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.
