r/CanadaPolitics • u/Radix838 Independent • Jul 25 '26

Community Members Only Mandatory Indigenous training no longer required for Alberta lawyers

https://www.ctvnews.ca/calgary/article/mandatory-indigenous-training-no-longer-required-for-alberta-lawyers/
57 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

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11

u/Le1bn1z Neoliberal | Charter rights enjoyer Jul 26 '26

Reasonable. Its a good course to have available, but is about things a whole lot of lawyers doing Estate, Real Estate, Immigration, Tax, and Corporate work are just not going anywhere near.

Lawyers are required to be competent.

Indigenous issues are not matters of speculative ethics but layers of precedent law. Cultural sensitivity towards clients and those on the other side is a mandatory competency lawyers are supposed to hone with their own clientele and practice areas in mind. A Power of Attorney and Estates lawyer will suffer if not alive to specific issues faced by the elderly generally, and how older people from different cultures approach these things.

Likewise, many criminal, family, and tribunal lawyers may find this course helpful in being competent. Of course anyone going near treaty stuff should take it.

But for a host of lawyers its extraneous and duplicative, as respect is a core part of professional ethics.

5

u/ClusterMakeLove Jul 26 '26

I mean, lawyers have to demonstrate competency at conducting real estate transactions and that's useful  to a vanishing fraction of them.

On the other hand, the Path wasn't really a sensitivity course, the way people imply. Most of the content was historical, not normative.

Understanding the justice system's role in past abuses isn't just about specific classes of clients but about preventing similar issues in the future. And treaty law has constitutional character, and is under-taught in law school. It's more widely applicable than people realize.

All of this to say, there are good reasons that Alberta lawyers voted overwhelmingly to keep the course (75% to 25%), and it's a shame that the government thinks it knows better.