Alberta Law Society Scraps Mandatory Indigenous Course
The Law Society of Alberta has confirmed it will no longer require lawyers in the province to complete Indigenous cultural competency training, a significant policy shift that comes directly in anticipation of new provincial legislation backed by Premier Danielle Smith.
The course in question, known as The Path, was previously a mandatory continuing professional development requirement for Alberta lawyers. Its purpose was to build awareness of Indigenous history, culture, and the ongoing impacts of colonization on Indigenous peoples and the justice system.
The 'Peterson Law' Connection
The legislation prompting this change has been widely dubbed the "Peterson law", named after controversial psychologist and public intellectual Jordan Peterson, who has been an outspoken opponent of mandatory diversity and inclusion training. The bill would prohibit professional regulatory bodies in Alberta, including law societies and medical colleges, from making such training compulsory.
Premier Smith has been a vocal supporter of the legislation, framing it as a matter of individual freedom and professional autonomy. Supporters argue that mandatory ideological training has no place in professional licensing.
Critics, however, have pushed back sharply. Indigenous leaders, legal advocates, and reconciliation groups argue that removing the requirement is a step backward, particularly given the legal profession's deep entanglement with systems that have historically harmed Indigenous communities, from residential school policies to the child welfare system.
What It Means for the Legal Profession
The Law Society's decision means that Alberta lawyers are no longer required to complete The Path as part of their ongoing professional development obligations. The society has indicated the change is being made proactively, ahead of the legislation coming into force.
The move raises broader questions about the direction of professional education in Alberta and whether other regulatory bodies, medical, engineering, accounting, will follow suit once the law takes effect.
For many Indigenous legal advocates, the mandatory training wasn't just box-checking. It represented an acknowledgment that the legal system in Canada has a specific and painful relationship with First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples, one that lawyers are uniquely positioned to understand and address.
A National Conversation
While this is an Alberta story, it lands in a broader national debate about how institutions approach reconciliation. Across Canada, professional bodies, universities, and employers have been grappling with how, and whether, to make cultural competency training a requirement.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Calls to Action, released in 2015, explicitly called on legal and justice institutions to increase their cultural competency around Indigenous issues. The Alberta Law Society's reversal runs counter to that direction.
For those watching from other provinces, the question is whether Alberta's legislative path becomes a template elsewhere, or whether it remains an outlier in an otherwise broadly pro-reconciliation policy landscape.
Source: CBC News. This article is based on reporting from CBC's Calgary bureau.
