Albertans are within their rights to wonder if it’s OK for any Alberta lawyer to throw a tantrum in their neighbour’s driveway in light of the ruling by the Alberta Law Society yesterday that former United Conservative Party health minister Tyler Shandro was not behaving unprofessionally when he melted down in such circumstances over a critical social media post.
It would seem that the answer is yes.
Of course, it’s hard to know what another Law Society panel might conclude in a similar circumstance involving a different lawyer, perhaps a younger one or one with fewer friends in high places. Possibly nothing different.
The law being what it is and its practitioners what they are, counsel for future lawyers who find themselves facing similar accusations are bound to raise the decision in Shandro’s case in their arguments for similar treatment, which it must be said would be an entirely reasonable approach to take.
In its majority decision, that is to say not a unanimous one, the three-member panel wrote that while Shandro’s behaviour in three separate circumstances in 2020 that resulted in complaints was “at times inappropriate,” the inappropriateness of his behaviour “did not rise to the level of conduct deserving of sanction.”
Therefore, they concluded, “Mr. Shandro is not guilty on all three Citations.” The other two complaints involved Shandro calling physicians on their personal cellular phones and threatening to send the authorities after a woman who criticized his wife’s business.
The dissenting voice that was that of the panel’s public adjudicator, who wrote she that found Shandro’s conduct in Dr. Mukarram Zaidi’s driveway on March 21, 2020, likely “to harm the standing of the legal profession generally” and therefore worthy of sanction.
To many of us, including many Alberta lawyers privately in the company of their learned friends I am sure, it seems unlikely this outcome will heighten the esteem in which their profession is held in society.
And to most of us, the distinction between inappropriate and unprofessional is simply too fine a point to bother trying to see the difference.
Indeed, the Law Society’s own Code of Conduct would seem to support that sort of pragmatic approach.
“While the Society’s primary concern is with conduct that calls into question a lawyer’s suitability to practise law or that reflects poorly on the profession, lawyers should aspire to the highest standards of behaviour at all times and not just when acting as lawyers,” says the commentary included in the Code on the section that deals with professional integrity.
“Membership in a professional body is often considered evidence of good character in itself,” the commentary continues. “Consequently, society’s expectations of lawyers will be high, and the behaviour of an individual lawyer may affect generally held opinions of the profession and the legal system.”
But what is the point of the law if it isn’t about nice distinctions and precise definitions, eh?
So no one should be shocked by yesterday’s outcome. It is said here that most professional codes of conduct are highly aspirational, and likely to be inconsistent in application. Indeed, in Alberta the whole concept of the rule of law, it can be fairly argued, is more of a polite fiction that an actual guiding principle of society.
For his part, Shandro quickly declared himself to have been exonerated and vindicated.
“These complaints were the culmination of years of politically fuelled personal attacks on me and my family,” he wrote in a letter posted on his Facebook account. “These complains were also based on false allegations, and I have maintained the allegations were baseless and frivolous.”
“Today I am pleased to have been exonerated,” he continued. “… I am pleased to put this matter behind me, and I applaud the decision of the panel for today’s vindication.”
While this may be true in technical sense – one need only look up the definitions of those words in one’s online dictionaries – the implications of Shandro’s “inappropriate” actions will continue to have political consequences for a long time yet.
Meanwhile, though, despite having been one of the most controversial and unpopular health ministers in Alberta history, Shandro can now get on with his new role as a member of the board of Covenant Health.
Perhaps the Roman Catholic Church owned, publicly financed health system can now put out a press release announcing Shandro’s appointment, which occurred without public acknowledgement in December 2023.
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