Law Society of Alberta disbars Calgary lawyers who had Manitoba judge followed

The deuce Calgary lawyers who hired a buck private investigator to come after and snap a Manitoba adjudicate in hopes of catching him breaching COVID-19 public health restrictions have been disbarred by the Law Society of Alberta, which found their professional misconduct amounted to "an attack on judicial independence."

John Carpay, the president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) and its then-litigation director Jay Cameron can no longer practise law in Alberta. 

"The public must know that lawyers do not and cannot engage in this misconduct," reads the 18-page decision released Tuesday. 

The lawyers were found guilty of professional misconduct for failing to act with honour and with integrity.

Alain Hepner and Alex Steigerwald, lawyers for Carpay and Cameron, say they are considering appealing.

In a statement posted to the JCCF website, Carpay called the disbarment decision a "vindictive abuse of process."

In December 2023, Carpay submitted a letter of resignation to the Law Society of Alberta that it "refused to accept," according to the JCCF.

"The Alberta Law Society's decision to refuse Mr. Carpay's resignation, and to commence brand new disciplinary proceedings over the same issues after delegating the matter to the Manitoba Law Society, is a vindictive and petty abuse of process," reads part of the statement on the justice centre's website. 

In 2021, Carpay and Cameron were involved in a court case challenging the constitutionality of the province's COVID-19 restrictions, presided over by Manitoba Justice Glenn Joyal. 

In June of that year, the pair hired a private investigator to take photos of Joyal in hopes of catching the judge breaching pandemic-era provincial restrictions.

Joyal noticed he was being followed and called the parties into his courtroom on June 12, 2021. When confronted by the judge, Carpay admitted he'd hired the private investigator. The judge also learned that day that an agent of the investigator had come to his home and spoken with his daughter. 

"The lawyers' misconduct was an attack on judicial independence," wrote the law society panel in its hearing committee report.

"An independent judiciary is essential to the rule of law. Whether the lawyer respects the person occupying the judicial office, the lawyer must respect the office."

The committee found that the decision to have the judge followed "was more than an error in judgment."

"The lawyers knew that they had breached their ethical obligations, if not the law," reads the report. 

At the hearing in May, Carpay testified and expressed remorse and called the decision to hire a private investigator "the worst error in judgment I've ever made in my legal career."

But in the statement he recently posted to the JCCF website, Carpay defends that decision.

"The surveillance was performed in June 2021, for no other reason than to illuminate a legitimate public policy question," he writes. "Were politicians and judges complying with the stringent Covid restrictions that they themselves had imposed on the public?"

The panel also expressed concern with Carpay's version of events, finding his testimony to be "rife with inconsistencies, gaps, improbabilities, and at least one falsehood."

"We find that Mr. Carpay is an unreliable historian with a convenient memory."

Carpay testified that he'd forgotten about emails between him and Cameron arranging to hire the investigator.

He also said that having Joyal followed had nothing to do with the court case the judge was presiding over despite filing the private investigator's invoicing as a "litigation expense." 

Carpay also said that he didn't remember instructing Cameron to tell the investigator that they should delete all correspondence and not talk to the police but conceded it was possible he'd given those instructions.

Carpay and Cameron are already banned for life from practising in Manitoba, and they are currently serving a three-year Canada-wide ban – a condition of a peace bond the lawyers entered into in exchange for their criminal charges of obstruction of justice and intimidating a justice system participant being withdrawn. 

At the hearing in May, Cameron's lawyer Alex Steigerwald argued that his client should be suspended until the expiry of the Manitoba peace bond on Oct. 26, 2026, while Carpay's lawyer Alain Hepner asked the panel to consider a two-year suspension.

But the law society found that "the gravity of this misconduct cannot be understated."

"We have concluded that there is no disciplinary measure short of disbarment that can achieve the 'most fundamental' goal of maintaining the reputation of the profession."

2 lawyers involved in judge surveillance case fined, barred from Manitoba courts

The hearing committee also ordered Carpay and Cameron to pay $7,457.50 and $5,270.63, respectively, in costs. 

In May, Steigerwald told the panel that his client is the sole breadwinner for his family and hasn't been able to practise law since 2022. Cameron's reputation, said Steigerwald, has been "irreversibly tarnished" and he's experienced "professional disgrace." 

Meghan Grant is a justice affairs reporter. She has been covering courts, crime and stories of police accountability in southern Alberta for more than a decade. Send Meghan a story tip at meghan.grant@cbc.ca.

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