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Alberta’s Bill 13, the Regulated Professions Neutrality Act, marks one of the most significant free-expression protections introduced in Canada in a generation. In a political climate where professional regulators increasingly police personal beliefs, Alberta has drawn a constitutional line: no regulator has the right to punish lawful off-duty expression or enforce ideological conformity.

For a country grappling with expanding limits on acceptable speech, Bill 13 is a clear statement that cognitive liberty still matters — and must be defended.

Protecting the Mind from Institutional Overreach

The bill’s core principle is simple:
regulated professionals — doctors, nurses, teachers, lawyers, engineers — do not surrender their freedom of thought or expression when they obtain a license.

Bill 13 therefore prohibits regulatory bodies from disciplining professionals for their lawful off-duty expressive conduct. The definition is broad by design:
any communication or symbolic act that expresses meaning is protected, unless it involves real harm such as violence, criminal acts, abuse of professional power, or sexual misconduct.

This is precisely the line a free society should defend. Regulators must ensure competence — not enforce an ideological worldview.

The “Peterson Law”: A Necessary Rebalance

Bill 13 responds directly to cases like that of Jordan Peterson, whose regulator attempted to discipline him for personal political commentary made outside his clinical practice. Whatever one thinks of Peterson, the precedent was dangerous: it implied that professionals serve at the pleasure of ideological censors.

Bill 13 rejects this entirely.
It enshrines a foundational principle:

Your license does not give the state ownership of your mind.

In a country where social and professional pressures increasingly enforce narrow orthodoxies, this is an overdue correction.

Ending Ideological Compulsion in Professional Licensing

The bill also prohibits mandatory ideological training unless it directly relates to professional competence or ethics. This includes DEI, unconscious-bias modules, or cultural-competency courses whose content extends beyond verifiable job requirements.

This is not a rejection of diversity or ethics. It is a rejection of the assumption that the state can compel belief — or force professionals to internalize political frameworks as a condition of employment.

Canada has drifted toward a model where ideological education is treated as neutral truth. Bill 13 restores the older liberal idea:
the state regulates conduct, not thought.

Reaffirming Charter Principles the Rest of Canada Left Behind

Bill 13 strengthens the role of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Alberta’s Bill of Rights in appeals. Regulators must now justify any intrusion on expression using a correctness standard, not deferential rubber-stamping.

In effect, Alberta is telling professional bodies:

If you are going to infringe expression, you must prove it is justified — and most ideological policing won’t survive that scrutiny.

This is how constitutional societies are supposed to operate.

A Model for a Canada That Has Lost Confidence in Its Own Freedoms

Critics warn of dangers. But these warnings always elide the key truth:
Bill 13 does not protect threats, criminality, hate-motivated harassment, or abuse of professional power.

It protects speech — not harm.
It protects thought — not misconduct.
It protects dissent — not danger.

And this is urgently needed. Across Canada, cognitive liberty is narrowing. Professionals face whispered threats, social pressure, licensing consequences, reputational ruin, and ideological gatekeeping for expressing legitimate political or social views. The boundary between professional standards and ideological enforcement has blurred.

Bill 13 restores that boundary with clarity and force.

Verdict: Alberta Is Right — and Other Provinces Should Follow

Alberta’s bill is a principled pushback against a creeping culture of compelled ideology. It marks a return to classical liberalism, where the right to think and speak freely is not contingent on political fashion.

By affirming that professionals retain sovereignty over their own minds, Bill 13 sets a vital precedent for the rest of Canada.

At a time when our freedoms feel increasingly conditional, Alberta has chosen to defend them.

For those who still believe in free speech, open debate, and the inviolability of conscience should celebrate when this bill is passed.