Professional bodies have become a major threat to free speech, argues an opinion article in the National Post. In the article, the writer argues that most professional bodies in Canada limit the free speech rights of their members to align with whatever views they hold. In this episode of the Western Standard, reporter Leah Muschett talks to Lisa Bilder, a lawyer at Libertas Law Firm and Executive Director of the Free Speech Union of Canada, about this.
00:00:00.960Hello, my name is Leah Muschett. I'm a reporter here at the Western Standard, and today I have with me Lisa Bildy, lawyer at Libertas Law Firm and executive director at the Free Speech Union of Canada, who recently published an opinion article in the National Post entitled,
00:00:17.440Professional Bodies Have Become a Major Threat to Free Speech, which discusses how most professional bodies in Canada limit the free speech rights of their members to align with whatever views they hold.
00:00:30.440So today, thank you again for joining me, Lisa. And for my first question to you, I wanted to ask more on the BC nurse, Amy Hamm, since I know you were her lawyer, and it's like mentioned in the article.
00:00:42.180And I guess I wanted to know, I guess, more about your experience in the case, since you also like pulled in the article that it was the co-workers who reported her to the, what was it called, BC College of Nurses and Midwives disciplinary panel, and like she received a penalty.
00:01:02.980So do you think that the fact that like, it wasn't even her patients that like reported her to the board? Do you think this is like one of the downsides to like regulating professional bodies?
00:01:14.820Oh, for sure. That's something that we're seeing more and more of, which is that, you know, these regulatory bodies are supposed to ensure that professionals who we have to deal with, and you know, many different capacities in our society,
00:01:27.540are competent to do the jobs that they're supposed to do, and have the necessary ethics. So for example, you don't want to have your lawyers being dishonest and skimming the trust fund, and you don't want to have doctors who can't perform, you know, basic surgery, if that's their job.
00:01:41.540So that's what the role should be. But it has lately morphed into more of making sure that people have the correct views expressed, even when it's not on the job, it's starting to happen more and more that they're regulating speech off duty, or that is a very tenuous relationship with with their work. So in Amy Ham's case, she wasn't out there saying, I'm speaking as a nurse, and this is what you should do medically.
00:02:09.660She was just being, you know, an ordinary citizen. But in a couple of places online, there was a reference to the fact that she also was a nurse. And so the college used that as the basis for pulling her, what they thought was bad behavior under their sort of auspices.
00:02:27.040And you're right, it wasn't patients at all. She had no issues at the workplace. It was strangers on the internet, basically finding fault with with what she said, and trying to find a way to have her canceled. And this is becoming a rather convenient way for people to do that, because these regulators basically have to investigate or often choose to investigate when when a complaint comes in, even if it's just a stranger making a complaint about a professional.
00:02:51.640Hmm. Yeah. Well, also, on that note, I think it was said that like she was the penalty that she had to pay was like $93,000 or something like that. Correct? Yeah.
00:03:03.640Well, those were costs, the legal costs, but it's certainly very punitive in effect. But she received a one month suspension of her license, and then also had to pay the college's costs of prosecuting her for the for all of this, because it was a 22 day hearing. And they charged her basically $93 in their legal costs, $93,000. So, and I also just want to make a distinction here.
00:03:31.720She, her co workers ran a little bit of an online campaign to have her lose her job, which was another separate issue. Her regulator is the college which regulates all the nursing profession. And so they had a whole disciplinary process, but also her employer, when this campaign started against her, conducted an investigation and decided basically to fire her for her views.
00:03:56.720So she's got two separate problems here, two separate issues, both of which were, you know, the result of cancel culture and neither, neither related to her performance on the job at all.
00:04:06.720Yeah, that makes sense. I like, I guess, like, on the same subject, like, if someone is like, say they're being investigated or like penalized by like one of their professional boards, I don't know if there's like a general amount that they're going to have to pay, but would it be somewhere in that range? And like this specific time period that she had to like go through like the 22, I think you said 22 days of questioning?
00:04:35.720The hearing was 22 days long, and that was partly the college taking time to have their own experts, we had to defend though, so we had our own experts and we had to cross examine theirs and so on. And it's so it did take a long time. And there was a lot of stuff that went on behind the scenes too, because the college tried to have all of her experts struck, so she couldn't have her experts testify. So we had background written battles as well that people didn't even see or know about.
00:05:00.720But yeah, the costs, it depends on the college, it depends on the province, like, there's tons of these regulatory bodies now all over the country, for all different professions, engineering and paramedics and accountants and teachers, and most of them will have some rules that govern, you know, what happens with costs. And I know, for example, in Ontario, where I am, the Ontario, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario has a daily
00:05:29.720tariff. So if you defend yourself, for every single day of hearing, you have to lose, you have to pay, I think it's $10,120. So have a long hearing, it's going to add up very quickly.
00:05:41.720Whoa, wait, so that's like, daily, they have to pay that daily?
00:05:46.720Oh, my God. Wow. Geez. Okay. That's a lot.
00:05:49.720Well, it's a huge, the issue too, is that it's a huge deterrent on a case like this to defend yourself. Now, if we're talking about a doctor who, who, you know, sexually assaulted a patient or something like that, you know, and they have to go through this process, well, they have a right to have a hearing and defend themselves, of course. But if they're found guilty of it, then, you know, normally in the court process, the loser pays. But I think it's a little bit
00:06:15.700different in these kinds of cases where it's about speech, and it's about viewpoints. We know, I certainly know from personal experience that the colleges will tend to go after speech they don't like, but they'll let things go if the political views align with the views of those in the regulatory setting.
00:06:34.700So, so for example, all these co workers of Amy Ham's who were who were criticized, who were trying to take her down, a lot of them when we looked at who they were, we were able to identify them as people who worked at the same hospital or in the same, the same health unit, and many of them expressed very radical views online, I mean, you know, that I would think were radical, radical left wing views, and they never get taken to task for expressing their views while identifying as nurses or social workers or whatever.
00:07:04.680So it's kind of one sided. And so if somebody wants to defend themselves against an allegation that their particular communications in the public are unprofessional conduct, well, that's a pretty big risk to take that you're going to go in and have a hearing, defend yourself so that nobody can accuse you of being a transphobe or a racist or whatever the college is sort of implying.
00:07:27.680And then you find a few if you lose that you get hammered with these costs.
00:07:32.680And I think in these kinds of cases, that's very unfair and it provides a real deterrent for a professional to stand up and on principle say, well, no, those are my views, I'm entitled to have them and I shouldn't have to acquiesce to your demand that I not share these views in public.
00:07:50.680But that's what's happening. I think a lot of times professionals are self censoring or if they do get caught, they'll sign an undertaking with the college, you know, to promise never to go public with their accounts or to refrain from discussing certain things or to take a re-education program.
00:08:10.680And, you know, a lot of people just get away from having a disciplinary outcome by taking those actions.
00:08:17.680But I think that's actually damaging to our cultural fabric because we're missing out on the opinions and views of people that, you know, maybe would bring some value to the marketplace of ideas, as it were.
00:08:31.680Yeah. Well, like on that note as well, I guess like it seems like also, I don't know, I think the Internet might be contributing to like the fact that since you were talking about the people online were the ones that like reported her to begin with.
00:08:49.680So do you think like these cases have gotten worse because of the Internet, like maybe it's, I don't know, fed the beast or something like that?
00:08:58.680Yeah. Like in your perspective, dealing with these cases, do you think that's the case?
00:09:02.680Well, I think it's what it's done is it has made it much more possible for random people out there to file a complaint.
00:09:11.680You know, people's views do get spread far and wide a lot more than they did before Internet, of course.
00:09:17.680I mean, you might have 30, 40 years ago written a letter to the editor of your local paper.
00:09:22.680And maybe, maybe if you said something in your capacity as a professional that your regulator didn't like, you might care about it.
00:09:29.680I don't think it was super common back then.
00:09:32.680But now not only are your views able to travel around the world, but also people from around the world can read them and decide they don't like what they've what they've heard and file a complaint.
00:09:45.680So another client of mine is Dr. Covinder Gill in Ontario, a surgeon, sorry, a physician.
00:09:51.680And she, she had some views about lockdown harms that she was expressing in the summer of 2020.
00:09:58.680And literally people from, you know, the United States and, and had nothing to do with Ontario, nothing to do with her as a doctor, were filing complaints with the college in Ontario.
00:10:10.680And when we had to judicially review the disciplinary cautions that they ordered, we had to, we had to serve people in the United States,
00:10:19.680because they had to have noticed that this complaint was going to a judicial review.
00:10:23.680So, you know, it's ridiculous, but it does sort of, it does mean that more people can access this sort of weaponization.
00:10:33.680More people can engage in a weaponization of these regulators because they, they can claim to be harmed by somebody's views that they've, they've read on the internet.
00:10:43.680And yeah, so I think it's fed the beast, as you say.
00:10:49.680Well, also on the note, you were talking about the physician from Ontario, like her name is Covinder Quar Gill.
00:10:55.680And we were talking about like the 2020, she was complaining about the COVID mandates and stuff like that.
00:11:00.680And then like in the same year, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario issued an edict saying that physicians were not to express like views that were not with in accordance to the public health or government.
00:11:16.680And then also there's also the oath that physicians have to adhere to, which is first do no harm, because she thought that the COVID mandates were doing harm, like you said in your article.
00:11:29.680So basically, what I'm saying is, obviously, you pointed out this, this is contradictory.
00:11:35.680It seems to me that like these boards don't really have any values, like they can just contradict themselves whenever they want kind of thing.
00:11:42.680So do you think that like, I don't know, it seems like they're just changing to whatever fits like their mandate at the time.
00:11:49.680Well, I can see why you say that, but but it really it comes down to very sort of vague language in the governing legislation.
00:11:58.680So they are tasked, they're creatures of statute.
00:12:01.680Okay, so the various provinces draft statutes that create these self regulatory bodies.
00:12:08.680So they're they're usually other professionals and members of the public as well, who sit in sort of in charge of the other professionals in in their field.
00:12:18.680So on the College of Physicians and Surgeons board, you'll have a bunch of doctors and on their committees and so on.
00:12:24.680And so they're they're said to be self regulating, but they are but they are a statutory body.
00:12:29.680So the government does, you know, have some control in this and in the legislation that creates these bodies, it does typically say and it's different for all of them.
00:12:38.680But it typically says that their job is to govern in the public interest.
00:12:41.680And so that's one of those phrases that is very subjective and open to interpretation.
00:12:48.680Some people will say it's in the public interest that nobody criticise the government's pandemic public health policies.
00:12:58.680And that's position that the College took.
00:13:01.680Now, as Dr. Gill pointed out, this was something that she felt very strongly was against her oath to do no harm.
00:13:08.680So she felt very conflicted about her her moral obligations and did not feel that she could stay silent when she thought that there was.
00:13:17.680And I think it's been borne out in the evidence, not only at the time, but since that that there were severe lockdown harms.
00:13:24.680And she was concerned about that for not only her patients, but for others in the marginalized communities that she dealt with and globally in some of the poor countries that were impacted adversely.
00:13:36.680So so she felt she couldn't stay silent and but the College was of the view that it was a public interest mandate that they had to ensure that everybody followed the public health guidelines that were being issued at the time.
00:13:49.680And if they were poor guidelines and, you know, if they were harmful guidelines, it didn't matter.
00:13:56.680You were expected to toe the line. And so that was the rationalization.
00:13:59.680They're coming at it from that perspective. But as you can see, with a phrase like that, it's very open to interpretation and it will depend who's in charge within these bodies as to how they interpret that.
00:14:08.680Mm hmm. Mm hmm. That makes sense. I guess I have one more question since we're talking about like all these regular regulatory bodies and it seems like it's been like the free speech issue for these bodies are like it's been a trend over.
00:14:22.680I don't know. In from my memory, like past like since 10 years, if not longer, like what is like that?
00:14:33.680I don't need you to go in like full history, but what is like the history with these bodies? Was there always an issue or when did you first from your perspective see an issue with these bodies doing these regulatory like measures and stuff?
00:14:45.680Well, you know, I do think that we probably have all seen the culture shift probably in the mid 20 teens to, you know, the prevalence of DEI critical theory, that sort of thing, seeping into some of these institutions that has had an impact on all of this.
00:15:02.680So, for example, if you have people coming out of an education system where they have been taught that everything should be viewed through an oppressor and oppressed lens, that that's critical theory,
00:15:11.680then and they take that out into the workforce and they go to work at various public institutions like regulators.
00:15:18.680They take those views with them and then they use that to inform the policy decisions and the disciplinary decisions that they make.
00:15:25.680So I think that is really sort of come to a head just in the last 10 years or at least become more apparent, although it's probably been been growing for a longer period of time than that.
00:15:37.680And so, you know, in my own regulator, the Law Society in 2017, actually 2016, they came out with a requirement that all lawyers had to promote equity, diversity and inclusion in all aspects of their lives in order to be a licensed lawyer.
00:15:54.680And so I personally took exception to that because I don't think that it's for the law society or any other regulator to decide what worldview we are supposed to espouse.
00:16:06.680And it's important in the legal profession for lawyers to be independent in order to it's tentative, the rule of law that the judiciary and the legal profession be independent and able to to defend anybody who comes before them,
00:16:21.680you know, and needing a defense without without this kind of control over what views you're allowed to have and what views you're allowed to promote and defend.
00:16:31.680So personally, I fought back against that and a number of my colleagues joined me and we got rid of that requirement.
00:16:40.680But that was what really kind of brought it to a head for me personally was seeing my own legal regulator go down that path.
00:16:47.680And and I think a lot of them have. And so so that's I think also why we see certain kinds of speech being curtailed and others being given a pass,
00:16:56.680because it's sort of viewed through that critical theory lens as to whether it's speech that serves the purpose that those folks maybe want to advance or whether it doesn't and needs needs to be curtailed.
00:17:08.680OK, well, yeah, that's interesting. Well, thank you very much, Lisa.
00:17:13.680I really appreciate you coming on the video with us today. And yeah, that's all I got.
00:17:24.680So if you guys enjoyed this video, please subscribe to the Western Standard YouTube channel as well as to our actual outlet website, which is ten dollars a month.
00:17:36.680And yeah, thank you very much again. And bye bye, everyone.