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Status: The Regulated Professions Neutrality Act received royal assent on December 11, 2025
Ministry responsible: Justice, Advanced Education, Education and Childcare, Primary and Preventative Health Services, and Service Alberta and Red Tape Reduction
Overview
The Regulated Professions Neutrality Act, will ensure regulated professionals may freely express themselves while still being entitled to fair treatment by professional regulatory bodies. It will apply to all regulated professions in Alberta, including occupations and skilled trades, even if there is a difference between the act’s rules and other legislation that governs professional regulatory bodies.
Key changes for all regulated professionals
Freedom of expression
The legislation will prevent regulators from disciplining professionals for conduct that is expressive and occurs when the professional is off-duty, subject to narrow exceptions. Conduct is expressive when it conveys or attempts to convey meaning, but this does not include physical violence or property damage.
Some expressive conduct that occurs off-duty can still be disciplined if it involves:
- threats of physical violence
- misconduct involving professional boundaries
- misuse of the professional’s position as a member of their profession with the intent to harm an identifiable person
- certain sexual misconduct
- conduct for which the professional has been convicted of an offence
For these exceptions to apply, other laws that govern how professionals are regulated must be updated.
Mandatory education or training
The legislation will also prevent regulators from making education or training mandatory unless it relates to professional competence and ethics. Regulators will not be permitted to make cultural competency, unconscious bias, or diversity, equity and inclusion education or training mandatory. Regulators will only be able to require education or training that addresses political, historical, social or cultural issues if it directly relates to a matter of professional competence or ethics, and otherwise meets the specific requirements of the act.
Neutrality of regulators
Regulators will not be permitted to arbitrarily assign value or blame, or give people preferential or adverse treatment to achieve diversity, equity and inclusion, based on:
- race
- colour
- ancestry
- national or ethnic origin
- religious belief
- political belief
- conscientious belief
- sex
- sexual orientation
- gender identity
Legal standard of review
The legislation will also set a consistent standard of review for courts and internal appeal bodies to follow. This standard of review will apply when there are judicial reviews or appeals of decisions that a regulator made, which involve questions about:
- the regulator’s compliance with the Regulated Professions Neutrality Act, or
- rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or the Alberta Bill of Rights
Additional changes for specific professional groups
Several existing laws that govern regulated professionals will be updated along with the legislation.
Professions under the Professional Governance Act
Amendments will allow professional regulatory organizations to discipline professionals for behaviour that is expressive and occurs off-duty only if it falls under the exceptions in the act.
Teachers and teacher leaders
Amendments to the Education Act and related regulations will ensure student safety by allowing the Minister of Education to continue disciplining teachers and teacher leaders for behaviour that is expressive and occurs off-duty, provided it falls under the exceptions in the act.
Affected professions
- Teacher
- Teacher Leader
Legal professions
Amendments will allow the Law Society of Alberta to discipline behaviour that is expressive and occurs off-duty only if it falls under the exceptions in the act.
Affected professions
- Lawyers/Student-at-Law
Health professionals
Amendments to the Health Professions Act will authorize all 29-health profession regulatory colleges to discipline their members for behaviour that is expressive and occurs off-duty only if it falls under the exceptions the act.
Professionals governed by Service Alberta and Red Tape Reduction
Amendments will allow professional regulatory organizations to discipline professionals for behaviour that is expressive and occurs off-duty only if it falls under the exceptions in the act.
All other professionals and tradespeople
The Regulated Professions Neutrality Act applies to other professions without any further changes. Regulators in these professions will not be able to discipline members for any expressive conduct that occurs off-duty. In some cases, these professions are only regulated in terms of who may legally work within the scope of the profession, and there is no governing regulatory body that receives complaints regarding an individual’s conduct, expressive or otherwise.
Resources
Next steps
The Regulated Professions Neutrality Act will take effect upon proclamation.
News
- Free expression for regulated professionals (November 20, 2025)
- Protecting Albertans’ rights and freedoms (October 23, 2024)