By Anthony Murdoch
The free speech advocate said the College of Psychologists of Ontario mistakenly thought he could ‘be bought’ after losing his court appeal challenging that he submit to social media training to keep his license.
Best-selling Canadian author and clinical psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson says his regulatory college offered him a deal to “be bought” in which the legal fees owed to them after losing his court challenge could be waived but only if he agreed to quit his job as a psychologist.
Peterson, who gained fame for his vigorous defense of free speech, announced the offer, as he put it, “to be bought” from the College of Psychologists of Ontario (CPO) in an opinion piece posted by the National Post on October 11. He said that lawyers from the CPO told him that “a settlement offer might be possible” if he resigned, but doing so would bar him from being able to practice in the province.
He noted the CPO’s “first offer was (get this — and I still can’t believe it): ‘If Dr. Peterson agrees to resign, we would be willing to forgo the legal costs the court ruled he owes us!’”
Peterson observed that the CPO’s “opening gambit was based on the assumptions (1) that I could be bought and (2) that I could be bought cheaply.”
“The first was truly insulting, as well as preposterous: If cost alone was going to stop me, it would have happened long ago,” he wrote.
“The second was ironically laughable, and an indication of their ignorance regarding what is at stake here: If I was for sale — and I am not — it would be for a hell of a lot more than the court costs that the Supreme Court deemed me liable for when my appeal was rejected.”
Peterson said that he is already in “over my head for a lot more than that on the expenditure side alone.”
“In addition, I have enough stable sources of income now arrayed around me such that the amount in question is not a relevant determinant of my behaviour, as the college tyrannocrats should have realized, had they done an iota of necessary homework.”
Peterson observed that one of the reasons the CPO has begun to negotiate with him over the fees owed is because it is now “backed in a corner.”
In August 2023, Peterson lost an appeal against the CPO when they mandated that he undergo social media “training” to keep his license after he made posts on X, formerly Twitter, criticizing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and LGBT activists, and specifically, the mutilation of children. He was then ordered to pay $25,000 to the CPO.
Last month, as reported by LifeSiteNews, Peterson agreed to accept the CPO’s social media “training,” saying he was doing so to defend free speech for all Canadians.
This came after a ruling in August by the Supreme Court of Canada, which refused to hear Peterson’s appeal to the CPO regarding the threat of losing his license unless he submit to the social media “training.”
‘God only knows how it will all end’
Peterson is a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Toronto and has gotten into trouble from regulatory bodies for repeatedly calling out the “trans-butchery of minor children” as a “crime against humanity.”
He has also been a vocal critic of Canadian health and government officials for promoting COVID mandates and jabs as “safe.”
Regarding the CPO’s offer, Peterson said that after he was ordered by the court to undergo social media “training,” he had asked for the names of those who would be ready to re-educate” him. However, the names of the so-called “social media experts” tasked with the re-“education” were redacted when he received them.
“One problem remained, and a serious one, indeed, practically speaking: the very lines in the document that contained the identifying information of the experts (names, email addresses, professional standing, and telephone numbers) had been redacted,” he wrote.
“Note also that since it is now early October, the college only has about seven weeks to straighten out the mess they created around themselves, without violating their own rules, and to repair me one way or another, in the hopefully permanent manner they are devoutly hoping to manage.”
The CPO’s mandate that Peterson undergo social media “training” must be done by November.
In concluding the opinion piece, Peterson noted, “God only knows how it will all end.”
“But it certainly appears, as of the current moment, that the much-vaunted and much-moralized-publicly-about re-education efforts of the Ontario College of Psychologists and Behaviour Analysts have been brought to a shuddering and shameful halt, not least because of the utter indefensibility of their own position,” he wrote.
Peterson has warned Canadian professionals to “wake up” to the rise of cancel culture.
“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 posted.
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