Jordan Peterson, Bill C-16, Social Justice Tribunals, and What It Means for Canada

[ResolutionBlaze]

Jordan B. Peterson is a psychology professor at the University of Toronto, Canada. He's been a professor there for a while and he's studied psychology in relation to authoritarian systems for over 40 years. Examples being Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Maoist China, and Cuba.

 

He has a Youtube channel which he went about making a three part video series on Political Correctness and its dangers to a society. This arose in response to two particular things:

 

- Bill C-16, which adds gender identity and gender expression into the list of protected human rights among other things.

 

- The mandatory training of professors at the University of Toronto to attend "Anti-Racism and Bias" indoctrination to eliminate "ingrained and unconscious racial bias" in professors.

 

Included in the fine print of Bill C-16 is the fact that you must refer to someone as their proper pronoun (binary or non-binary) or else you could be heavily fined or removed from your place of work on the grounds of hate crime, provided the Social Justice Tribunal hasn't deemed you worthy of a worse sentence (we will get to that later). The weight of the law is behind whether or not you want to use absurd pronouns such as "zir" or "xe" or even "wormself" for any Otherkin out there.

 

Jordan Peterson retaliated, attending a peaceful protest and rally against Bill C-16, on the grounds that they are forcing people to use compelled speech with the weight of the law behind it. And thus this video blew up in popularity:

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-nvNAcvUPE&t=174s

 

 

The issue has since blew up, especially with those in the Anti-SJW aspect of things.

 

Peterson in particular has gained much support. But not without backlash. Many students and the University itself requested his silence, after seeing his videos against Political Correctness and saw that they went against Bill C-16 and the program the University has in place. Peterson sent response letters, but to no avail. Peterson eventually requested a debate to take place on campus, a formal one, in order to compensate for his lack of silence, to make the issue a civil one. The university agreed; Peterson was up against a lawyer, a professor, and a biased moderator:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDvj6DQd93o

 

 

Peterson argued that the law and legislation behind Bill C-16 did not protect, but instead endangered, freedom of expression, and furthermore that freedom of expression was an important tool to help develop each other and our societies.

 

"Freedom of Speech is not just another principle; it's the mechanism by which we keep our psyches and societies organized and we have to be unbelievably careful about infringing upon that, because we are infringing upon the very thing that keeps Chaos and Order balanced." ~Jordan B. Peterson, Toronto Debate

 

 

Bill C-16 was passed a day before the debate occurred.

 

 

However, Canada was not the only place to pass such a law. In New York there is a similar gender law where people and/or their place of business can be fined a maximum of $250,000 for using incorrect pronouns, and your landlord would be forced to evict you if you misgendered a fellow tenet.

 

 

This is terrifying stuff. And the more info I hear about it, the more I am terrified... But it doesn't stop there. It's when I heard about the Social Justice Tribunals is when I was actually fearful of the future for Canada.

 

A Social Justice Tribunal is essentially a court that deals with matters of Social Justice, written into law at Ontario. The court is completely independent from the traditional system. They have guidelines in which the Tribunal operates on... or perhaps a lack thereof, some of the really scary ones I will post here.

 

 

This is a summary of the above video

 

A3.1 The rules and procedures of the tribunal shall be liberally and purposefully interpreted and applied to:

• Promote the fair, just and expeditious resolution of disputes
• Allow parties to participate effectively in the process, whether or not they have a representative.
• Ensure that procedures, orders and directions are proportionate to the importance and complexity of the issues in the proceeding.

Sounds all well and good right? Well here's some more for you:

 

A4.1 The tribunal may exercise any of its powers at the request of a party, or on its own initiative, except where otherwise provided.

 

Nobody has to even say anything to be found worthy of being hauled in front of this Tribunal.

 

A4.2 The tribunal may vary or waive the application of any rule or procedure, on its own initiative or on the request of a party, except where to do so is prohibited by legislation or a specific rule.

 

1.6 The Tribunal will determine how a matter is dealt with and may use procedures other than traditional adjudicative or adversarial procedures.

 

So they can use procedures that do not align with the main court system. Because who needs due process or innocence until proven guilty?

 

1.7 In order to provide for fair, just and expeditious resolution of any matter before it the Tribunal may:

 

a. Lengthen or shorten any time limit in these rules.

 

(Typically have a few months to gather documentation? Nah.)

 

b. Add or remove a party

 

(They can ask your lawyer to leave for any reason)

 

h. define or narrow the issues in order to decide an Application;

 

(So if you push a woman out of the way of a train, the Tribunal can "narrow" the issue down in order to convict you of grabbing the woman without her permission)

 

j. determine and direct the order in which evidence will be presented.

 

(So they can list the evidence in such a way that makes you sound like a racist)

 

n. limit the evidence or submissions on any issue

 

(Does this one need explanation?)

 

p. require a party or other person to produce any document, information, or thing and to provide such assistance as is reasonably necessary, including using any data storage, processing or retrieval device or system, to produce the information in any form;

 

q. on request of a party, require another party or other person to provide a report, statement, or oral or affidavit evidence.

 

(No right to remain silent; if they tell you to give a statement you give it or else)

 

(Next one, which was not listed in the video by mistake, but essentially it says you can't provide any justification or claim innocence)

 

u. consider public interest remedies , at the request of a party or on its own initiative, after providing the parties an opportunity to make submissions.

 

(Convicts based on public interest)

 

 

 

These Tribunals sound like the secret police from a George Orwell novel. Now they may not be able to explicitly break the law, but your rights? What rights?

 

 

The Question:

 

Should we be worried about this? Do you think these things are justified? Will there be any backlash? Are you yourself concerned with what was stated here? What does this mean for Free Speech?

Edited December 30, 2016 by ResolutionBlaze

[Harbringe]

His point about the introduction of social constructionism within the law is whats most relevant. An example of that is these new regulations in how Supreme Court Justices in Canada are to be chosen. They have made it so that a lot of these social justice concepts have to be taken into consideration in the choosing of a Justice . Now why is this important . Well apply it to a different role , say of a surgeon. Your child has a brain tumor and you need the best possible surgeon to save his life , are you going to make your choice based as a consideration of what gender they may be or some other social justice criteria or simply on the meritocracy of their surgical skills , well the same applies for any type judge or justice , what your looking for is specialists and the only thing that need be considered is their understanding of that speciality. Thats what people who are pushing by these type of agenda's dont seem to want to understand. There is a difference between discrimination and forcing something to be a consideration. This is the authoritarianism Peterson is talking about , once you start down that road it always metastasizes into a purist form with ever increasing levels of authoritarianism.

 

At 105:00 of the debate video thereabouts the legal expert tells us how the sanctions of the Social Justice Tribunals do not include punitive measures as in criminal law, like incarceration , but only financial ones like seizure of assets or garnishing of wages. But that begs the question what if a person doesn't have assets to be seized or wages sufficient enough to be garnished. Do they just say oh well let em go or do they garnish a measure of his wages basically leaving him looking forward to a life of poverty. Of course that is going to create a backlash. Eventually it will become a violent one , people planting bombs , people shooting people , because lives will be destroyed. Or it will go the other way where you end up with some form of state sanctioned morality police. Which will also have its own measure of violence.

[HeyYou]

I think these guys are going to BE the state sanctioned morality police/thought police..... (as you don't actually have to DO anything for them to drag you in on a whim.)

 

I see this as just another degradation of our society, leading to our downfall. Just like the Roman Empire.

[Aurielius]

First we were asked to not persecute (OK, seems only fair), then were asked to accept (OK, live and let live) and now we have the Thought Police enforcing the 'New Conformity'(Now you have gone to far). Pronouns are not a definition of sexual preference but of biological gender.

You can call yourself whatever you please (remember when Prince picked a glyph as his new name?) but requiring my active verbal compliance is another matter all together.

Just my two cents.

[MajKrAzAm]

What is wrong with Canada? These people are mentally ill.

[HeyYou]

What is wrong with Canada? These people are mentally ill.

They are too close to New York.......

[Soloquendi]

There's only one cure for this kind of nonsense. Civil Disobedience. If enough people blatantly defy the law, it will overwhelm the system. The Soviets found out how expensive it is to micro manage their society. It bankrupted them.

[RatB0Y68]

How can something so transparently Orwellian sneak past the good sense of the people of Canada and enter into actual law? This is insane.

[HeyYou]

How can something so transparently Orwellian sneak past the good sense of the people of Canada and enter into actual law? This is insane.

You are giving too much credit to your legislative body....... Here in the US, "Good Sense", and "congress" do NOT belong in the same sentence.