Juno News - September 12, 2019We can't take free speech for granted!
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Summary
In an age of dwindling free speech rights, the lawyers of Ontario have struck a blow for free speech. The Law Society of Ontario benchers voted this week to scrap a provision of their code of conduct, their professional standards, that required all lawyers and paralegals in Ontario to sign off on a statement of principles affirming support for diversity, equity, inclusion and tolerance.
Transcript
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In an age of dwindling free speech rights the lawyers of Ontario have struck a blow for free
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speech. The Law Society of Ontario benchers voted this week to scrap a provision of their code of
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conduct their professional standards that required all lawyers and paralegals in Ontario to sign off
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on a statement of principles affirming support for diversity equity inclusion tolerance all of these
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other things. Now this was put into effect two years ago and there's nothing wrong with diversity
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inclusion or tolerance but there is something profoundly wrong with compelled speech which is
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what it is when you force someone to say something when you force someone to literally have words
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affirming values they may not have and you make that a requirement to practice law. Now this is now
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gone there was actually a hostile takeover of the Law Society of Ontario. The bencher elections just
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a few months ago elected a slate of candidates that all shared one common goal which was scrapping
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the SOP. Now what this means is that lawyers no longer have to say something basically to keep
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their jobs to maintain their right to practice law but it wasn't just about practicing lawyers even
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retired lawyers or people who are licensed as lawyers but not working in law were required to have one of
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these statements of principles in order to maintain their licensing and membership by the Law Society of
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Ontario. So what removing this means is that lawyers who are supposed to uphold the constitution which
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includes an unbridled right to free expression are not forced to take a particular position which is
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ideological and has absolutely nothing to do with the law or the rule of law. Compelled speech is not free
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speech it's one thing to censor which is egregious on its own but to force people to tow a party line
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is communist it's Marxist there's no way about that but we live in an age where it's not just enough to
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not say the wrong thing you now have to say what the Politburo and the Intelligentsia say is the right thing.
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And again I want to go back to this there is nothing wrong with a lawyer a law firm a group of lawyers
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saying we stand up for equality we stand up for multiculturalism towing whatever identity politics
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line they want to but forcing people to do this forcing people to do this as though it is somehow
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going to combat inequality when there's no evidence of that is just plain wrong and it's good that the
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lawyers of Ontario and the paralegals finally had a venture election that revealed there was an
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appetite to fight back against this although institutions like the Law Society of Ontario
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are subject to this these groups are given monumental power by the government they have a monopoly on
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determining who gets to practice in a particular field whether it's a college of physicians and
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surgeons the law society or other regulatory colleges that oftentimes are able to operate without
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guaranteeing constitutional freedom of speech so it's a victory for the time being but one on
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which we have to be on guard for future encroachments and future incursions if lawyers who are supposed
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to uphold constitutional liberties are not granted them what hope is there for the rest of the country
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this is what we need to stand up for this is why free speech is so important and why of course
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it cannot be taken for granted for True North I'm Andrew Lutton
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it can be certain and what people are talking about
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is to hold through SA they have political rules