https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=YGC3y1BPzwA
So, today I’m talking to two of my compatriots, I suppose, in this ongoing discussion in Canada about free speech issues, including compelled speech. And I met Jared Brown and Bruce Pardee. Jared’s a practicing lawyer and Bruce is a professor at Queen’s University in the Law School there and I met them both when we manifested a mutual interest last year in Bill C-16, which we all regarded as a piece of legislation that was infringing on the rights to free speech of Canadian individuals in a manner that hadn’t been ever attempted before. And more recently, the Law Society of Upper Canada, soon to be known as the Law Society of Ontario, has put forward a requirement for all of its members, so all of the lawyers in Ontario, to produce a document, a principle that we all have been talking about, the three of us have been talking about, that we regard as another but far more egregious example of compelled speech. So I’m going to let Jared introduce himself and say a little bit about who he is. He testified with me at the Canadian Senate last year and Bruce Pardee also testified at the Senate on Bill C-16 and Bruce was also the lawyer that I debated. He played devil’s advocate at Queen’s University and some of you watching this will be familiar with that video. So Jared, I’ll let you introduce yourself and then Bruce. And then Bruce recently wrote a column for the National Post on this new requirement by the Law Society and so we’re going to let him begin the discussion proper. On to you, Jared. I’m an everyday litigator. I’m a commercial litigator in Toronto. I’ve been practicing for about 15 years, doing increasingly more and more human rights tribunal work, things like that, and obviously stepped into the breach on C-16. And as far as I can tell, I may have been the only practicing lawyer that actually spoke out against the legislation. There were certainly a lot of lawyers, including the Canadian Bar Association, that were arraigned in favour of the legislation. But as far as I can tell, boots on the ground, I think I was the only one. So I’ve got a pretty benign practice, but certainly have taken up the fight, if you will. Bruce. Thanks, Jordan. Well, this issue arose for me a couple of weeks ago when I received an email from the Law Society and all lawyers get these emails to do various things. But this was different because it announced a new requirement for this year. Now, Jared, I think, was aware of this developing before I was, but like many other lawyers in the province, this was the first indication that this new requirement existed. And essentially, the email said, one of the things it said amongst others, was that every licensed lawyer now is required to draft and submit what they are calling a statement of principles. And that statement is required to express your agreement and the value you place on inclusion, diversity and equality, and the fact that you will actively promote those values. That to me just sprung off the screen as an outrageous example of forced speech of the same kind that we were talking about under Bill C-16, but worse. This one actually requires you to make a full-fledged statement that will be subject to their approval in order to maintain your license. In other words, this is not a matter of it being suggested to you that you might want to do this. This is a condition of your ability to practice law in the province of Ontario. So, this struck me as a matter that needed to be aired publicly and needed to be discussed amongst lawyers in the province because this is a slow march to a dark place, I think, and that’s where it all began. Yeah, well it was concerning to me when I encountered this. I mean, I’m the member of a college as well, the College of Psychologists, and my sense of this is that if the lawyers fold and go along with this, the probability that this will be required of every professional in Ontario, and then very rapidly every professional in Canada, is extremely high because if the lawyers who are, you know, a relatively disagreeable bunch and who are very familiar with the law and with common law in general are willing to have their political beliefs dictated to them by their college, then the probability that the rest of us will be able to withstand that, I think, is extremely low. Well, a strong independent bar is always supposed to be the defense, or at least one line of defense, against tyranny or against government overreach. And by having the lawyers, under the guise of their regulatory body, being compelled to speak or share opinions, it’s obviously something scary, and I think it’s something that lawyers should wake up to, and they need to push back against. Compelled speech, which was obviously the issue on C-16, is a particularly nefarious infringement and intrusion. Yeah, well, it’s one thing to put restrictions on what people can say. I mean, I know you can’t incite someone to crime, for example, but it’s a completely different thing to require people to espouse a particular political stance, especially when it’s being reviewed by what’s essentially an arbitrary committee, and when the punishment is so draconian as potentially losing your right to practice, and that that’s enforced as a mandatory, like the first step was to make that mandatory rather than as a suggestion. Let’s just emphasize this point, the distinction between restrictions on speech, which are not good things and are debatable and so on, but this is a different category of question. This is compelled speech. This is a requirement that makes you say something you may not agree with. And as I mentioned in the column, statements from the Supreme Court of Canada, and maybe I’ll just read out one of those just to make the point, because even the court has said explicitly that this is not on in a free society. Here are the words of the Supreme Court. Forcing someone to express opinions that they do not have is totalitarian and as such alien to the tradition of free nations like Canada, even for the repression of the most serious crimes, which of course is not in question here. Sorry, Jordan. That was the cornerstone of not only the opinion piece that I put up on my website about C-16, but also in the cornerstone of the presentation that was made to the Senate, is that this is a particularly egregious infringement on freedom of expression. You’re having to mouth opinions and ideas that may not be your own and the government is forcing you to do it. And then obviously in this instance, you’ve got your regulatory body, which holds your license and your ability to carry on the livelihood and the chosen profession that you’re in, telling you that you’ve got to start voicing these opinions. So Jared, when we talked before too, one of the things that you pointed out, and Bruce, you had commented on this as well, is that the Law Society administration theoretically did some background work before deciding that this was a necessity. And they produced a report essentially proclaiming that the people who are practicing law in Ontario are essentially racist in their orientation, which is why this racist and perhaps misogynist as well, which is why this piece of administrative, let’s call it law, requirements has come into practice. But it isn’t obvious that their own data support that conclusion. I mean, you can easily read what they wrote as providing pretty compelling evidence that the legal profession, the demographics of the legal profession, for what that’s worth, are transforming quite rapidly. And so the thing that concerned me as well from a psychological perspective about this sort of thing is that lawyers who agree to participate in this process are basically admitting their racism and misogyny on a conscious and unconscious basis and thereby convicting themselves. Like they’re guilty to begin with, and they don’t have an opportunity to prove their innocence. And by by going along with these requirements, they’re basically admitting through their action that the accusations that are being thrown at them both individually and as a collective are are not only accurate, but require immediate remediation. Yeah, well, I mean, the the record or the requirement that’s being rolled out right now is the result of a I think it’s about a 58 page report that had 13 recommendations that were passed by Convocation, which is the governing body of the Law Society. And the report itself was entitled Strategies to address issues of systemic racism in the legal professions. I mean, that statement on its own is saying that our industry as well as the Law Society organization itself is systemically racist. And clearly that’s a to me. I mean, it’s a very bold statement and one that I think requires some level of scrutiny. You know, the group that came up with this report is an esteemed group. These are all highly respected, well accomplished individuals. And, you know, there is a body of data that they’ve produced, as well as some qualitative anecdotal stories as to some of the issues that are being faced by by what they call racialized licensees. I mean, the data is something that a lot of people aren’t going to look at, but I do encourage people to look at it and see what what the basis on that finding that we’re a systemically racist industry and obviously profession. I encourage people to look at it. Study the report. I can assure you that most most lawyers won’t. Fifty eight pages, something that happened back in December. But there’s there’s a lot of shocking information in there. And there’s obviously some shocking findings. But, yeah, no, it’s got me concerned because my my industry has now been deemed racist by the body that governs it. Yeah. Well, and one of the things that’s really appalling about that, I think, and also about the requirements for the statement of principles is that there’s a pronounced ideological bent to them. And the first is the idea of systemic racism, because the way that you prove systemic racism is is I would say, let’s say call it questionable methodologically, to say the least, because the basic concept is is that you divide the population up by racial, ethnic and sex based identification, which you can do in a very large number of ways, by the way. And then you compare any organization to that population based division. And if the the ratio of individuals categorized in the general population isn’t the same as the ratio of individuals in that profession, then you can automatically make a case for systemic racism. And that’s a very, very weak methodology. No credible scientist would regard that and I would regard that as proof of anything. And worse, I can’t imagine that any any claim like that would stand up in something resembling a court of law if it was possible to take a group to court, because there’s all sorts of reasons why there might be differential representation in a group. And that is assuming that that’s what the data shows. And in many respects, that’s actually not what this data shows. So I take your point about the methodology. But even so, even if you accept that methodology, it’s not crystal clear that that’s what the numbers actually suggest. But can I get back for a moment to your to your implication point? I mean, I agree that that the requirement to make this statement in this context essentially could be interpreted as though you are required to make a confession about what it is you’ve done wrongly in the past and what it is you will do now in the present to correct it as an individual. And there is also the trouble that once you have written a statement so as to comply with the requirement, then you have on the record a statement of what it is that you believe. And thereafter, your future actions can be compared to that statement so as to show that you are not acting in compliance with what you have said you believe or that on one occasion or the other, you haven’t been telling the truth. So some I’ve heard some lawyers say in response to this requirement that, oh, well, this is not a big deal, because I’m just going to write the statement. They’ll put it in a file. It’ll sit in some corner of the Law Society computer. And who cares? It’s really no big deal. But actually, it is a very big deal because they are hurting you towards both a certain way to think, a certain way to express yourself, and a certain restriction on your behavior and your expression in terms of how you what you say you believe in in the future about this kind of law and all kinds of other laws. But also, you’re subscribing to this idea that the system is racist, that the industry and the profession themselves are racist. And to me, that implies hopelessly corrupt. And that shocks me. And I don’t think I want my industry advertising that unless, of course, we’ve got an issue here. And it’s not entirely clear to me from reading the report that we do. But I mean, Jordan may have some comments, obviously, about writing a statement and a declaration and what that means. But I just find that having to affirm in a statement that our industry is hopelessly corrupt is not something I’m willing to do at this point. Well, one of the things I’ve learned over the last year is that apologizing or admitting guilt to ideologues is an unbelievably dangerous thing to do, because all it’s taken, as Bruce basically alluded to, is a statement of guilt. And the other problem from a psychological perspective is that, and there’s a very clear psychological literature on this. So if you have a particular set of philosophical positions, let’s say, principles, let’s call them, and maybe your principles are something like excellence, meritocracy, and honesty, which strike me as a better set of principles for lawyers than diversity, equity, and inclusiveness, not that those aren’t, you know, in certain contexts and carefully defined also important. If you write a statement of principle, especially one that’s going to have to pass muster, then what will happen is you will bring your beliefs and your actions in line with that statement of principle. You’ll do that unconsciously. And there’s a bunch of reasons for that. And one reason is that you’ve now made a coherent and credible argument in favor of that set of principles, and you will find that convincing, because articulating yourself in that manner actually changes your character. And the second is that it puts you into a position that’s often being described as cognitive dissonance, which is one of the most famous findings in psychology. And cognitive dissonance is the unpleasant feeling that you get when you’re holding two opposing beliefs, let’s say, at the same time, and you notice that. And so the cognitive dissonance here would be, well, I’m just going to write this statement of principles. What difference does it make? However, that is a statement of principles. And so it’s intrinsically dishonest and character damaging to craft a statement of principles with which you do not agree. And so then you can either regard yourself as a coward and a liar, or you can bring your thinking in line with the statement of principles, and the latter thing is what people tend to do. And then the idea that this is just going to sit in some musty file drawer, that’s completely naive in my estimation, because basically what’s happening, and I’ve seen this happening with the creep of ethics committees on university campuses, is that once you decide that you’re guilty and that you’re going to abide by a new set of principles, it now becomes incumbent on the law society as a matter of the intrinsic logic of the movement to do things like check you out on a year-to-year basis to see how your attitude and behavior is actually in keeping with your statement of principles. It’s not just going to hang there in the air. It’s going to be enforced. Yes, and that is part of the transition, I would say, from the law society regulating competence to regulating values. I mean, it used to be, at one point, that the law society was there to make sure that you had the skills to be able to practice law. And as time has gone on, their overseeing is more and more in the area of what it is that you think and whether or not that thinking is appropriate. And one good comparison of this is the case involving the Trinity Western Law School, the graduates of that law school. This is a private law school out in Virginia. And they require all their faculty and students to sign on to a pledge that contains certain values. They promise not to do certain things like have premarital sex and all kinds of other things. The law society, on the basis, I think, that it is inappropriate for an institution to impose values upon the people within it, have said that they will not license graduates from that law school. Now, you might agree or disagree with that perspective, but it is hypocritical now that what they have done is the same thing, essentially, except with a different set of values. They have indeed imposed a set of values on the people within their own institution. It’s just that they have chosen different values, which means that their objection to Trinity Western was not really at all about the imposition of the values. They just don’t like the values that Trinity Western chose. Right, yeah, well, it’s pretty ironic that the argument would be made that an organization doesn’t have the right to impose its values on its voluntary participants, which we should point out, because you certainly don’t have to go to Trinity Western or sign the agreement. There’s lots of law schools you can go to, whereas in this particular situation, you’re basically, I mean, to say that a gun is pointed to your head is too dramatic, obviously, but it’s no joke to be faced with the threat of losing your license and also to have to undergo what would essentially be a bureaucratic inquisition. And those are not pleasant. Those are seriously not pleasant if you fail to comply. And there’s other parts of this. Before we leave Trinity Western, can we just underline what you just said, which I think is very important, which is that the law society is essentially an arm of the state. It has coercive power given to it by the state to license lawyers, and it is the gatekeeper. So you have no choice. Whereas, as you said, Jordan, the association with Trinity Western is entirely voluntary. If you don’t want to go to that school, you don’t go to that school. And so it’s ironic in the extreme that it is the law society, which has imposed such a requirement in circumstances that is much more objectionable than the Trinity Western situation. Yeah, well, it’s quite disconcerting to me, to say the least, to see that it’s actually lawyers that are doing this and that they’re not capable of seeing or unwilling to see for some reasons that I don’t really understand, that this is an egregious assault on the rights of, well, I would say of lawyers in Ontario, but also of individual citizens in Canada. It’s like the fact that it’s lawyers that are involved in this is really, I find that much more terrifying in some sense than the unfounded or likely unfounded accusation that the entire profession is racist, which also, you know, now what are people who are, to use the hated word, racialized, which is also an ideological term, supposed to conclude if all the lawyers in Ontario just go along with this wholeheartedly. They’re really supposed to be able to go into a law firm and trust that their claims are going to be put forward with fairness and clarity and commitment if the whole society is already agreed and the lawyers go along with it, that it’s an intrinsically racist association. How is that going to do anything but damage racial and sex-related, what would you call them, relationships in Canada? I just can’t see that as anything, but it’s supposed to be something that brings us together with regards to, let’s call it inclusiveness, but I can’t see this as anything other than something that’s going to be extraordinarily divisive. Well, interesting, you were raising the issue of why are lawyers going along with it or why aren’t they recognizing the danger. You know, there was some talk about this at the convocation meeting where these recommendations were passed. There were some dissenting voices and very well-put dissenting voices, but just within my own professional network, most lawyers don’t know what’s going on. They got the email. They didn’t think anything of it. We get 12 of these things a month. It’s just an additional requirement, another piece of paper. Now, interesting, what the Law Society has done when they pushed this requirement out is they also said, by the way, if you need some help completing this statement of principles, we’re going to provide two templates that would satisfy us. And of course, 98% of the lawyers that I practice with who are already time crunched, what are they going to do? They’re going to file either template A or B, get on with their life. And so it’s one of those things where you’ve got time pressed lawyers or licensees and you’ve got a bureaucracy adding a new level of requirement to them. And they’re just going to go along to get along. And from what I can tell when I do stop people and ask them about their statement of principles, that’s the first time they’ve actually thought about it. Yeah, well, go ahead, Bruce. No, I was just going to say that the fact that it is a template, that you can choose between one or two templates, that doesn’t make it less of a concern. It’s actually more. I mean, I don’t want to overstate this, but it has a lot of similarities to McCarthyism, yes? Because I know a statement that, you know, I am not now nor have I ever been a member of the Communist Party. That was the template in the McCarthy era. This is a template. You have to say certain things. And look how meaningless it becomes in terms of actual substance. If it’s a template and you just sign on, then they have literally put words in your mouth. And that is the thing that cannot be allowed to happen. Yeah, well, I agree with that in a couple of ways. I mean, the first thing is, is that if they were committed to this in any deep sense, the last thing they would provide was a template. Because the idea that you can require from people a statement of principles that’s of such fundamental import that if it is not crafted properly, you lose your license. And yet that they could produce a template of principles that would in some manner apply to everyone equally. It’s just, it’s absurd almost beyond comprehension. I mean, principles actually happen to be important, right? From a psychological perspective, your deepest principles are the axioms from which you can apply them. The axioms from which you generate not only your thoughts and your actions, but your perceptions, your emotional responses, and your motivations. Like there’s virtually nothing more important from the perspective of psychological integrity than your principles. And to think that those could be reduced to an externally produced template, and that that could be imposed as a requirement so it would be easier for you, is it’s like it reminds me of the Soviet era where there were templates of guilt. You know, if you were accused of something, regardless of whether you were guilty or not, because that really wasn’t very relevant, you’d be required to sign a template of guilt essentially. And that would, well, and once you’d done that, well, you were done. And so it’s really quite, it’s really quite amazing that that, from a conceptual philosophical perspective, that that sort of thing could even be considered for a moment as acceptable. And it seems to me to be a way of sliding it in under the door. As Jared pointed out, people are busy. And the other thing is, you know, when I made my first videos objecting to Bill C-16 last year, part of what motivated me was a comment by a colleague about political correctness on campuses. And he said, well, you know, the consequence of standing up against it from a personal perspective is extremely high. And the probability that your opposition to it is going to have a broad scale social consequence is very low. And so the logical thing to do, especially if you’re pressed for time, and also if you want to not put your head up above the herd where it can be locked off, is to A, not notice because you’re too busy, and B, because you’re isolated as an individual in this circumstance facing a large group. The easiest thing to do, especially when you’re concerned with other things, is just to go along with it because you’re isolated, right? You don’t know if there’s other people who might be feeling uneasy about this, and there’s no real way of telling. Well, particularly in our profession, my understanding is that the majority of lawyers in the province of Ontario are generally practicing in a small firm environment or sole practitioners. And so you’re going to have a lot of people standing on an island on their own in their own practice, and they’re not going to fully appreciate that this is an issue, what other people are thinking, and they’re absolutely going to think that they’re putting their head above the herd. So we have a unique, I think we have a unique industry in that regard. Well, let’s just make it this point at this moment in time, which is that all those lawyers who think that they may be sticking their head up all by themselves are actually not, because I have certainly heard from a good number of lawyers now who are all extremely concerned, shocked, alarmed at this. So the one thing that we want to overcome is the possible inclination to think that any lawyer who is concerned about this is an army of one, and that in this situation is not the case. So there are possibilities here that if people do act upon their concerns and decline to comply with this requirement, that the change in this situation actually is a possibility. Well, Bruce, there’s also the people that we’re servicing. I mean, in the private practice world, clients are going to watch this. They want to know what we’re doing. I think they want their lawyers to stand up on their principles, if you will, and push back against something. And I think that there’s something to be said in terms of your differentiation in the marketplace, particularly in private practice. If you do exactly that, my clients are relying on me to be this bulwark against this type of thing. And I think a lot of lawyers should should take note of that, that there might be something here worth fighting for. Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, really, your lawyer credibility is at stake here. If you can’t stand up and protect yourself when your own fundamental rights are being threatened, then why should clients believe you have the ability to do so on their behalf? Or the inclination to do so. You know, because by swallowing this hook line in sinker, let’s say, and exceeding to what’s essentially an ideological demand, then you also brand yourself as an avatar of that particular ideology. And so that’s another reason to not be trusted. You know, there’s the aspect of inability to stand up for yourself or unwillingness to, but then to come out as an active agent for this particular set of, let’s call them, principles. And there’s absolutely no reason to make the assumption that the new holy trinity of diversity, equity, and inclusiveness constitutes the highest order of moral value. In fact, I think it’s an extraordinarily weak argument that that’s the case. There’s flaws in it at virtually every level of analysis. So and it certainly runs contrary to the central themes of English common law, for example. So we make note, just for a moment, of the fact that the law society is playing this a little bit close to their chest in the sense that they have not spelled out what the penalty is going to be for those lawyers who decline to comply with this requirement. They’ve only said in their materials that those lawyers who are not in compliance will be advised of their obligations in writing, which of course leaves all the choices open to the law society. And that was discussed to some extent at the convocation meeting. There was concerns what happens, what is the recourse here? And I’m left to speculate. But what your obligations are typically is to file what’s called the member’s annual report, of which this is going to be a component of it. By not filling out a portion of your member’s annual report, I’m sure that you’re going to face at a minimum what’s called an administrative process or suspension. And it may even turn into something much larger than that. So, I mean, I’m speculating, but absolutely the law society did not make clear what’s going to happen if somebody decides that they don’t want to go along to get along. Yeah, well, that’s also rather troublesome in and of itself, you know, because it’s just not reasonable to specify a requirement and then leave the penalty undefined. And it smacks of political opportunism from my perspective, because it means that the law society hasn’t put itself on the line with regards to the degree to which they’re going to be draconian about this and then can incrementally introduce the penalties on a per person basis, which is where you would get the least amount of pushback, too. Because if you’re a professional and then the board goes after you, like it’s a horrifying experience, and especially, you know, it puts your family livelihood and your reputation on line. And it’s very expensive to deal with and time consuming and troublesome and anxiety provoking and all of those things. So you have someone who’s immediately put in a tremendous position of weakness in order to, let’s say, push back against this. In the law society, it’s all public as well. So, I mean, the role of the law society, from what I understand, is to protect the public from the big bad lawyers. That’s why we are a self-regulating industry. And one of the things that the law society does is it makes its disciplinary process public. So things like administrative suspensions or disciplinary action are things that would be known to the public. So you’re out there potentially being tarred and feathered on this thing, and people are going to know. Yeah, well, it’s extremely important for a professional to maintain a pristine reputation. And even the, what would you call it, even the suggestion that you’re not in accordance with even an administrative detail with regards to the law society is, you can imagine that that’s going to put doubt in the mind of anyone who, well, knows you or doesn’t know you. So that means the process is the punishment. And that’s very much the case with these mid-level organizations where it seems to me that proclivity for a more totalitarian view of the world is like leaping forward in leaps and bounds. So should we consider for a moment what we might suggest to all those lawyers who are concerned about this and don’t want to go along with the requirement? What it is that we would suggest that they do? Jared, do you want to take that on? Well, it seems to me you approach that in your article at the National Post in a pretty adept way. And my first inclination is that you don’t file. I mean, the act of filing in itself, as we’ve already discussed, is half of the admission of guilt, if you will. And I mean, I think that not filing sends a good statement. But then, you know, you want to obviously let them know why you’re not filing. So perhaps you have to send something that would let them, the law society, the regulator, know why you’re not filing. I mean, those are the things that come to mind. And you discussed them, I think, quite well. So for them to realize that you didn’t just forget, you actually consciously decided that it wasn’t the thing that you were going to do. I think that’s a very good idea. Yeah, some kind of short statement. But not a, I mean, I wouldn’t be inclined to suggest that they should draft their own statement of principles that reflects what they actually think. Because then they are actually going three quarters of the way of what they’ve been asked to do. I mean, there’s no reason why, even if the statement says something that you believe, that you should be filing it, because it’s still forced speech. They’re still requiring you to make that statement. And it’s none of their business. And I mean, I thought about that myself. I thought maybe you do a Google memo, you know, a more Google memo. But then I thought, no, you’re playing the game. You are declaring your thoughts to the regulator. And I think that’s reprehensible. Yeah, I agree. They don’t have any right to the content of your thoughts, not unless you’re willing to voluntarily put them forward. And that’s definitely a difference, a very big difference between, well, the assessment of competence, which has already taken place after you’ve passed the bar and you’re in compliance with the with the regulatory board’s requirements. And the idea that they should have privileged access to your deepest principles is, I agree, that’s absolutely reprehensible. There’s no excuse for it whatsoever. Whether you agree with the principles they want you to agree with or not, it’s reprehensible. Yes. Oh, yes. Let’s emphasize this point. This is this is not essentially a debate about whether or not those values are good or bad, desirable or undesirable. This is about the forced speech, first and foremost, about the idea that you can be required to indicate how you feel about them and you agree with them and endorse them and so on. Even if you do agree with them and endorse them, the idea that you must say so is just not on. It crosses a line into a dark place that does not bode well for the future of freedom of speech in this country. And the rules of professional conduct for lawyers already have a rule that requires us to act in accordance with the Human Rights Code and principles of not to discriminate, I guess is the word I’m using. And so clearly our actions are already governed by a code of conduct and by the legislation generally. So for them to to request the statement of principles, it really is just asking you the way you think. And so it’s not like it’s not like this is needed. It’s like it’s the distinction between your obligation to comply with the law and to state that you agree with the law, which again, going back to the Supreme Court of Canada, is our two quite different things. Can I read again what the Supreme Court said on this question? The Supreme Court says this. However admirable the objectives and provisions of the law may be, no one is obliged to approve of them. Anyone may criticize them and seek to have them amended or repealed, although complying with them so long as they are in effect. So this is not a question of whether lawyers are subject to Human Rights Code and anti-discrimination laws. That is not the question here. The question is whether or not you are required to endorse them and say that you agree, which is quite a different thing. The other thing that disturbs me about this, and I suppose this is a consequence of my experience with delving deeply into the history of places like the Soviet Union in its early stages of development, is that there is a class-based guilt phenomena that’s lurking at the bottom of this too, which is also absolutely, I would say, terrifying. So let’s just say for a moment, although I don’t believe this, that there is systemic racism among lawyers. Define the way that this sort of thing is defined. But what this requirement implies is that every single lawyer of that group is now guilty of that phenomena, merely as a consequence of being a member of that class of people. And you know, there is something, the idea of class-based guilt is, well first of all, it’s the basis for racism itself, right? But it’s a terrifying proposition from the perspective of an informed Western individual, because one of the bedrock presuppositions, let’s call it a principle, of our legal structure is that you’re judged on your guilt or innocence as an individual, not as the member of a class. And believe me, that is not a road we want to walk down, because there’s, you know, each of us might be the members of six or seven different classes. And if you look into the history, let’s say, of those classes, whatever they are, economic, professional, racial, gender-based, whatever, the probability that sometime in the past, some members of our so-called class did things that were morally reprehensible or illegal is 100%. And if we’re going to be judged on the basis of the actions taken by people that we didn’t even know, merely because we happen to be vaguely associated with that group, then we’re all guilty of all sorts of terrible things all the time. And that puts us completely in the hands of people who want to make those group guilt-based accusations. And that’s a very, very bad, it’s almost impossible to overstress how bad an idea that is. Yes, absolutely. I mean, there is no one that you can’t identify who, in terms of group association and in terms of lineage as well. I mean, this is also a casting the net back into history to see which group did wrong to which group. But of course, there is no one who doesn’t have somewhere in their ancestral lineage, you know, wrongs done by somebody you’re related to, to some other person. And if that is the criteria for guilt, as you have said, then everybody is guilty and the whole thing starts to become silly. Yes, well, when everyone’s guilty, that means that the people who hold the right to punishment become all-powerful. Yes, and all discretionary too, yes. And at least in Soviet Russia, they’d prime you up and torture you a bit before they had you swear your statement of principles or your confession, if you will. So, okay, so here’s another thing that I thought I might do is I’m going to put together an anonymous list so that lawyers who are willing to indicate their objections to this requirement can sign up. And that way I can tweet and also stay in contact with you guys on a regular basis how many signatories I’ve obtained. And I won’t make that public. I’ll make sure that it’s not crackable. And that way it’ll help people discover how many other people are also concerned about this and indicate to what degree there might be strength in numbers. And so I’ll set that up very carefully and I’ll put the link to that in the description of this video. And so I guess we’ve decided on three potential modes of action. And Jared’s fundamental suggestion, if I remember correctly, was to not file the statement of principle and also write a letter indicating precisely why. And I guess that would be… Well, if I could just modify that a little bit, I think it might be most effective if you file the piece of paper as your statement, but don’t make it a statement. Just say on the quote statement of principles that you object to filing a statement of principles. Or if they wish, as I suggested in the column, they’re more than welcome to send in a copy of the column from the National Post. Anything that indicates that you’re not doing this. You haven’t just forgotten. But there is a piece of paper that is filed in place of what they’ve asked for, but it is not what they’ve asked for. Okay, so that can be very straightforward. That means that it wouldn’t necessarily be very time consuming. You could take the time to delineate why you’re opposed to this, or you could send in the column, or you could just state that you’re opposed to this. I don’t think they should go to great length. I think it’s very simple. If they just say something like, this is forced speech and I choose not to comply, or send in a column, or something that stands for the proposition that I’m declining this request. It can be very short. It does not have to be a full reasoned… I object. Yeah, I object would be just fine. Most lawyers know how to do that if they’ve been in a courtroom. Yes, exactly. That’s right. It should be something they’re quite accustomed to doing. And then I’ll put up this link for the list so that we can start to collect signatories and decide who… and let people know how many people are actually, let’s call it, philosophically and professionally opposed to this particular set of maneuvers. And to be clear, I don’t want to know anybody’s politics. I don’t want to know anything other than are they uncomfortable with the idea of being compelled to do something, to speak something. And I mean, that’s important. And there’s going to be a lot of people who are concerned about anonymity, and I fully respect that. But they need to know that there is people out there that are like-mindedly objecting to this. Now, one question that obviously comes up about this, and I don’t know if, Jared, you want to speak to this, but I understand that there have been conversations between lots of various people about whether or not a legal action is a possibility on this. Do you want to just make some very general comments about that? Well, I think it’s… I mean, this may come to a head, and I have had discussions with many people within my own professional network, and I’m trying to expand that network. And I’ve had at least one person, very senior lawyer, come forward and say, I’m prepared to challenge this. I’m prepared to be the person that takes the slings and arrows through a challenging process. And I mean, I imagine it would have to flow through the law society initially, but at some point you are entitled to judicial review of regulatory decisions. So it would get pushed out into the general court system at some point. But yeah, absolutely. If, let’s say, there are people that are willing to go to the mat for this, and that’s what I’ve been able to discern just within my own network. Well, that’s reassuring. Well, that’s the way lawyers should be. We’re supposed to be objectionable, aren’t we? Yes. Why don’t we put that feature to good use? Yes, well, that’s exactly it. I would say from a temperamental perspective, lawyers are perfectly positioned to do that because they tend to be rather disagreeable and emotionally stable. So we do the rest of us, and I’m speaking as the member of another professional organization. We depend on you guys to be the bulwark against any incursions into our essential rights. And if you guys fold and go along with this, then it’s really not a good day for the English common law. That’s for sure. I think the English common law is one of the most remarkable achievements of civilization, of world civilization. It’s an absolute gift, an evolved legal system. It works unbelievably well. And to not object to serious challenges to it at a fundamental level means that we deserve whatever restrictions on our freedoms we accrue as a consequence of our cowardice. And to let that happen when we’re really just not paying attention would be the ultimate tragedy.