OTTAWA (LifeSiteNews) – Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) leader Pierre Poilievre is defending psychologist Jordan Peterson after the best-selling Canadian author was told to submit to mandatory social media “communication retraining” or face punishment because of his political views.
In a video posted Friday on Twitter, Poilievre said the Ontario College of Psychologists’ decision to mandate Peterson be retrained on social media or lose his license is something that “should not” happen in Canada.
“It should go without saying that in a free country, professionals should not lose their jobs and licenses because they express a political opinion contrary to the licensing body that’s mandated by the government,” Poilievre said in a video posted on his Twitter account.
Poilievre noted that due to his support of Peterson, he full well expects the “liberal critics in the media” to come after him.
However, he noted that just because he supports Peterson’s right to freedom of speech does not mean he agrees with everything everyone says.
He continued, saying, “I’m sure there are some things he’s posted that I do object to, but that is not the point. Because freedom of speech only matters when you disagree.”
Last Tuesday, Peterson tweeted that the Ontario College of Psychologists had demanded that he “submit [himself] to mandatory social-media communication retraining.” Failure to do so would mean a suspension of his license, the organization said.
Peterson noted that he had been accused of causing harm to “people” but noted none of these persons were his clients.
He posted on Twitter the demands from the psychologists’ group regarding his “re-education.”
About these demands, Peterson noted, “I have formally indicated my refusal to comply.”
He said that he believes he’s being targeted for speaking out against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and supporting the CPC under Poilievre.
Yesterday, Peterson told Canadians to “wake up.”
“Wake up, citizens: professionals are now required to hold their tongue if they believe anything politically verboten. For all you leaning to the left — sometimes validly: these precedents will eventually be weaponized by those who stand opposed to you,” he tweeted.
Yesterday, Peterson tweeted that he thinks “there’s a 50% chance that @CPOntario will prevail in imposing its sentence and suspending my licence, despite whatever degree of public support there might be for my case.”
“Canada is a lot farther gone than it might appear,” he added.
Poilievre: Professionals being canceled for speaking their minds is not the ‘Canada we want’
Poilievre said in his defense of Peterson that if “we all agreed, we wouldn’t need freedom of speech.”
“Because no one has ever tried to censor someone for saying something that they agree with. It is only about when there’s a disagreement that it matters,” he added.
He also noted that what makes Canada different from dictatorships is that “dictators don’t censor things their citizens say that the dictator agrees with, only things they disagree with.”
Poilievre said that in Canada the “cancel culture and the woke movement we’ve seen at university campuses and in the media,” as well as “big, powerful corporations” and Peterson’s “professional licensing body,” is not what good for the country.
“We’re seeing the idea that someone can lose their job, their status, their ability to study because they express something that is contrary to the government line. Now, I don’t believe that is the Canada we want,” Poilievre said.
“We have section to be the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to be or not to be. That is the question. And the answer is that, as Voltaire has been quoted as saying, I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to my death your right to say it.”
As for Peterson, last week he noted that the incident is a warning to Canadians about the censorship of professionals.
“Canadians: your physicians, lawyers, psychologists and other professionals are now so intimidated by their commissar overlords that they fear to tell you the truth. This means that your care and legal counsel has been rendered dangerously unreliable,” he said.
Peterson has promised that he will ensure that all “allegations and my responses as public as possible while abiding by the ethical and legal restrictions on doing so (and least insofar as those rules are clear and commensurate with truth and a reasonable defence.)”