MAY 5th, 2025 – Calgary lawyer Roger Song is set to appear before the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta on Tuesday, May 6 to challenge the Law Society of Alberta’s (LSA) authority to impose woke ideological mandates on legal professionals. The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) is representing Song in this constitutional case, per a blog post on the JCCF’s website.
The lawsuit targets several LSA policies, including Rule 67.4, which allows the Society to mandate specific Continuing Professional Development (CPD) courses, such as “The Path,” a five-module online course on Indigenous history and culture. Song contends that the extended requirements compel lawyers to affirm and promote political ideologies, including critical race theory, gender theory, and intersectionality, infringing upon their freedoms of conscience and expression as protected under Sections 2(a) and 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Song . . . likens the LSA’s mandates to the political indoctrination he experienced in Maoist China.
“The Law Society’s actions threaten those foundations,” Song stated, emphasizing the importance of maintaining professional independence from politically motivated perspectives.
Song, who was called to the Alberta bar in 2014 and previously served as a legal professor in Beijing, likens the LSA’s mandates to the political indoctrination he experienced in Maoist China. He argues that redefining legal competence through vague terms like “competence,” “ethics,” and “diversity” promotes ideological conformity and racial division.
Constitutional lawyer Glenn Blackett supports Song’s position, stating, “The Law Society effectively seeks to change Canada’s law by changing the way lawyers work – by changing their ‘culture.’ In a democracy, the legislature makes and changes laws, not law societies, not law firms.”
The LSA has defended its initiatives, asserting that promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion falls within its mandate to regulate the legal profession in the public interest. In a previous vote, the Society upheld the requirement for members to complete “The Path,” with 2,609 lawyers voting against a motion to strike down the mandate, compared to 864 in favour. It should be noted that woke ideologies have likely been forced onto younger lawyers more than on any previous generation’s professionals, and the for-and-against votes may simply pit seasoned legal professionals against a combination of both younger and more “progressive” lawyers to achieve such an outcome.
The Law Society of Ontario previously dealt with similar efforts towards compelled ideological practises, which saw more traditional and rights-focused Society voters pitted against a coalition subscribing to “social justice” ideology, whose adherents can generally be characterized as intolerant of alternative views or even individual rights.
The outcome of this case could have significant implications for the balance between professional regulation and individual constitutional rights within Alberta’s legal system.
