MONTREAL – Montreal-based lawyer and longtime English-language rights crusader Brent Tyler has been disbarred for failing to complete 30 hours of refresher training.
In its most recent newsletter, published last week, the Quebec bar confirmed that Tyler is no longer licensed to practice law in the province.
He is among about 70 lawyers – more than half based in Montreal – who failed to complete the required training between April 1, 2009 and March 31, 2011.
“The continuing training became obligatory in April of 2009, and we established a first reference period of two years,” said bar spokesperson Martine Meilleur.
The members were reminded several times about the new requirement via the bar’s regular newsletter, Meilleur said, and those who failed to meet the deadline were granted a “reasonable” grace period after March 31 to get themselves up to speed.
“The members who were late received written letters to inform them,” she added.
In the end, 99.7 per cent of the bar’s 22,500 members submitted electronic proof that they had completed the training, which is loosely defined as an activity, seminar, course or conference offered by either the Quebec Bar or individual law firms that is related to the practice of law in the province.
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The remaining 0.3 per cent had their licenses suspended.
Tyler confirmed he received notification of his disbarment in late October as soon as the decision had been made, but he had no comment when asked why he didn’t complete the training.
“I’d rather not get into it,” he said. “My comment is that I will do everything I have to do to conform to the requirements.”
Tyler said he has already started working on clocking the requisite hours. He expects to be finished by the end of November, and said he hopes to have his licence back by January.
“I’ve advised my clients of this inconvenience and made sure that they had representation where required in the meantime,” he added.
“I certainly won’t let this happen again, I can tell you that.”
Meilleur said Tyler and the other disbarred members will have to pay a fee and submit a formal request to be reinstated, which will be examined by the bar’s readmissions committee in December.
Tyler is best known for his various high-profile legal challenges to Bill 101, Quebec’s French Language Charter. He served as spokesman for the partitionist Special Committee for Canadian Unity and chairman of the Châteauguay Valley English-Speaking People’s Association, a hard-line anglo-rights group.
He also ran unsuccessfully for the English-rights Equality Party in the 1994 provincial election.
In 1996, he made headlines again as a result of a violent altercation with a pedestrian, Wayne Johnson. Tyler was convicted of assault after getting out of his vehicle, kicking Johnson several times and then driving away.
More recently, Tyler represented 25 Quebec families who waged a long-running battle against Bill 104, an amendment to the French Language Charter that tightened access to English schooling in the province. That case went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, which ruled in 2009 that the law was unconstitutional in that it excessively infringed on provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
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