Juno News - Lawyers push back against woke ideology and politicization of law

00:00:00.000 I want to move to a political battle that is taking place in Ontario right now and before

00:00:13.240 all the Westerners tune out I assure you this is something that has much broader implications 0.54

00:00:18.000 than just for Ontario. The Law Society of Ontario has its venture elections which are basically the

00:00:25.040 elections for its board of governors coming up and there is one group of I don't know if I'll call

00:00:30.920 them disgruntled lawyers but I'll say very impassioned lawyers that are speaking up and

00:00:36.760 saying that they want change. They think there's been bureaucratic and political overreach by the

00:00:42.340 Law Society. They did this with some success in the last round of elections with the efforts to stop

00:00:48.980 this statement of principles that the Law Society was forcing on lawyers. Lisa Bildy is as always

00:00:54.820 the mastermind behind all the good things happening in law in Canada and she joins me now. Lisa good to

00:01:01.260 talk to you thanks for coming on today. Thanks Andrew for having me. I don't know about mastermind but I

00:01:07.420 seem to get messed up and everything anyway. Well because you're not satisfied sitting on the

00:01:11.900 sidelines which is good because I think most people are ready to throw in the towel on a lot of these

00:01:16.120 things. So this is the the campaign is called fullstoplso.ca and people can check it out for

00:01:23.100 themselves but explain to me first off what the issue is here because I know there was a fair bit

00:01:28.480 of momentum around the stop SOP slate that you had a few years back and I think a lot of your

00:01:34.340 candidates were successful and I think a lot of people on the outsides probably thought okay great

00:01:38.700 the battle's won. Right well that was only just a small taste of the battle because if you you may

00:01:46.040 recall the statement of principles was one of 13 recommendations that were brought in in 2016

00:01:53.040 under the previous convocation which is the name for the the board of governors. So these were based

00:02:01.260 on something called the stratcom report which was basically it concluded that there was systemic racism

00:02:07.960 in the profession. It was questionable in terms of their methodology and the statistical validity of

00:02:13.060 all of this and then they of course they extrapolated to say that all equity seeking groups should be

00:02:21.320 entitled to to the benefits of what they were pushing forward which without defining which equity

00:02:27.280 groups and you know so it wasn't really just about racism but in any event there were 13 recommendations

00:02:32.800 that were brought in by the convocation one of which was the statement of principles actually there

00:02:39.140 were uh and that was only one of like a sub section so so there's like 12.75 more percent more or 12 12 12

00:02:48.400 and three quarter more uh suggestions that need to be implemented they're just basically waiting in the

00:02:52.300 wings to to bring these back in. Some of them include things like an inclusion index where law firms are

00:02:58.840 ranked based on their um you know on all the boxes that are checked and the satisfaction of of staff and

00:03:06.720 and lawyers who um who who happen to be coming from these equity seeking groups whichever they are

00:03:13.920 so basically it's a naming and shaming kind of exercise for for large law firms and of course

00:03:19.440 for a lot of large law firms this is part of what they do anyway uh they have you know edi departments

00:03:24.960 and this is this is the kind of thing that their clients expect and so on uh and so basically it's free

00:03:30.000 marketing then for those law firms to be given this stamp of approval by the law society uh at the expense of

00:03:36.240 of of the smaller firms and sole practitioners i mean that's just one more and then the statement

00:03:41.600 of principles is supposed to be incorporated into the rules of professional conduct and there's other

00:03:46.720 other measures that i could go on um but there's an awful lot of data collection and um processes

00:03:54.320 involved that that all emanate from the same source and so we did get rid of that statement of principles

00:03:58.880 and the opponents that we have this time who have um formed a slate of their own say that the stop the

00:04:06.400 the sop is dead we will not be bringing that back but uh they haven't said anything about these other

00:04:11.120 measures one of the big things that i i brought up earlier on in the show that i i think is important

00:04:16.880 to note here is that regulatory colleges have oftentimes operated in the shadows because if you're not a lawyer

00:04:23.280 you think okay well what does the law society of ontario matter to me and i i realize there's a bit

00:04:27.760 of a difference there if you're someone who has to make a complaint about a lawyer and and all that

00:04:31.920 but but we saw with jordan peterson recently when the college of psychologists decided to go after him

00:04:37.040 that these groups are very much politicized and and i think when the trinity western case came up a few

00:04:42.400 years ago and the law societies were effectively blocking trinity western from setting up a law school

00:04:48.400 uh you have people starting to see okay these groups are entering the culture wars these aren't

00:04:53.680 just focused on you know do you have the right insurance and are you qualified to practice

00:05:00.480 right and that is obviously a big concern we are seeing it in a lot of other institutions

00:05:04.880 i having sort of uh taken the position i did on the statement of principles ended up attracting a lot

00:05:10.640 of clients who were also being essentially punished for their views in in other regulatory bodies across

00:05:16.640 the country and so i'm seeing this in a lot of places it isn't just this institution and what

00:05:21.920 what's happening is um you know they're being weaponized in effect by activists who don't like

00:05:28.320 the views of members and they've now discovered there's this disciplinary process they can tap into

00:05:33.440 and so we saw this with covid we're seeing with gender issues uh if somebody expresses a view that

00:05:38.240 doesn't fit with the orthodoxy of the day on on any of those topics uh well then a group of

00:05:44.560 activists or even a single activist can send a letter of complaint and then suddenly if if it

00:05:49.920 falls to you know on a receptive audience which it increasingly does as more of these same thinking

00:05:55.440 people move into the bureaucracy um then you know suddenly this this licensee has has a whole

00:06:02.800 disciplinary process to deal with as a result of their views in the public square you have nothing to

00:06:07.920 do with with patients or or what have you so uh so it is dangerous and in fact the law society is

00:06:13.360 proposing to bring in similar sort of powers to what we were seeing with the jordan peterson case

00:06:17.280 which uh um would would essentially force a lawyer when there's no reasonable and probable grounds for

00:06:24.320 discipline to still come before a committee of their peers to be re-educated chastised whatever

00:06:31.440 and that this will also be made public on their record without any input from them so it's you know you

00:06:37.680 like to think that it would be used for things like competence uh making sure people are doing their

00:06:42.720 you know they they aren't um you know handling mortgages badly for real estate clients or or

00:06:48.640 missing limitation periods or or that kind of thing but the temptation will always be there to use it for

00:06:54.320 other purposes and that's really what our group is trying to do is we're trying to say look this has to

00:06:59.760 be a neutral body if it wants if we want to self-regulate it needs to be neutral and so we

00:07:06.000 cannot be going down this path of regulating people's political opinions or you know amassing

00:07:12.400 power in the bureaucracy to to um to go off on all these other tangents i i remember i would have been

00:07:19.120 however many years ago now i can't recall i was covering the ontario carbon tax challenge before the

00:07:24.720 court of appeal and it was at osgood hall which is this beautiful building that everyone only knows about

00:07:29.120 now because of this fight over trees or something but uh you osgood hall is home to the court of

00:07:33.600 appeal for ontario and also to the law society of ontario and there's like this i recall this

00:07:38.080 hallway that you go down and once you go down that hallway you're on the part that the law society

00:07:42.400 governs and i remember knowing that instantly because you pass this corner and it's the uh transgender 0.99

00:07:49.440 washroom on one side and the muslim prayer room on the other side and you sort of realize okay we're now in

00:07:54.320 in wokistan here so i i look at the three pillars that you have for this full stop platform stop

00:08:00.240 bloat stop creep and stop woke are there people that you're finding that that aren't as happy with

00:08:06.000 that third category they're saying yeah i'm on side with stopping the bloat but i'm okay with the

00:08:11.040 woke or are you finding that the legal community is pretty much in these two camps of yes this is all

00:08:16.480 good and no we need to put an end to it well i think there are some who feel a little uncomfortable with

00:08:21.840 it um you know again it's it's a it's a colloquial term that has taken on a whole lot of meaning and

00:08:28.560 not perhaps the original meaning that it had back in the 20s and 30s when it was more of a um you know

00:08:34.560 a a racial awareness campaign which you know had some importance and value but it's become what i like

00:08:40.560 to call social justice fundamentalism now and so a lot a lot is being ushered in under that and

00:08:46.800 you know there's always there are always going to be people who still want to believe that the words

00:08:52.320 that are being advanced in this orthodoxy mean what we think that they mean rather than what they

00:08:58.080 actually mean so for example equality diversity and inclusion all sound like great words i don't

00:09:03.920 think there's a single person uh that i've met or and certainly not on our slate who don't think that

00:09:09.120 those words by their normal meanings that we all kind of assume we're talking about would have any

00:09:14.720 problem with those things but those aren't the things that they actually mean and so when they

00:09:18.640 say equality they really mean equity they mean equality of outcome they mean everybody needs to

00:09:24.400 end up in the same place regardless of you know merit circumstances uh personal decisions whatever i

00:09:31.120 mean you just need to have we just need to have a head count basically we need to have everybody at

00:09:36.160 the end of the the finish line looking the way that they're supposed to look uh and so that's what

00:09:40.960 equity is and then inclusion again we only include people who think like us okay so it's not really

00:09:46.000 inclusive and diversity well you know we can have an entirely female panel uh all females of the same

00:09:54.160 you know racial background and that's considered diverse uh but that's not what most people think

00:09:59.760 when they hear those words but the the activist meaning is really quite different and so to some degree

00:10:05.280 it's a failure of education i suppose to to help people understand what we're really talking about

00:10:09.680 and i suppose we need to work on that yeah i know and i i think that's fair and i'm curious if you

00:10:14.880 could shine some light on what voter turnout on on these venture elections is do you find that

00:10:19.600 historically lawyers just pay their ridiculous licensing fees and carry on and don't really care

00:10:24.800 who they are or do you find that they do take a really active role in in picking these ventures as

00:10:29.840 they're called well you would think there'd be more and the the numbers have never been great

00:10:35.280 um i think last election they were just under 30 percent which was a was particularly low and

00:10:41.600 which was shocking to me when i heard that because yeah because that was the one that the non-lawyers

00:10:45.440 had heard about right i mean it was it was a galvanizing issue normally there's nothing to

00:10:51.040 even you know you just kind of vote for the names that you've heard of okay that lawyer sounds like

00:10:54.480 somebody i've i've come across you seem all right um you know the but but people actively came out last

00:11:00.400 time i thought um but the numbers didn't demonstrate that so i i don't know what that says

00:11:05.600 a certain amount of complacency in the profession i guess or maybe people are just tired of of the

00:11:10.320 conflicts but uh you know if you're tired of the conflicts then i think you want a neutral regulator

00:11:14.480 so you know vote for us and we'll get things back on track is basically the position that we're taking

00:11:19.760 just to look at the bigger picture here how is this battle playing out in other provinces to the

00:11:24.320 extent that you're aware is is ontario pushing further or is this just kind of already accepted

00:11:30.800 elsewhere it depends some i think there's a variety of experiences i would say most institutions tend to

00:11:38.720 attract the kind of people who who have an activist agenda and so they're in various stages of that

00:11:44.000 unfolding uh in terms of the legal profession i i believe that you know ontario was was a leader

00:11:49.840 in bringing a lot of this stuff in and and uh to the chagrin of some who who wanted that move

00:11:55.440 forward um it's been basically on hold while our stop stop ventures have been around um you know

00:12:00.960 this inclusion index for example was basically iced uh last year because by now the data is kind of

00:12:07.840 out of out of um you know it's it's it's not current uh and so they they say well you know we're

00:12:13.760 not going to do the inclusion index or they imply that they aren't but they will be back they

00:12:17.760 they basically just put it on hold tour out of the way um so i don't i don't know where the others are

00:12:23.120 starting to catch up a bit more but i haven't done an exhaustive analysis i heard that um new brunswick

00:12:28.880 is bringing in a climate change uh committee uh in their law society so i i it continues i i don't even

00:12:36.640 know how that applies to the law society like i'm not even sure what they'd be governing in that case

00:12:42.480 i don't know carbon offsets if you want to go and visit your clients or something who knows

00:12:47.360 all right well i i wish you the the best of luck with this lisa i know we'll we'll certainly have

00:12:51.040 your voice on about cases uh in the future as you always have ones that are incredibly important but

00:12:56.160 it's good to see you taking up this fight people can learn more about it at fullstop lso.ca and

00:13:02.160 you've got uh by the way it's great when i look through the candidate list i see like

00:13:05.920 a third of them i think i've had on the show in the last year so it's good that you have the right

00:13:09.520 people running or i have the right people uh coming on the show or a bit of both good stuff all

00:13:13.920 right thanks for having me andrew thanks very much lisa always a pleasure thanks for listening

00:13:17.760 to the andrew lawton show support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

Juno News - April 15, 2023

Lawyers push back against woke ideology and politicization of law

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript