Dr Jordan B Peterson blasted Canada’s “commissars” and penned a scathing letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Tuesday after a leading association of his fellow psychologists threatened to go after his license to practice clinical psychology over social media criticisms of the nation’s far-Left government.
The College of Psychologists of Ontario ordered the best-selling author and Daily Wire+ host to undergo “social media communications retraining” or face a hearing on the potential suspension of his medical license. In the letter to Trudeau, Peterson vowed not to participate in the process and decried the effort to stifle free speech.
The current grievance against Peterson is just the latest of several investigated by the college, with prior complaints having been dismissed. Peterson’s latest alleged transgressions include retweeting Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre’s criticism of Trudeau, blasting Trudeau’s former senior aide, Gerald Butts, and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, tweeting opposition to a plan by Ottawa police to take custody of the children of the Trucker Convoy protesters, and telling Joe Rogan’s podcast audience that acceptance of radical gender theory is a sign of “civilizations collapsing” and that climate change models are unreliable.
Peterson called Butts a “stunningly corrupt and incendiary fool” and a “prik” in a pair of February tweets. In another tweet in February, at the height of Canada’s trucker protest against vaccine mandates, Peterson called Trudeau a “Puppet.” The tweets were among a tranche sent to the college in early March by an anonymous complainant.
College Executive Director Rick Morris said he reviewed the tweets, as well as a transcript from Peterson’s January 25, 2022, appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, and determined they warranted an investigation. The probe appears to have been expanded to include subsequent social media posts by Peterson, including a May Twitter post in which he criticized Sports Illustrated for putting plus-sized swimsuit model Yumi Nu on the cover.
“Sorry. Not beautiful,” he wrote. “And no amount of authoritarian tolerance is going to change that.”
