Thank you, Mr. Levitt, for warning the Canadian public about the tragic meaning of the loss of Dr. Jordan Peterson’s application to the Supreme Court of Canada for leave to appeal against the decision of the College of Psychologists of Ontario.
First, for those who do not know the author, Mr. Howard Levitt is senior partner of Levitt LLP, employment and labour lawyers (Ontario, but also Alberta and British Columbia). Of note, he practices employment law in eight provinces.
As a reminder, the decision in question wanted the stellar Dr. Peterson to undergo a “compulsory reeducation for various views expressed on social media, all of which were unrelated to the practice of psychology” (https://shorturl.at/qYg0v).
As Mr. Levitt explained, “the complaints which resulted in the college’s order were made by people who had never been his patients, and indeed, who had never met him. They were also mostly American and clearly politically motivated. I was honoured to act on Dr. Peterson’s appeal, but was not involved in the original decision that led to the appeal” (https://shorturl.at/qYg0v).
Sadly, “this decision is a tragic loss both for the 25 per cent of Canadians who are regulated by professional and trade associations and for Canadians generally. It is an invitation to extortion and the pursuit of personal vendettas, as anyone can now threaten a practitioner with loss of their professional licence by filing complaints against them to their professional associations” (https://shorturl.at/qYg0v).
“As for the punishment assigned to Dr. Peterson, he will attend the reeducation sessions and undoubtedly run intellectual circles around his “educators“. The very idea that Dr. Peterson, one of the masters of social media, requires social media training by comparative incompetents, is both risible and ludicrous”.
Mr. Levitt’s column is slightly longer, but Bambi selected some of its key parts, for your convenience. The bold text indicates the most worrisome as well as absurd parts.
Please do not make the mistake of thinking that this can only happen to others or to BIG names, like Dr. Jordan Peterson. Indeed, “You are Next” was Dr. Peterson’s title of the interview with Bambi about her own case. Now is her turn to borrow his own clever, yet worrisome, words: indeed, anyone can be next following his own legal decision.
Some may think highly of, and even like or are grateful to, Dr. Peterson (like Bambi) while others may be indifferent about his story. Yet others may be rejoicing because of his “assigned punishment“. If the latter option is where you find yourself, how about trying to be wiser now? In other terms, please do not fall into the trap of finding joy into Dr. Peterson’s legal disappointment. In case you did not know it, this emotion has a German-based name, which is schadenfreude (Schaden means harm while Freude means pleasure). Once again, your own future legal misfortune and/or absurd punishment (may God forbid) could also be the target of the schadenfreude of another unwise person.
This being said, Bambi thanks Mr. Levitt again while continuing to stand in full solidarity with Dr. Jordan’s Peterson’s right to write any thought on his social media platforms. It is up to us, the online readers (whether we are on social media or not, like Bambi), to decide whether we agree or not, to learn from him, and to grow.
Bambi is thankful to Dr. Peterson for his inspiring courage and for his willingness to make the next step as public as possible. Last but not least, bravo to him et al. for his new online academy (https://petersonacademy.com/). What an achievement and all the best!
To conclude this post, it is Bambi’s hope that professional associations, like the esteemed College of Psychologists of Ontario, will know how to re-commit to only protecting patients from harm within the practice of psychology.
Horrendous. Guilty before proven innocent. Healthcare professionals can’t give you their best expertise if they have to salute an ideology as loudly as possible. Dr. Peterson fought for the freedom of Canadians. And like Bambi says, even if you disagree with him, one day the spirit that inhabits these authoritarians will come for you. George Orwell got the title of his book wrong. It should’ve been 2024.
That’s exactly it: beyond the concept that regulatory bodies should at the very least be Charter-stopped from doing this kind of thing, and that the supposedly Conservative Ford government in Ontario hasn’t seen fit to change the legislation so as to prevent the regulators from doing this sort of thing is exactly what you said: how can I have any confidence that my healthcare provider is telling me what he really thinks?
The truth is, in this kind of environment, I can’t. At the very much, unless I know him personally and he trusts me, I’ll be looking for a whiff of hesitancy prior to a parroting of the official answer. Something along the lines of “It should be okay.” Or “The recommendation is to ___________.”, as opposed to something a bit more personal like “If I were you, I wouldn’t hesitate.” This crap has arrived to the point where it’ll actually, literally kill people.
I guess that’s what it was like in the Soviet Union, too.
In Quebec, they have entirely the opposite problem: no oversight at all by professional bodies, zero accountability and impossible to be taken seriously by the authorities. This is especially true if you refuse/can’t speak French with any body controlled by the provincial government. Doesn’t matter if the original services were given/refused/botched in English since agencies like the “Office des professions du Québec” do not have websites in English and refuse all service in English.
Therefore, all professional insurance sold to practitioners in Quebec is also useless as any quack or abuser of patients can claim the patient doesn’t understand French (or speaks too quickly in English) or whatever excuse they see fit. As I’ve said before, Quebec is a criminal organization known as Kebekistan and sadly, it’s spreading across Canada which is quickly becoming Canuckistan. Good luck to Dr. Peterson.
Bambi disagrees with you Fred when you use the term “criminal organization”, but she posted your comment because she believes in freedom of expression. By the way, can you clarify this point? Maybe you meant another word, could it be? Or maybe Bambi still uses words with as much precision as possible. Kebekistan is funny though. This being said, she is sorry for your experience with the services in English, etc. Québec lately made some odd choices with this regard. However, Bambi is saying so and she is francophone and francophile. She also loves Québec, as you know. How could she not love it when she is its Ambassador, to use your own terms :)? Mind you, she loves Canada with all its provinces, territories, coasts, etc.
“The very idea that Dr. Peterson, one of the masters of social media, requires social media training by comparative incompetents, is both risible and ludicrous”. This statement says it all. Good article.