The lesson in Jordan Peterson's law

This is a story of how the UCP's Bill 13 was set, built, and played out, with the opposition playing their intended roles perfectly.

Danielle Smith and Jordan Peterson at Mar-a-Lago. Photo credit Kevin O’Leary’s instagram

I don’t know if every UCP policy has a story that began two or three years ago, but just like their determination to make coal mining in the eastern slopes happen, this one does, too.

This is the story of Bill 13, the Regulated Professions Neutrality Act, which they also dubbed “Jordan Peterson’s Law” to protect people from “overreach” by their professional regulatory body. They claim it doesn’t actually cover malfeasance, but that is why invoking the man’s name, and his trumped up (forgive the pun) experience, appears to be solidly in the realm of creating a sequel for the sake of giving the actors another shot at the same storyline, rather than the public interest.

Back in 2023, the Alberta catalyst for tying in Dr. Peterson was opposition to an Indigenous cultural competency training course the Law Society of Alberta required members to take. A few younger lawyers I was speaking with at the time said that most of the LSA’s training addressed age gaps; lawyers who had been practicing for 20 years simply didn’t receive certain focal points of education that was updated later. This ranged from technology updates to competency training, and yes, that includes understanding people who are not like those defending or providing services. We saw a local example with some highly disturbing commentary from an Alberta judge in a sexual assault case that was overturned in 2017. Like almost everything in life, when we know better, we do better; then we have to try to bring everyone else up to speed.

In response to a petition by 51 lawyers, the Law Society of Alberta held a special meeting to allow members to vote to repeal section 67.4, which was added to the society’s rules in 2020 by a vote of three-to-one of the membership.

The section allowed the society to mandate some of the 12 hours of education and training per year (that members of the Canadian Bar Association are currently required to take) to a particular course or area where the society feels gaps in competence exist.

Membership voted three-to-one to defeat a motion to repeal the rule.

…

Smith says she’s concerned about “overreach” within self-governing professional organizations because the complaints seem to come from those who do not share a similar political view and are “not considered ‘woke’ enough” by their colleagues.

Smith said she was paying close attention to Dr. Jordan Peterson’s complaints against his professional organization, the College of Psychologists of Ontario, and awaiting the outcome of his “re-education” case.

“Re-education” is a fun buzzword that is meant to trigger people to fear new information that will contradict something they think they know.

Sadly, what really happened is much less sinister. Peterson was asked by the OPA to undergo social media training after they received complaints about his social media use (particularly by invoking his membership with the OPA to add credibility to his “pseudo-profound bullshit”) by the public and members of the profession.

February 23, 2023

Ah, the good ol’ days, when Danielle Smith was “musing” about protecting rights instead of taking them away.

The College of Psychologists of Ontario (CPO) didn’t open an investigation into complaints over Jordan Peterson’s political hot takes, or his ridiculously inept observations on affairs well outside his expertise, despite receiving many complaints about both. By 2022, Dr. Peterson was no longer a practicing clinician, and had not been practicing for a number of years. He claimed he maintained the registration because he “earned” and “deserved” it. While the former may be true, the latter requires something in return, and not just the privilege of having more credibility than simply being a controversial and former academic with a YouTube channel.

Membership is a privilege; everywhere

Since the pandemic, it’s certainly more than he actually needed, but these professional bodies do not exist simply as overseer and disciplinarian; they are also an elite membership club that offer networking and training opportunities, and those members are peers to every other member. It is a network of people who, generally, strive to be the best in their fields; a membership that helps an individual rise above because they are enveloped within the group. Unfortunately, it also has the effect of allowing one person’s behaviour to reflect poorly on the rest of the membership, as it eventually did in Dr. Peterson’s case.

The CPO had received a number of complaints about his online behvaiour but they did not notify him until they received some that were relevant to professional misconduct; specifically those that dehumanized trans and non-binary people, as well as other professionally, but not personally degrading, behaviour; if one somehow aspires to the level of internet troll. Credibility is a double-edged sword, after all.

Credibility comes with responsibilities, obligations, and sometimes it even comes with a requirement to self-censor. Not every thought needs to be published. Not every post on social media requires a thoughtless, snarky, or irrelevant response.

I saw an exchange between two comedians the other day; the first began by saying “I have to ask…” and the second interrupted with “do you, though? Or would it be better if you didn’t?” It remained awkward and I have no idea what the bit was supposed to be, but it’s a good example here. Self-censorship is taking that moment of reflection to consider whether you’re adding anything of value. An internet troll isn’t trying to add value. A professional should. It’s easy to separate the wheat from the chaff from there.

What happened next was calculated. Dr. Peterson could have requested the complaints and kept it to himself. Most professionals probably would have.

Instead, once they were in his possession, he proceeded to dump them onto social media as if they had all been flagged as concerns. That was not the case, and there’s a learning opportunity for those who find themselves in that position in the future— if there’s an option, only send the ones that actually matter to the issue at hand.

Through that exercise, Dr. Peterson collected many defenders who believed, or chose to believe, that he was actually being taken to task for political posts, general hot-takes that were far outside of his knowledge area, or just being “relatable” as a guy who needs everyone to know whether he finds a woman attractive. One of those defenders of the freedom to attack people with differing priorities and identities was the tragically poor judge of whether someone is voicing real concerns or a conspiracy theory: Premier Danielle Smith.

It’s important to reiterate that the CPO had not alerted Dr. Peterson to many of the previous complaints because they did not feel they were in the realm of professional misconduct. Dr. Peterson used them, however, in an attempt to discredit the ones the CPO had flagged as concerning. The regulator also weren’t demanding apologies, or that he be removed; they identified a knowledge gap and asked that he take social media training to fill it, as regulatory bodies do.

It’s unlikely any of that would have been made public if not by Jordan Peterson himself. A grown man using his social media “clout” to get his dirty laundry in front of as many people as possible, grievously offended that he was being asked to clean it, too. He was a one-man show and he played his heart out, but the curtain finally, blissfully, came down.

Since our courts usually deal in fact, they sided with the professional regulator, leaving all the folks on social media who want to weigh in on things they know nothing about, or just behave like assholes generally, very red-faced, fist-clenchy, and foot-stampy about the whole affair. If Dr. Jordan Peterson couldn’t be a total douche online without consequence, then what hope did they have attaining such highs themselves?

The fix was in

Staking their position as one in search of a solution to the war on freedom of expression that Dr. Peterson and other bad faith conservatives pinky-swore existed, the UCP scrawled out Bill 13, to the somewhat predictable outrage of the opposition.

There are many who hate the “game” of politics but there is a lot of gaming involved and one part of that is eliciting a response from an opponent that allows the government to paint them as wildly out of touch or unserious.

Couched as it was in Jordan Peterson idolatry, it got under people’s skin. To be clear, Dr. Peterson wasn’t in a position where he required membership in the CPO; he paid the fees each year voluntarily because it afforded him credibility. That privilege of association he sought came with an obligation to the college and his peers but most importantly, his desire to remain a member required the CPO to act as regulator.

Dr. Peterson’s false outrage over the matter elevated his brand, and his “star power” but did little to change the fact that by voluntarily being a member, he voluntarily gave them power to intervene. It should also be emphasized that the CPO didn’t act because of Dr. Peterson’s actions so much as on behalf of the reputation of their members, and their own as a professional regulatory body. An organization that doesn’t protect professional reputation isn’t worth being part of, honestly.

Danielle Smith and the UCP baited the opposition (and everyone with critical thinking skills) for years with overly simplistic “musings”. Danielle Smith doesn’t “muse”; she floats trial balloons. She primes the audience. She may not be able to tell fact from fiction, but she knows how to manipulate people who want to believe.

It also might be surprising to learn that Bill 13 doesn’t change the status quo for regulatory “neutrality”— which is why I hadn’t brought it up in detail when the bill was passed. The only thing the bill does is offer to codify something that was already in place: protection of political and personal expression outside of professional affiliation.

Bill 13 retains the professional regulator’s oversight and ability to discipline members for ethical and conduct violations, but not “thought policing” of their members’ political and religious commentary — and despite what Dr. Peterson and the UCP would have us believe, that wasn’t a problem to begin with.

They get to do a victory lap around the nothing burger of their own making, high-fiving their frothy-mouthed supporters, while progressives raged about the attack against professional regulatory bodies… and I’m not sure such an attack even existed from the government itself.

It was performative politics that did nothing more than address a non-problem they willed into existence that allowed them to pop a binky in the mouths of their little rage badgers and tuck them in with their own special legislative protections. Protections, I might add, from regulatory bodies they probably do not, nor ever will, have either the necessity or privilege of joining. It’s also an important distinction.

All that is to say that the opposition allowed themselves to be led by the governing party to a false conclusion and they missed what the government was actually doing and why. It also allowed the governing party to run circles around them because their focus was on an outcome that didn’t exist. The opposition ended up looking ineffective because they were playing the hand they thought the government was dealing rather than what they were actually dealt.

Partisanship and ideological dogma isn’t helping

Dr. Jared Wesley’s research with Common Ground Politics has consistently highlighted that Albertans are not nearly as polarized as some would have us believe. For the record, I believe that those who fall into the category of “some” would be our elected actors— I mean politicians— and the people who are legitimately paid to create this chaos we’re dealing with.

I won’t discount Danielle Smith’s ability to manipulate people but one of the best and biggest presents she is given is responding to bad faith arguments from opposition. Yes, she set the stage for it; yes, she and her people egged it on, but the opposition saw the bait and went fishing for a prize trout in a pond full of pike the governing party led them to.

While we are dealing with some bad legislation, the opposition is being set up to look like they’re always hitting 11 when the appropriate reaction is sometimes a four. It’s the “boy who cried wolf” except it’s not the flock that’s in danger, it’s diminishing public education for our children or losing access to healthcare.

It’s allowing the government to outsource their responsibilities to shell corporations owned by their friends, making them extremely wealthy while delivering subpar product and services at inflated prices but whose entire existence insulates elected officials from being accountable for those exact responsibilities.

And it’s allowing the UCP to deflect attention by burying the real concerns in a pile of unrelated, inconsequential opposition to things that are, in the grand scheme of things, nothing Albertans needed to worry about in the first place.

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