Several groups who have received direct funding from the Canadian government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are demanding an Ottawa venue cancel an event featuring psychologist Dr Jordan Peterson.
A total of 36 organisations have demanded the Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa cancel an upcoming event in which Dr Peterson is to speak as part of his North American tour to promote his latest book Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life.
Jaime Sadgrove, manager of communications and advocacy for the Canadian Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity (CCGSD), told the National Post newspaper, “As we approach the one-year anniversary of the so-called ‘Freedom Convoy,’ the last thing we need is a spokesperson of the far-right taking centre stage in our city.”
The CCGSD is just one of the 36 groups to sign an open letter demanding the shutdown of the event and is one of the groups that has also received large amounts of taxpayer cash from the Trudeau government in recent years.
Last year, the CCGSD was given a total of $1,090,624 by the Canadian federal government as part of a project to deliver resources for sexual health education for Canadian school teachers.
“On the first anniversary of the convoy, it’s a slap in the face to have him, of all people, come to our capital,” Fae Johnstone, executive director of the consulting firm Wisdom2Action said.
Wisdom2Action is also a beneficiary of Canadian public cash and was given $994,661 by the Trudeau government last year for a 36-month project for “2SLGBTQ+ youth” experiencing gender-based violence and raise awareness over youth violence in the community.
Another signatory to the open letter demanding the censorship of Dr Peterson is the Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN), which received $268,400 from the Trudeau government last year as part of a programme “Containing and Countering Canadian Hate Groups.”
CAHN has not been without its own share of controversies in recent years, including an incident last year during the anti-coronavirus restriction Freedom Convoy when its chair Bernie Farber tried to pass off an anti-semitic flier as being present at the protests when the picture had been from an event in Florida weeks before and unrelated to the Freedom Convoy.
Later that year, CAHN released an educational handbook for hate symbols that included the Canadian Red Ensign, which was the national flag of Canadian during the Second World War.
“The flag of Canada until 1965. Its usage denotes a desire to return to Canada’s demographics before 1967, when it was predominately white,” the group claimed and added, “its usage in modern times is an indicator of hate-promoting beliefs.” The Red Ensign flies at many of the Cenotaphs across Canada that remember the war dead in the First and Second World Wars.
The anti-hate “toolkit” put out by the group was even deemed to be inappropriate by the province of Saskatchewan last year, with the provincial government discouraging teachers from using it, arguing that it was lacking in quality.
“The toolkit does not meet criteria such as being high quality, free from bias as reasonably possible, and having appropriate and significant Saskatchewan context,” the province’s Ministry of Education said.
CAHN was also accused of having ties to the far-left violent extremist group Antifa and took Canadian journalist Jon Kay to court over a statement linking the two groups. However, a Canadian judge threw out the case and stated, “CAHN did in fact assist Antifa and that the movement has been violent.”
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