Ontario Law Society to make lawyers take mandatory six-hour indigenous training
Ontario lawyers must now complete six hours of mandatory Indigenous training, featuring land acknowledgements, lessons on colonization, and seven modules on pre-colonial religious beliefs.
Author: Clayton DeMaine
Ontario lawyers must now complete six hours of mandatory Indigenous training, featuring land acknowledgements, lessons on colonization, and seven modules on pre-colonial religious beliefs, just to keep their professional licenses.
The Law Society of Ontario’s “Equity and Indigenous Affairs Committee” has approved mandatory “Indigenous cultural training” for all of its more than 61,000 members. The training will count toward the ethics training they are already required to take, meaning the Indigenous ideology seminars will replace other potentially relevant ethics education for lawyers seeking to receive or maintain their licence.
The Law Society of Ontario (LSO) announced the plan Thursday, which has angered many Ontario lawyers and Canadians who view the move as another example of a regulatory body abandoning its mandate in favour of pushing a left-wing ideological agenda.
The committee’s report notes that the regulator voted 26 to 23, with two abstaining, in favour of adopting the mandatory Indigenous training modules.
The report outlines that most individual submissions from law society members were against imposing the re-education program, though a majority of unnamed “organizations” supported the plan.
“The majority of organizations, particularly legal clinics, advocacy groups, Indigenous organizations, and some professional associations supported mandatory training and identified it as consistent with professional obligations arising from the TRC’s Call to Action 27,” the report states. “Individual submissions, particularly from lawyers, were more divided. A majority opposed mandating the Course, citing concerns related to relevance to practice, regulatory overreach, and administrative burden.”
The report stated “a significant minority” of individuals submitting to the committee supported the requirement. The report does not mention what percentage of individuals and organizations expressed support or opposition to the new requirement.
Lisa Bildy, executive director of the Free Speech Union of Canada and a litigator at Libertas law, who has a record of defending the rights of individuals protesting COVID-era crackdowns, was on the committee and shared on X that she voted against imposing the requirement.
She hinted that the course would be filled with falsehoods and ideology rather than just facts about Indigenous people and their history in Canada, though noted she could not say much more until the full program had been officially released to the public.
In response to the motion, several defenders of civil liberties in Canada opposed the motion, including Josh Dehaas, a litigator with the Canadian Constitution Foundation. The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms started an online petition campaign on its website calling the act “politicization, compelled speech” and “ideological enforcement.”
One civil liberties advocate, Daniel Ari Freiheit, shared his concerns that the training would result in a compelled declaration from lawyers that they support the ideology pushed by the training course, much like they already are required to do annually with a Human Rights Acknowledgement.
At the time the requirement for lawyers to pledge support for diversity, equity and inclusion in the form of a “Statement of Principles” (SOP) came into place in 2017-2018, many voting licensees backed StopSOP candidates who were opposed to compelled speech.
Litigants also challenged the constitutionality of the SOP. While litigation was underway, the LSO still required members to check that they agreed with the ideology of the SOP, despite many objections, out of fear of losing their jobs.
StopSOPwon a majority of lawyer bencher seats in 2019. However, repealing the SOP required Convocation votes across the regulator’s full governing structure. Ultimately, the Human Rights Acknowledgement came into effect as a compromise, as it represented what was already law in the Human Rights Code.