SLOBODIAN: Who do these people think they are who say Jordan Peterson isn't entitled to his opinions?

It’s laughable that the great Dr. Jordan Peterson was ordered to pay to attend compulsory and “indefinite” re-education camp or risk losing his licence for views expressed on social media.The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed Peterson’s appeal of the order. He said he’ll comply.Peterson posted on X that he’s “bereft of options on the legal front in Canada.”“This is a hill that's worth not so much dying on as retaking and now boys and girls the gloves are off,” said Peterson.Pity whoever foolishly tries to train him to buckle to the College of Psychologists of Ontario’s (Justin Trudeau’s) ever-narrowing permitted speech guidelines. Whoa! to whoever arrogantly faces this formidable force. Hope they get the shame and comeuppance they deserve for jumping on the ‘get Peterson’ and stomp on free speech in Canada bandwagon.Chances are they’ll be shellshocked when that brilliant mind hammers them with his superior intellect, truth, and rationale that countless millions trust, respect, and admire.“The idea that Jordan Peterson, one of the masters of social media, requires social media training by comparative incompetents, is risible and ludicrous,” his lawyer Howard Levitt, senior partner with Levitt LLP with offices in Ontario, Alberta, and BC, said in an interview. “It’s ironic and tragic.”They’ll ‘educate’ him at his expense “for as long as they think appropriate.”“What I would do is I’d probably want it videotaped and ask them some pretty tough f***ing questions. That’s what I’d do if I were him.”“I think he might have a lot of fun.”Peterson’s prepped to fight despite years of being hounded over complaints made for views he expressed unrelated to psychology. In 2022, the College determined Peterson’s social media posts were “degrading, demeaning and unprofessional.”The Supreme Court appeal followed a dismissal by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice’s dismissal of his application for a judicial review and a dismissal by the Court of Appeal. He has spent “hundreds of thousands” on legal fees.“I’m sure they’re rubbing their hands at costs they put him through,” said Levitt.“Well, he’s resilient. He takes things personally. But he’s been through this particular battle now for a few years … So, I think he’s now ready for the fight.”Peterson called the pack trying to take him down “petty tyrants” offering him up as a “sacrificial lamb” with a greater goal to control truthful speech they don’t like.The Supreme Court decision, offering no reasons, has serious repercussions.“This is really a blow to free speech in Canada. Like a serious blow,” said Peterson on his daughter Mikhaila Peterson’s podcast.“Let's reiterate that this Supreme Court of Canada is now decided that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the much-vaunted Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, is essentially irrelevant when it comes to how professionals will be governed by their own professional organizations. Which essentially means that all regulated professionals in Canada have no freedom of speech. So that's where we're at. That's terrible. It's terrible,” said Peterson.Levitt said it’ll be “impossible” for the 25% of Canadians who are members of regulated Canadian trade and professional associations to know what’s permitted speech “that could change constantly as the politics of their associations change.”“There will be different ‘permitted’ speech between different associations and over time leaving Canadians fearful of sanction for what had always been protected speech and free speech will be chilled as result of fear of reprisal by their professional bodies.”“There’s nothing set out. And if the body membership changes, that is those in disciplinary capacity, then they’ll have different political views. What they find acceptable will change,” he said referring to the legal profession.“With doctors something else. Different standards everywhere. The standards will always be evolving as the members of the panels change. So, you don’t know what you’re going to be disciplined for unless it’s pure pablum, you won’t be disciplined for that. But anything controversial it could be offensive to somebody. And all of a sudden, you’re before the law society or medical association or whoever the case might be.”“Most lawyers will writhe in panic when they get a letter from the law society. No one wants that. So, they’ll simply be quiescent.”Few have Peterson’s financial resources to fight losing their licenses or appeal to the highest court “so will resort to caution rather than vigorous debate which our freedom had always been premised on.”If they take down Peterson, they can take down “Joe or Shirley Smith” who don’t have resources.The Supreme Court essentially declared it open season for anyone to go after anyone on personal bias or political motivation whims.“It is an invitation to extortion and to levying personnel vendettas by threatening people with loss of their professional licenses if a complaint is made against them that something they said or wrote might offend the sensibilities of their regulatory bodies.”People who buck the narrative pay.“Look, I’m an employment and labour lawyer with 46 years’ experience, so I don’t find it surprising at all.”.He pointed to BC nurse Amy Hamm facing a disciplinary hearing for — privately not at work — supporting author J.K. Rowling’s sexual minority and transgender views that included sponsoring a billboard that said: “l love J.K. Rowling.” And a Quebec doctor ordered to take re-education and suspended three months for discussing the use of pronouns and the sex of a transgender patient who was genetically female.“The important message, the one you don’t want to get across, is people have to be timorous now. They can’t exercise their free speech comfortably as our freedoms are based upon,” said Levitt.“They have to be worried about political enemies or extortionists threatening anything that’s a little off-colour or offside to be reported to the professional association that lose the right to practice their profession. That’s not a comforting message I want to get around, but that’s the message.”Peterson’s battle began in 2016 but ramped up over the past three years when complaints were lodged with the College.“A bunch of strangers. Nobody knows, nobody’s ever met. And most of them are Americans. Not even Canadians, not even Ontarians. Certainly not patients. We know that none were patients,” said Levitt.Complaints centred on tweets Peterson made about COVID public health mandates and comments during an appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast.A College panel particularly took issue with Peterson calling they/them pronoun Ottawa city councillor Catherine McKenney an “appalling self-righteous moralizing thing.”Peterson who blasts the climate hoax once called former Trudeau advisor Gerald Butts a “prik.”“Remember when pride was a sin. And Ellen Page just had her breasts removed by a criminal physician,” posted Peterson not calling the transgender by the new Elliot Page name.When Sports Illustrated’s cover featured a plus-sized model, Peterson posted: “Sorry. Not beautiful. And no amount of authoritarian tolerance is going to change that.”Peterson was on fire during his daughter’s podcast following the Supreme Court decision.“I’ll be sitting down with an expert, whatever that means. And they're going to do whatever it is they think they can do to make me into an entirely different sort of creature than I am. And so, I'm sort of morbidly curious about that. Yeah, the re- education of Jordan Peterson. Coming to the airwaves soon,” he said, promising to make it as public as possible.“And I would say more than that, they want to retrain me with regard to how I conduct myself as a public intellectual, let's say. So, in that retraining is, of course, at my expense with their deemed expert, they have someone who styles herself, I believe, a social media expert, whatever the hell that is. And apparently, they believe that her intercession in my affairs will bring me to heel. That's the plan.”Peterson said the goal is to get him to apologize for stands he’s taken.“I've been very vociferous in my objection to the butchery of children and their sterilization, which I regard as a crime against humanity, by the way, and which my fellow colleagues on the psychological, psychiatric and medical front prove themselves none too courageous in imposing shall we put it that way.”“And I'm perfectly happy about what I've said on all those fronts because I regard what's happening with regards to so-called gender affirming care as the worst professional scandal I would say since World War Two.”If disputing unevidenced claims by “the gender affirming ideological monstrous sterilizers and mutilators of children” is something they’re going after them for, Peterson says: “Bring it on you sons of bi*ches.”Peterson’s no Trudeau fan.“He's an incompetent narcissist who's made Canada a much worse place and he certainly not done with that yet.”“The climate scam is a preposterous pack of lies generated by people whose fundamental aim is nothing but power and control … I don't regret what I said about the bloody climate apocalypse mongers. So I go to hell, you pikers. You think you're going to save the world by making energy too expensive for poor people to live? That's your theory? That's a stupid theory, and it's worse than stupid. It's evil.”The best-selling author and sought-after speaker hasn’t had an active clinical practice since 2017, but remains a member of the College despite not being “thrilled about being a member of their club.”He remains partly due to “pure stubbornness.“It's like I'm not going to let a pack of half-witted ideological jackanapes steal something from me under the guise of moral intervention that I worked very hard to attain, that was difficult to attain, that was at one point very valid, and that I have served with distinction and appropriately the entire time.”“I suppose I will play out the charade until they decide that I'm incorrigible and then they'll take my license, which is the goal anyways ..."