] Despite being “addressin[g] a … historical, social or cultural issue”, they would likewise seem to meet the requirements of section 7(2). But they would reasonably seem to fall within the scope of “cultural competency” in section 8. Thus training on these issues would presumably be prohibited.

The definitional issues are less squarely engaged by the term “unconscious bias”, which seems to have a narrower and more discrete meaning. Nonetheless, if Crown attorneys are to fulfill their professional obligations – among other things, “to see that justice is done through a fair trial on the merits” and to “act fairly and dispassionately”,[17] then it is not immediately clear why an awareness of at least the possibility of unconscious bias – whether by Crown attorneys themselves, or by law enforcement, or by other justice system participants – is not relevant to fulfilling those obligations. Training on these issues would again presumably be prohibited by section 8 even though they would seem to be authorized by section 7(2).

The additional topics to be prohibited by regulation may of course be less problematic. That remains to be seen.

While these terms in section 8 might epitomize the mischief at which the legislation is directed, it is unclear to me, from a drafting and policy perspective, what the intended function of section 8 is given the presence of section 7(2). In other words, if section 7(2) allows for legitimate exceptions to the prohibition, what additional work is being done by section 8? In other words, why is the prohibition on “diversity, equity, and inclusion” or “cultural competency” – or even “unconscious bias” – absolute instead of being qualified by section 7(2)? This problem is exacerbated by the absence of definitions. If these particular umbrella concepts are so offensive, they should be defined reasonably clearly.

Moreover, it is difficult to examine whether the positive effects of section 8 outweigh these negative effects without knowing what those ‘positive’ effects of section 8 are meant to be.

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[1] Justice Statutes Amendment Act, 2025, SA 2025, c 22; Andrew Flavelle Martin, “The Revenge of Administrative Law? The Subtle Dismantling of the Self-Regulation of the Legal Profession” (3 February 2026), Slaw (blog), online: <https://www.slaw.ca/2026/02/03/the-revenge-of-administrative-law-the-subtle-dismantling-of-the-self-regulation-of-the-legal-profession/>; Andrew Flavelle Martin, “Statutory Immunity of the Attorney General from Law Society Discipline in Alberta: A Comment on the Justice Statute Amendments Act, 2025” (2026) 64:1 Alberta Law Review [forthcoming], online: SSRN <https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6498018>.

[2] Regulated Professions Neutrality Act, SA 2025, c R-13.3.

[3] I acknowledge that that appears to be a minority position within the Canadian legal ethics community. See e.g. Andrew Flavelle Martin, “The Limits of Professional Regulation in Canada: Law Societies and Non-Practising Lawyers” (2016) 19:1 Legal Ethics 169.

[4] See Regulated Professions Neutrality Act, supra note 2, preamble.

[5] In particular, the idea that a professional is ever ‘off duty’ or that their ‘off-duty’ speech and conduct is irrelevant to their practice is fundamentally flawed. I am, of course, not an Alberta MLA or a legislator of any kind. But see Alberta Hansard, 31-2 (2 December 2025) 692 (Rhiannon Hoyle):” When you undermine regulators’ ability to enforce standards, you erode public confidence and trust in professions like law, engineering, and health care.” Several legislators emphasized that the concept of ‘off-duty’ speech and conduct does not capture the reality of professional responsibility.

[6] Likewise all provincially-regulated professions. For the few federally-regulated professions, these powers are delegated in statute by Parliament.

[7] Regulated Professions Neutrality Act, supra note 2, s 7(1).

[8] Ibid, s 7(2).

[9] Ibid, s 8 [emphasis added].

[10] Andrew Flavelle Martin, “The Duty of Legislative Counsel as Guardians of the Statute Book: Sui Generis or a Professional Duty of Lawyers?” (2021) 44:3 Manitoba LJ 116 at 142-144.

[11] It is potentially problematic that the LGIC can, by regulation, narrow the scope of a provision of the Act, but that is beyond the scope of this column,

[12] Law Society of Alberta, Code of Conduct (2025), r 3.2-15, <https://documents.lawsociety.ab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/14211909/Code.pdf> perma.cc/3VGR-MJCW [Code of Conduct].

[13] Ibid, r 5.1-8. See e.g. Palma Paciocco, “(How) Is Plea Bargaining Justified?” (2025) 58:3 UBC L Rev 737 at 755-756.

[14] See e.g. Code of Conduct, supra note 13, r 5.1-4: “When acting as a prosecutor, a lawyer must act for the public and the administration of justice resolutely and honourably within the limits of the law while treating the tribunal with candour, fairness, courtesy and respect.”

[15] See e.g. Amanda Carling, “A Way to Reduce Indigenous Overrepresentation: Prevent False Guilty Plea Wrongful Convictions” (2017) 64 Crim LQ 415.

[16] See e.g. ibid.

[17] Code of Conduct, supra note 13, r 5.1-4, commentary 1.