their skills, and ensure that they adhere to accepted ethical and professional standards in their practices….


CPD programs serve this public interest and enhance confidence in the legal profession by requiring lawyers to participate, on an ongoing basis, in activities that enhance their skills, integrity and professionalism. CPD program have in fact become an essential aspect of professional education in Canada.


To ensure that those standards have an effect, the Law Society must establish consequences for those who fail to adhere to them. As a practical matter, an unenforced educational standard is not a standard at all, but is merely aspirational.


A suspension is a reasonable way to ensure that lawyers comply with the CPD program’s educational requirements. Its purpose relates to compliance, not to punishment


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or professional competence. Other consequences, such as fines, may not ensure that the Law Society members comply with these requirements. An educational program that one can opt out of by paying a fine is not genuinely universal.


I have quoted extensively from this SCC court case to give readers access to the thoroughness of the decision and to the thoughtful reasoning that informed it. Also, it is reasonable to conclude that: the views expressed about the significance of the legislative statutory authority granted to regulatory bodies to protect the public interest, the considerable discretion given to regulators to pursue this mandate, and the importance of continuing professional development as a contemporary quality assurance requirement, can be applied to all professional regulatory bodies including those that regulate counsellors and psychotherapists.


VOL. 50 NO. 2 | SPRING 2018


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