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“As we approach the one-year anniversary of the so-called ‘Freedom Convoy’, the last thing we need is a far-right spokesperson taking center stage in our city.”
Posted on Jan 18, 2023 • 3 min read
8 comments File: Jordan Peterson speaks at the ICC Sydney Theater on February 26, 2019 in Sydney, Australia. Photo by Don Arnold/WireImage
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A coalition of community groups is asking Ottawa city council to back its call to cancel the Canadian Tire Center event featuring public intellectual and provocateur Jordan Peterson.
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Peterson, a best-selling author, clinical psychologist and professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, will hold the event at the arena on Jan. 30 as part of a North American lecture tour.
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The tour, launched last year in conjunction with Peterson’s book Beyond the Line: 12 More Rules for Living, is scheduled to stop in 27 cities over the next five months.
“As we approach the one-year anniversary of the so-called ‘Freedom Convoy,’ the last thing we need is a far-right spokesperson taking center stage in our city,” said Jaime Sadgrove, communications and advocacy manager for the Canadian Center on Gender and Sexual Diversity, one of 36 local organizations calling for the event to be canceled in an open letter.
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Other signatories include the Council of Canadians, Horizon Ottawa, Centretown Community Health Centre, the Ottawa Coalition to End Violence Against Women and the Ottawa Historical Fencing Society.
Faye Johnstone is the executive director of Wisdom2Action, one of 36 local organizations calling for Jordan Peterson’s upcoming event at the Canadian Tire Center to be canceled. Photo by ERROL MCGIHON / Postmedia
Faye Johnston, a trans woman and executive director of the consulting firm Wisdom2Action, said marginalized people in Ottawa have “been through enough.
“On the first anniversary of the convoy, it’s a slap in the face to have him, of all people, come to our capital,” Johnstone said.
Peterson did not return a request for comment on the coalition’s open letter.
Johnstone said the hateful rhetoric Peterson has directed at transgender people means he should not be given a public forum in Ottawa — especially so close to the first anniversary of the Freedom Convoy.
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Peterson supported last year’s truckers’ protest and praised them for their political achievements and peacefulness.
“I would like to congratulate all of you for your diligence and work to achieve what you have achieved under difficult conditions and for keeping your heads in a way that is actually a model for the whole world,” Peterson said in an online message to protesters during last year’s occupation of downtown Ottawa.
Johnston called his support for the convoy “shameful”.
“We don’t want him in our city, we don’t want him given a platform,” Johnstone said. “His message puts marginalized people at risk.”
As evidence, Johnstone pointed to a tweet Peterson posted on Feb. 18 in response to a post by Kathryn McKenney that depicted the then-councilman walking downtown with colleagues Shawn Menard and Jeff Leiper after the truckers were chased away by police.
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“We’re on Bank St. in Centretown, where it feels … at ease,” McKenney wrote.
In a tweet linked to McKenney’s post, Peterson wrote: “You horrible self-righteous moralizing thing.”
McKenney identifies as trans/nonbinary and uses te/them pronouns.
Months later, in June, Peterson was suspended from Twitter for violating its hate speech policy for suggesting that the surgeon who performed the top surgery on actor Elliott Page was a “criminal doctor.”
The complaints about the tweet are part of a disciplinary case launched by the Ontario College of Psychologists against Peterson based on his social media posts and other online comments.
Peterson defended his tweet, saying his view on medicine is “first do no harm.”
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Peterson rose to prominence in 2016 when he publicly opposed Bill C-16, federal legislation that added gender identity and expression to the prohibited grounds of discrimination in the Canadian Human Rights Act.
Peterson argued that the legislation would criminalize his refusal to use a person’s preferred pronouns.
Peterson also condemned the University of Toronto’s mandatory anti-bias training, which he says is based on pseudoscience.
“I hit the hornet’s nest at the right time,” he once told the Citizen, explaining his sudden rise to international prominence.
His book, 12 Rules for Living: An Antidote to Chaos, has been on Amazon’s bestseller list for 256 weeks, while New York Times columnist David Brooks called him the most influential public intellectual in the Western world and compared him to a conservative author and commentator William F. Buckley.
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Peterson said his work has helped tens of thousands of people, mostly young men, find purpose, meaning and direction in their lives.
This is not the first time protesters have tried to cancel Peterson’s appearance in Ottawa.
In May 2017, when Peterson was invited to speak at the National Gallery of Canada on the psychology of creativity, protesters demanded that the institution cancel his appearance. It continued with an overflow crowd that forced hundreds of people to be turned away at the doors.
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