Roger Song v. Law Society

November 16, 2023, PRESS RELEASE

On October 27, 2023, Alberta lawyer Roger Song filed a public-interest lawsuit against the Law Society of Alberta to defend professional independence in Alberta.

Song was born in China just prior to the chaos and destruction of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution. In the late 1980s Song taught international law at Peking University. Song’s students participated in the Tiananmen Square protests that were violently put-down by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1989. For a decade Song acted as in-house legal counsel to major international energy corporations in Hong Kong and China. Song was called to the New York bar in 1996 and to the Alberta bar in 2014 at age 50.

Song immigrated to Canada in 2000 to live in a free and democratic society:

“My whole life I had been indoctrinated into socialist ideology. It made me a follower of the CCP. But the freedom of conscience I enjoyed in Canada lead me to the greatest gift of my life. In 2004 I became a follower of Jesus Christ.”

Song alleges in his originating application that the Law Society has assumed a political objective which violates the Law Society’s primary duty: ensuring the public has access to loyal and competent legal counsel. Song alleges this violates the rule of law as it tends to prejudice lawyers against core Canadian constitutional principles including:

1. parliamentary sovereignty;
2. democracy, including freedom of conscience and expression;
3. constitutionalism and the rule of law;
4. recognition of the inherent and equal dignity of each individual;
5. personal freedom and respect for minorities including religious minorities; and
6. reason, including objectivity and science.

As explained in his supporting affidavit, Song believes the Law Society’s promotion of “cultural competency” objectives, including mandatory re-education, is similar in form and content to the CCP’s concept of “politically qualified” which was applied to make sure institutions, including the Chinese legal profession, were populated with ideological loyalists. Commenting on mandatory “cultural competency” training, Song deposes:

“I was shocked that, in order to practice law in Canada I was, just as in China, being compelled to submit to reeducation in matters of law, history, politics, society, economics, morality, spirituality, and culture … I found myself captured in the jaws from which I had escaped.”

Song’s late father, Xin, Ziling (aka Ke Song 1935 to 2021), a veteran member of both the CCP and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, authored and published biographies on Mao in Hong Kong and Taiwan exposing the devastating destruction utopian socialist ideology had inflicted on the China people, including 37 million who starved to death during the “Great Leap Forward”.

Song also alleges the Law Society’s political objective violates his freedoms of religion, conscience, and expression guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As a Christian, Song’s religious beliefs include that God, and not political ideology, is the supreme source of universal truth and morality, that people have inherent individual dignity and worth, and that people are essentially the same, regardless of race.

Song’s application is supported by an expert opinion from Dr. Joanna Williams, author of How Woke Won: The Elitist Movement That Threatens Democracy, Tolerance and Reason. Williams reviewed Law Society materials, including its mandatory “cultural competency” training and its new standards of “professionalism,” and found they contain post-modern ideologies: critical race theory; post-colonialism; and gender theory. Dr. Williams says these ideologies: assert that “inequitable” or “colonial” laws are illegitimate; promote racial discrimination; discredit alternate viewpoints as systemic discrimination; and similarly discredit objectivity, science, and reason.  Song alleges these ideologies are, therefore, hostile to liberal democracy.

Song’s public interest lawsuit is being supported, in part, by the Council of Alberta Lawyers (CAL), a registered Society of Alberta lawyers defending legal professionalism under Canada’s liberal democratic Constitution.

Song is represented by Alberta lawyer, Glenn Blackett. Mr. Blackett has written a number of published columns on the Law Society’s Political objective, which have been posted to CAL’s “perspectives” web page. Submissions of other perspectives are welcome.

Media requests may be directed to Glenn Blackett, below.