Jordan Peterson Agrees to Comply with Regulatory Body’s Mandatory Training and Promote It

Outspoken psychologist and author Jordan Peterson has found a new way to “fight” the order from his profession’s governing body that will force him to receive remedial social media training: compliance.

Dr. Peterson, in a Jan. 17 column, has promised not only to dive into the social media training prescribed by the College of Psychologists of Ontario (CPO), but to “publicize every single bit of it.”

“And, if I get tired of it, which seems highly likely, I’ll hand over the bloody licence I am increasingly embarrassed in any case to possess.”

Dr. Peterson’s remarks come on the heels of an Ontario Court of Appeal decision, released on Jan. 16, that rejected his request to quash the decision of a lower court that enforced the training order from his profession’s regulatory body.

The three-judge panel did not explain the reasons for its decision. It simply stated the case had been reviewed and that Dr. Peterson’s attempt to file new evidence to the court was rejected.

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Now that the battle in the courts has come to an end, Dr. Peterson said, he no longer has to constrain his commentary on the matter, promising a “no holds barred” response going forward.

“You have won the battle … but you haven’t won the war,” he wrote. “We’re going to perform that dance on the international stage, with all that light shining on your machinations, and you may well come to rue the day you attempted to take possession of my tongue.”

A Legal Battle

Dr. Peterson first came under scrutiny by the CPO in 2022 after it received complaints about a number of his social media posts that were directed at a plus-sized model, transgender actor Elliot Page, and several politicians, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The written complaints came from “activists in other countries” who claimed to be clients, he said.

The college alleged some of his posts may be “degrading” to the profession and could constitute professional misconduct.

The CPO’s complaints committee concluded as such in November 2022 and ordered Dr. Peterson to undergo a social media training program on professionalism in making public statements. Not complying, the committee said, could mean the loss of both his licence and ability to practise his profession in Ontario.

He subsequently filed for a judicial review last June, seeking review of the CPO’s order, but had his application dismissed by the Ontario Divisional Court in August.

He also had his Twitter account temporarily suspended for his comments, but it was reinstated after Elon Musk purchased the social media platform in October 2022.

Dr. Peterson has defended the social media posts the CPO took issue with, saying he would make the same statements again today.

“I believe that time has been kind to my decisions: the reality of the idiocy that I pointed to then, whose reality was then denied by most, has become something increasingly apparent to an increasingly [sic] majority of people in the interim,” he said in his column.

Time also gave him a chance to position himself “very carefully,” he said, adding that he had already accepted the “inevitability” of the decision announced by the appeals court this week.

“I wasn’t even particularly upset when the news came down.”