2017/05/17: Senate hearing on Bill C16

[Music] good afternoon and welcome colleagues invited guests members of the general public who are following today's proceedings of the standing Senate Committee on legal and constitutional affairs today we continue our consideration of bill C 16 an act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code with this our last day of hearings on the bill we will move to clause by clause consideration tomorrow with us today for the first hour our Jordan B Peterson professor psychology department at the University of Toronto from the D Jared brown professional corporation the Jerry Brown lead counsel thank you gentlemen for being here you both have up to five minutes for opening statements and mr. Peterson I believe you're going to leave up yes sir before today so I think the first thing I'd like to bring up is that it's not obvious when considering a matter of this sort what level of analysis is appropriate if you're reading any given document you can look at the words or the phrases or the sentences or the complete document or you can look at the broader context within which it is likely to be interpreted and when I first encountered bill C 16 and its surrounding policies it seemed to me that the appropriate level of analysis was to look at the context of interpretation surrounding the bill which is what I did when I went and scoured the Ontario Human Rights Commission webpages and examined its policies I did that because at that point the Department of Justice had clearly indicated on their website in a link that was later taken down that bill C 16 would be interpreted in within the president's policy precedents already established by the Ontario Human Rights Commission so when I looked on the website I thought well there's broader issues at stake here and I tried to outline some of those broader issues in the initial you may or may not know I made some videos criticizing bill C 16 and it's a number of its of the policies that surrounding it and I think the most egregious elements of the policies are that it requires compelled speech the the Ontario Human Rights Commission explicitly states that refusing to refer to a person by their self-identified name and proper personal pronoun which is the pronouns that I was objecting to can be can be interpreted as harassment and so that's an explicitly defined in the relevant policies so I think that's appalling first of all because there hasn't been a piece of legislation that requires Canadians to other a particular form of address that has particular ideological implications before and I think that it's a line that we shouldn't cross then I think that the definition of identity that's enshrined in the surrounding policies is ill-defined and poorly thought through and also incorrect it's incorrect in that identity is not and will never be something that people define subjectively because your identity is something that you actually have to act out in the world as a set of procedural tools which most people learn and I'm being technical about this between the ages of 2 & 4 it's a fundamental human reality it's well recognized by the relevance a developmental psychological authorities and so the idea that identity is something that you define purely subjectively is an idea without status as far as I'm concerned I also think it's unbelievably dangerous for us to move towards representing a social constructionist view of identity in our legal system the social constructionist view insists that human identity is nothing but a consequence of socialization which is which and and there's an inordinate amount of scientific evidence suggesting that that happens to not be the case and so the reason that this is being instantiated into law is because the people who are promoting that sort of perspective or at least in part because the people who are promoting that sort of perspective know perfectly well that they lost the battle completely on scientist grounds it's impressive in the policies of the Ontario Human Rights Commission that sexual identity biological sex gender identity gender expression sexual proclivity all very independently and that's simply not the case it's not the case scientifically it's not the case factually and it's certainly not something that should be increasingly taught to people in high schools elementary schools and junior high schools which it is and it is being taught I included this cartoon character that I find particularly reprehensible aimed obviously at it as it is as children somewhere around the age of seven that contains within it the implicit can the implicit claims as a consequence of its graphic mode of expression that these elements of identity are first canonical and second independent and neither of those happen to be the case I think that the inclusion of gender expression in the bill is something extraordinarily peculiar given that gender expression is not a group and that according to the Ontario Human Rights Commission it deals with things as mundane as how behavior and outward appearance such as dress hair makeup body language and voice which now as far as I can tell open people to charges of hate crime under Bill c16 if they dare to criticize the manner of someone's dress which seems to me to be an entirely voluntary issue so I think that the Ontario Human Rights Commission's attitude towards vicarious liability is designed specifically to be punitive in it it makes employers responsible for harassment or discrimination including the failure to use preferred preferred pronouns they have vicarious liability for that whether or not they know it's happening whether or not the harassment was and whether or not the harassment was intended or unintended and so I'll stop with that thank you mr. broom I'm a litigator in Toronto I act in all manner of commercial and employment disputes I'm not an academic I live with my clients in the land of legal reality and how the law actually works about two years ago I began to see claims of discrimination included in every employment related court claim my phone now rings weekly with Human Rights Tribunal matters it has become a reality for employers across Canada in August of last year I became aware of dr. Gordon Pearson he was discussing what he saw as a problematic law poorly written that's when I observed the oddest thing happening lawyers academic lawyers important people began to say that he had the legal stuff wrong nothing unusual about this bill and they also said you don't get to go to jail if you breach of Human Rights Tribunal order what was happening is they weren't defending the law but downplaying its effects now as a practicing lawyer any time a lawyer and particularly an academic says look away there's nothing to see here it gets my intent way up so I did some research which could be found in the brief that I filed in advance of today it sets out the past the prison on this I knew as a commercial litigator that anyone can end up in jail if you breach a tribunal order it is a simple civil contempt of court process people go to jail for this but what about the freedom of expression issue it's a foundational issue we all know that section to be the Charter sets out that everybody has the fundamental freedoms of thought belief opinion and expression and we all know that the government is successfully restricted freedom of expression over the years but what if rather than restricting what you can't say the government actually mandated what you must say in other words instead of legislating that you cannot defame someone for instance the government says when you speak about a particular subject let's say gender you must use this government approved set of words and theories the American jurisprudence clearly defines this is unconstitutional compelled speech in Canada the Supreme Court has enunciated the principle that anything that forces someone to express opinions that are not their own is a penalty that is the palette area and as such alien to the tradition of free nations like Canada now how does C 16 get us to compelled speech the minister justices summarize bill C 16 as the enactment amends the Canadian Human Rights Act to add gender identity and gender expression to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination the Department of Justice website used to say that we must look to the Ontario Human Rights Commission policies for definitions on these terms Ontario's policies on gender identity and gender expression are set out in my brief they state that gender-based harassment can involve refusing to refer to a person by their self-identified name and proper personal pronoun refusing to refer to a trans person by the chosen name and a personal pronoun that matches their gender identity will likely be discrimination the law is otherwise unsettled as to whether someone can insist on anyone gender-neutral pronoun in particular if the harasser didn't know or didn't intend arrest it's still harassment now why is this important voluntarily Human Rights Commission is a policy development creature of the legislature it creates the policies which interpret the code but what is most important the tribunal must follow these policies is bound by them so the Commission creates the law on pronouns in Ontario the policies on pronouns were introduced into the legal framework after the law had left the legislature federally the same process will be followed as the Department of Justice had said so a similar guideline will be developed prai's with the Ontario policies federal guidelines must be followed by the federal tribunal the guidelines will mandate pronouns this will happen after the bill leaves with Senate mandating use of pronouns requires want to use words that are not their own which imply a belief in or degree meant with a certain theory on gender if you try to disavow that theory it can be brought before the Human Rights Commission for misgendering or potentially find yourself guilty of a hate crime to sum up I'm a subject to gender we're going to have government mandated speech now in a finding on the constitutionality of opposed bill the Department of Justice said on its website look there's a variation to this bill that already exists in most of the provinces I don't believe that's a robust argument in favor of constitutionality I would refer you to the comments of the now chief justice McLaughlin of the Supreme Court and the decision of Taylor it's in my brief the chilling effect of leaving over broad provisions on the books cannot be ignored while the chilling effect of human rights legislation is likely to be less significant than that of a criminal prohibition the vagueness of the law means it may well determine where conduct that can legitimately be targeted as a lawyer on the ground I worry about poorly drafted poorly drafted law and its impact on my clients as a Canadian I worry about Parliament tacitly authorizing compelled speech the brief I provided to the committee contains a comprehensive legal opinion that I published back in December on c16 there's a table that shows how the federal Human Rights regime mirrors the Ontario system in terms of enforcement of policies and guidelines our wrap-up sir and finally it includes the case law that's underpinned the opinion thank you okay thank you both and we'll begin questions beginning with a deputy chair senator Baker thank you Thank You mr. chairman thank you to the witnesses for their presentation as the witnesses know the nine provinces in Canada have the the provision in their laws including Ontario and also the words expression as I recall appears in four or five provinces so what you are arguing is against what we already have in law your reference to the criminality to the sections of the Criminal Code at our last meeting senators way out correctly pointed out that sections 318 319 starts off by genocide under the heading genocide the next heading is public incitement likely to lead to a breach of the peace and you know what a breach of the peace is mr. Broun wilful promotion of hatred these things are and then there are defenses listed as you know in that Criminal Code provision there's several defense if you honestly believe in what you said is if you you know the defenses are extensive in the Criminal Code they've worked well for can so what do you have to say about the facts of what's presently in the Criminal Code and your reflection that somehow the genocide heading the heading on public incitement on willful promotion of hatred somehow that these provisions should not be included under those headings I think I have to be clear my presentation relates to the amendments of the Human Rights Code and not the veteran info and that is in fact how one like dr. Peterson may in fact find themselves on the wrong side of jail and so if you if you've reviewed the the publication in the opinion I say that simply by breaching the carrier post amendment to the to the Human Rights Act and particularly with somebody who is deliberately doing so for instance somebody who's saying I'm not going to use those words that person if they are dragged before the tribunal the Ontario Tribune or the federal tribunal I've indicated to you already that the Department of Justice is said they're going to pass the same guideline on pronoun and so what I'm suggesting to you is that if somebody says I'm not going to use those words are brought before the tribunal the federal tribunal and the tribunal then delivers an order for a payment of a fine and alternatively a non-monetary remedy ie cease and desist order in order to do something to compel them to do something and that person who's brought before the tribunal says I'm not doing that they will find themselves in contempt of court and prison is the likely outcome of that process until they purge the contempt that's what I'm suggesting I'm not suggesting to you that that the amendments to the Criminal Code well I'm not advocating genocide I guess let's just say that and my presentation here is restricted to what I see is the pronoun policy issue in the compelled speech issue so it covers the provincial legislation if you did strongly disagree with that we've had in place in the provinces for decades and some is the policies that were enacted after it left the legislature and which will be enacted after this bill leaves this this committee I would also like to add the fact that once I made the video stating that I wouldn't use the Z and serve pronouns for example which I regard as part of the ideological linguistic vanguard the university lawyers after carefully considering what I said sent a two letters to cease and desist in my public utterances because they believe that not only was I violating the university standards of conduct but that I was also violating the relevant provisions of the Ontario Human Rights Commission therefore as far as I could tell vindicating the statement that I made when I made the video to begin with which was that the act of making the video itself was probably already illegal and they didn't do that lightly another provincial law yes senator but thank you chair and thank you gentlemen both of you for being here have two questions one for dr. Peterson right at the get-go and then one for the two of you hopefully the chair will indulge me deliberations of this bill and during deliberations of this bill we keep hearing the term respect thrown around respect is indeed critical in debates of legislation as sensitive as this and there are a lot of people here who need to be reminded that respect works both ways including people at this committee dr. Baker or as Senator Baker has already referred to comments as genocide I don't think anybody here is promoting genocide however dr. Peterson can you comment on the notion of respect where some of your critics say why can you not just respect your students just use the gender-neutral pronouns how do you respond to that well first of all I'd have to be convinced that doing so would do more good than harm and I don't believe that and I think I'm actually in a reasonable position to to to justify my claim I think that the danger that's intrinsic to the law far outweighs whatever potential benefit it produce especially given that there's no hard evidence whatsoever for any benefit I would also like to point out that the people who are promoting this legislation claim to be acting on the behalf behalf say of the transgendered community but they weren't not elective nor appointed to act as such representatives and they're doing it on their own say-so I've received many letters at least 30 now from transgendered individuals indicating that the they are not in accordance with the claims of these so-called representatives to be representing or with the intent of the legislation which has actually made them more visible rather than less visible which is and the less visible is what they had preferred with regards to respect is that you don't meet people generally speaking in a mutual display of respect you generally meet people in a mutual display of alert neutrality which is the appropriate way to begin an interaction with someone because respect is something that you earn as a consequence of reciprocal interactions with that are dependent on something like reputation which is also a consequence of repeated interactions and so the notion that addressing someone by their self defined self-identity isn't necessarily an indication of basic human respect for them I think is entirely spurious argument especially given that there's no evidence that moving the language in a compelled manner in this direction is going to have any beneficial effect we're supposed to assume that just because hypothetically the intent is positive that the outcome will be positive and any social scientist worth his or her salt knows perfectly well that that's rarely the case so dr. Brown you've talked about non-monetary orders that could include sanctions like orders to undertake sensitivity and anti bias training I would like either one or both of you to comment on whether you could explain why an individual may have a strong objection to undertaking such a training and mr. Brown could you let the committee know how serious the sanction could be and of course you already did on that if you refuse to undertake such an order and specifically at the federal level but what would what why would people have an objection to take me sex cream I think I mean like dr. Peterson answer why he or someone like him might have an objection to undertaking that type of training and I'll deal obviously but once again with the severity of that decision if it gets before the tribunal well I have a profound objection to to undergoing such training in fact I would flatly refuse under all conditions to undergo it and the reason there's multiple reasons for that the first reason is that the science surrounding the so called charge of the implicit bias that's associated with perception is by no means settled in it to such a degree that to one of the three people who designed the most commonly used measure which is the implicit association test has detached himself from the other two researchers on the grounds that the use of the test has become as far transcended its scientific validity and reliability it's nowhere near valid or reliable enough to be used in the manner that it's been using and even the more Pro I 80 researchers to develop the test I have admitted to that publicly even though they haven't stressed it nearly to the degree they showed up so first of all the sciences is not settled and is being used absolutely inappropriately and I can say that as a clinician because I know that cannabis psychometrician I know the criteria for using a test for sex essentially diagnostic purposes and the IAT doesn't even come close to what's necessary then the next issue is well where is the evidence that that anti unconscious bias training works there's no evidence and what little evidence there is suggests that it actually has the opposite effect because people don't like being brought in front of a reeducation committee and having their fundamental perceptions you see their perceptions not even their thoughts but their perceptions themselves altered by collective Fiat it's an unbelievable error sir we have a very engaged committee concise questions and concise responses would be a helpful senator Pratt thank you for being here I want to quote briefly from a document from the entire Human Rights Commission says some people may not know how to determine what pronoun to use others may feel uncomfortable using gender-neutral pronouns generally when in doubt ask a person how they wish to address used a if you don't know which gone on to you this preferred simply referring to their person by their chosen name is always a respectful approach so you can use the pronoun you can choose you can use their chosen name so if someone chooses to change his name from Paul to Peter surely you would use Peter because it's a matter of simple politeness and and respect if the same person person chooses to cheat to change your name from Paul - Paul oh well I'm going to use you use the name polo simply as a matter of respect what's the difficulty well I guess the issue and that speak about the legal issue there is that you're now introducing the full force of law behind the requirement to use and I'm dealing obviously with with respect to the pronoun issue in terms of not addressing somebody by their by their legally registered name for instance I don't think that's where we're running into trouble here I think the issue becomes that if you don't you address somebody by the the pronoun that they self-identify by as I've read out to you the fact that the full force of the law will be behind that person that that's what I'm finding is troubling in the legislation but the Ontario Human Rights Commission gives people the alternative not to use pronouns and use the person's chosen name which is always a respectful default so for nouns are not necessary are not mandatory you can always choose the person's chosen name as a respectful approach and therefore I are not I'm not aware that anybody that there is a piece of legislation that compels you to use my proper name in other words it once again it's the fact that the full force of law will be behind it when we're dealing with the group being identified in the legislation and so for instance if I were not to call you by your chosen name I'm not sure you'd enjoy the full force of the law behind you as a result of that and that's what I'm suggesting to you is the difference here I'm just arguing you saying that you always base whatever you say on what the entire Human Rights Commission is saying and I'm quoting from the Ontario commission document they're saying we're not bandit mandating pronouns you can always use the person's chosen name as a respectful approach I respectfully disagree but then well I would say then that's actually an indication of just exactly how poorly the policy documents are written because I can quote this one which which is also from the Ontario Human Rights Commission website that says and I quote refute refusing to refer to a person by their self-identified name and proper personal a proper personal pronoun counts constitutes gender-based harassment and so if they're if the policies are written in a coherent manner and there wasn't internal contradictions then your statement would be a reasonable objection but since it's not written that way and I do believe firmly that that's a testament to the degree to which is supporting written set of policies is it is full of internal contradictions and that will be worked out very painfully within the confines of people's private lives thank you swing of your butters thanks very much both of you for being here first of all dr. Peterson I want to go back to this issue of personal pronouns and if you could please tell our committee more about this issue it's something that I was not at all familiar with prior to this bill being introduced and in particular about the gender-neutral pronouns and your experience in pushing back against being forced to use those general neutral gender-neutral pronouns well I don't think the people who initiated this legislation ever expected that there would be an absolute explosion of identities first of all and also of so-called personal pronouns as there has been I think Facebook now recognizes something like 71 separate gender identity categories each of which in principle is associated with its own set of pronouns and so it's become what linguistically unmet it's become a parody essentially it's become linguistically unmanageable and it's also the case that words can't be introduced into the language by Fiat I don't I can't even think of a time when that's actually work we're not exactly sure how words enter the common parlance but it's certainly not that way and so the the legislation devolves into a kind of of absurdity as far as I can tell I mean one of the people that I discussed this with claimed that the way that you kept track of someone's personal pronouns was to use your cell phone as an adjunct to your communication and I mean that's you wouldn't say anything like that if you knew anything about common human nature let's say in the manner in which people communicate with one another so the types of pronouns you're talking about just so everyone is clear because I don't think these are common common parlance the is there and what other sorts of gender-neutral pronouns are we discussing here well I have a very bad memory for that sort of thing but if you're interested in it you can find lists of them very rapidly on the web and they'd been produced by I think they've been produced by people whose essential desire is to gain linguistic control that's that's that's 'simply is that I can put it as a gain linguistic control but they're not used popularly and and that seems to me to be a it's a real problem as a consequence that you make failure to make their use something that that could carry a criminal penalty so I just don't understand that and and I don't understand how the government can justify imposing a criminal penalty on the use of words that no one either knows or uses it just seems preposterous to me but there it is could you please also tell us a little bit more about the your personal experience in pushing back against this and I mean many are familiar with your story but not everyone so I just wanted to do well I made a video actually made three videos but we'll just talk about one of them I made one criticizing Bill c16 for the reasons that I already described because I went read the policies and they made my hair stand on end to the surrounding policies and so I made a video stating essentially that and detailed out my reasons and um you know I've been following the Battle of let's say ideologies on campus for a very long period of time and I suppose I have some expertise in that and there's a there's an ideological war that's ripping at campuses apart and it's essentially between a ideological variant that's rooted in what's come to be known as post-modernism with kind of the neo-marxist and and modern modernism I would say that's accounting for all the turmoil on campuses and I see this as an extension of this campus turmoil into the broader world and and I Reba leave that is the proper level of analysis I truly believe that and so I said that I believe that this is the Vanguard issue in the kind of ideological war and that I'm not going to participate on the side of the people whose whose ideological stance I find reprehensible unforgivable and reprehensible especially the Marxist element of it and so I announced that I was going to use these words because I don't believe that they're instantiated to protect anyone's rights I believe their that the ideologues who are pushing this movement are using unsuspecting and sometimes complicit members of the so-called transgender community to push their ideological Vanguard forward and I firmly believe that so I'm not participating in that and the fact that it's potentially illegal for me not to participate in that is something that I regard as I think that's absolutely dreadful it's it makes it puts a shudder in my heart as a Canadian that we could even possibly be in a situation like that you know if the if the identity claims that are instantiated and misled in the policy surrounding this legislation are applied it's going to be held for the psychiatrist excuse my language it's going to be very difficult for the biologists and the psychiatrists next and I think we'll see that happening very soon Thank You senator Gould thank you and thank you for being here I've never been a practicing lawyer I was a constitutional law professor and I'm a free speech guy so I appreciate importance of the issues that are being raised I think respectfully they were answered free speech issues were answered quite compellingly by my former colleague Brenda Cosman and testimony before this committee but I I wanted to make three points mr. Peterson and their questions are buried at this point I think I heard you say that you thought that the harm to this legislation of ways good but but but there is the trans community suffers harm regularly under discriminated against and whatever else one might say and worried about human rights tribunals and and the like this bill addresses and would take a major step forward towards reducing harm that a particularly vulnerable community experiences second let's see if we could zero in on where we might agree that there is nothing in the law that criminalizes or creates a an offense to criticise the notion that identity is a social construct which you do to criticize the way in which words come into the language the modern Hebrew is an example of words coming in by Fiat and the Academie Francaise does it as well or Shakespeare gave us so much of our language but there's nothing in this bill that stands in the way of you taking a principled position against all aspects of this including your criticisms of the activists the issue is the pronoun and unless I'm reading it wrong senator Pratt pointed out the Ontario Human Rights Commission policy does not say that refusing to use a person's self-identified name or personal pronoun does constitute gender-based harassment I may I may be wrong but I believe it said it could and I think that's a real difference if I turn to you and say look please call me they because that's how I see myself in it because it's hurtful for you to call me sir or miss whatever whatever it would be but you refuse I think all Kate if you're uncomfortable with that because you're not comfortable with that call me mark and you refuse were you to continue to call me by the name that I'm telling you is hurtful to me is that not in fact something that is that not something that the law can properly address this is you are knowingly hurting me and and in that respect our courts ultimately I think are capable of striking a proper balance between people who slip up or who for whatever reasons just can't get the words out of their mouth and those that persist and intentionally causing community to respond would you agree with my characterization of the free speech as it applies to these issues let me jump in just on the legal point after dr. Peterson closed the teens videos and after he rose to the public consciousness the Ontario Human Rights Commission deemed it fit to release a new policy document called questions and answers about gender identity and pronouns and in so doing they said that refusing to refer to a trans person by their chosen name and a personal pronoun that matches their gender identity or purposely misgendering will likely be discrimination so I think it's a little bit more certain than what you may have indicated in your comment but a lot of doctor and once again that was but that policy was was put out after dr. Peterson began to speak on the issue and so I think it's very telling that it was a response if you will to this this this issue that dr. Peterson raised I can allow obviously dr. Pearson to go ahead with the other element of your question very briefly sir well so I would say that the very idea that calling someone a term that they didn't choose causes them such irreparable harm that legal remedy should be sought rather than regarding it as a form of impoliteness that legal remedies should should be sought including potential violation of the hate speech codes is an indication of just how deeply the culture of victimization has sunk into our society okay believe it there senator from main topic mr. Brown when the Minister of Justice was before this committee she said the following there is nothing within bill c16 that would compel somebody to have to call somebody by the pronoun he or she or otherwise can you comment on preposition I'd agree with that there is nothing in the bill but the problem is that in the the Government of Canada Department of Justice website they in their questions and answers section of that website which was pulled down in December sets out five of my brief it makes it very clear that the definitions of the terms gender identity and gender expression have already been given by the Ontario Human Rights Commission the Commission has provided helpful discussion and examples that can offer good practical guidance the Canadian Human Rights Commission will provide similar guidance on the meaning of these terms in the Canadian Human Rights Act now I think that deviously the legislative intent and I'll agree with you that the the bill itself on its face does not seem to imply any manner compelled speech but when we're tying it so deliberately and with this expectation that's where I think you get into into some trouble we gave mr. Barrie you spoke about the chilling effects of overly broad legislation I'm wondering if you consider the terms gender identity and gender expression to be equally broad or do consider one broader than the other I think they are overly broad definitions and and I think the only thing I can offer as a lawyer and a litigator is that the courts don't like over broad terms and I would refer you to the decision of London blue Sun or the Alberta Court of Appeal where in that case the Court of Appeals is the objective of statutory interpretation is to discern the legislative intent from the language of the legislation if possible and to give it effect to such intent this objective becomes difficult to attain where there is conflict imprecision or a lack of clarity in the legislation of particularly a particular concern in the area of human rights law is that a lack of clarity will cast the chill on the exercise on the fundamental freedoms such as freedom of expression and religion and so well I personally believe that these that the terms are not properly or not clearly defined and and somewhat ambiguous the courts don't like that type of legislation either two things with regards to the chill it's already the case and I've seen this among my own students when they're teaching personality which is what I teach which also involves assessment of gender differences between men and women that the proclivity now is for the advanced PhD students to avoid any such discussions in their classrooms because the potential cost of transgressing against an unknown norm let's say is so high that it's just easier to teach other things and so I've seen that clearly and with multiple people and I would also say that it's no trivial matter that the Department of Justice is linked to the Ontario Human Rights Commission and their statements about how this legislation was going to be interpreted and mysteriously disappeared in the middle of December of all the things that have happened to me that happened in relationship to this that I've been studying I think that was the most chilling so because it was the it was the what would you say it was the smoking pistol right because the issue is what's the right level of analysis he just supposed to look at the legislation well since the Justice Department said no you're supposed to look at the surrounding policies well that's what I did and that's what I based my case on and then all of a sudden the link to those the link tying those two things together just vanished and people had to go into the internet archives to to to fish it back out so that it could remain part of the public record I think that's absolutely scandalous Thank You senator Almaguer Thank You Sharon thank you both of you for being here and I was trying to take notes but I think I got this right mr. Peterson that you talked about this bill as being an expression of vanguard of ideology and am i right in thinking and well I was thinking more about the policies that surrounded it but but yes yeah so I'm trying to square what you as a party of one are saying with published documents from the Canadian Psychological Association the American Psychological Association being Canadian Medical Association the American Psychiatric Association the Canadian psychiatry Association and the United Nations Human Rights access so these are all you know these are not parties of one they associated they are all I imagined lots of psychologists and members of the Canadian psychology of the age and the Canadian psychiatrist so how they describe what you're saying which is your opinion which you are absolutely entitled to with what everyone is ranked plus the feeling and testimony of the people who have suffered over 30 years we've been taking issues to court these are people who feel it will be listened to so how do we get a grab it okay well with regards to your second point if the people that you're listening to aren't randomly selected from a population then their opinions are worthless from the perspective of testimony because you don't know if you're dealing with a biased sample and that's a big problem with the public consultation process that underlies this bill and and you can not appreciate that if you'd like but it's standard practice in any in any polling institution or anybody that's attempting to extract a genuine opinion out of a so called community of people and if that isn't followed then you can't tell if the information that your program that you're receiving is biased and this with regards to your first point what exactly are all those people who are thinking the same way as me say you said that there's a bunch of them and a bunch of groups but you never said what they're saying precisely well I think our chair who drew me on to fourth in fact there's no you're fun to read out what they're all saying but in general they say they oppose discrimination and harassment because of gender identity and gender expression and then there's three pages okay I oppose discrimination against gender identity and gender expression that's not the point the point is the specifics of the legislation that's around it and the insistence that people will have to be have to use compelled speech that's what I'm objecting to with all sorts of people in my life very people who don't fit in in all sorts of different ways I'm not a discriminatory person there's 500 hours of my teaching to my classrooms on tape on YouTube but nobody's found a smoking pistol I'm not a discriminatory individual but I think this legislation is reprehensible and I do not believe for a moment that it will be what it intends to do I also don't think that my opinion deviates substantially from the bodies that you're describing because you haven't provided any evidence that they say anything other than discrimination is a bad thing and I think that unreasonable discrimination is a bad thing and it's unreasonable when people are judged for any reason other than the specific competence that they bring to say a given position it's not in anyone's best interest that that occurs but I don't think that you've demonstrated in the least that the opinions that I'm putting forward are exist in opposition to the standard practices a say of my particular discipline so could you Mansell could you repeat one more time your response to Senators gold and crack but the Ontario Human Rights Commission has provided what I would say reasonable alternative to your your objection to using pronouns well I think it's been made clear in that in the presentation so far is that it depends on which part of the Ontario Human Rights Commission's policies you read and that's a big problem I mean that's one of the reasons I criticized this to begin with was because when I went through the policies I could see that they're absolutely incoherent so for example let me give you another example so there's an insistence in the Ontario Human Rights Commission that sexual preference is an immutable phenomena which indicates at least in principle that it's biologically grounded but on the same by the same token in exactly the same policies they presume that sexual identity gender identity and gender expression are entirely independent it's like sorry guys you can't have both of those because one's a and one's not a and you can't put those together and like there's there's endless numbers of places in the policy surround surrounding Bill c16 that are characterized by that kind of logical incoherency and we watch it going to do too people who are transgender who are making the claim that they were say born that way at birth which is a strong claim that's a biological claim it indicates that there's a direct causal connection between some biological phenomena and the expression of a particular identity it's actually the strongest defense that people who have let's call them non-standard sexual identities or gender identities have to defend those claims I've to wrap it up there and move on to Senator woven mr. Foucault suppose that at all thank you very much mr. chair I'll leave the time for our guests to put in their translation devices thank you very much for being here my question is for mr. Peterson do you have interpretation now sir so I'm still trying to orient myself a little bit in this bill I'm a little bit lost in the arguments in this for and against but some arguments really struck me because some people said that without this bill there might be suicides people would become depressed transgender people of course and it seems to me that this is almost an extreme position that without this bill there would be an explosion of suicides and depression so I'd like to ask two a question as a professor now you work in the the social sciences you study human behavior are there studies or statistics about the consequences that this bill would have on those people is this bill would this bill save as many lives and help as many people as it says well in principle we would have that information if the policies that have already been introduced by the provincial governments were assessed properly but as far as I know there's been no no studies indicating that the introduction of this legislation specifically has done anything to modify the the unfortunate rates of of depression anxiety and so forth that are that are characteristic well you could say often of marginalized groups but that's a bit of an overstatement so no I don't that that was part of my original claim is that there's no evidence that this sort of legal redress let's say is going to produce any positive consequences that are intended and I do believe that by making the issue let's say painfully visible that's one way of thinking about it this actually had the opposite effect and it's announced it's very very common and this is something that's that's well known in the relevant social sciences that just because you intend something to happen when you make a large-scale transformation doesn't indicate in any matter that that's going to be the outcome I mean it would be lovely if things were that simple and I mean the best social scientists always insist that you build an outcome analysis into any into any broad scale what would you call social intervention because there's a good chance it'll backfire there's a high chance of a backfire so it's all presupposition and it's based at least in part on the notion that the transgender community is a community and that there are voices that speak for them homogeneous ly and that this is what they all want and that will work as intended that to me looking at this from from the social science perspective it's it's there's nothing about it that's credible missing and I also don't buy the intent so senator Duke we see what's happened Thank You mr. chair first of all I'd like to ask the question mr. Peterson and perhaps I would also have a question for mr. Brown my question is as follows dr. Peterson I'm trying to understand your position do you see a difference between the opinions that you express that you are expressing today on this issue as part of this public consultation and the actions that you take as a university professor where you are in a position of authority and power over your students well first of all I don't necessarily consider myself in a position of authority and power I consider myself in a position of responsibility those aren't the same thing so I don't agree with the way that the question is formulated and I don't understand what that has to do with my stance I mean if I believe that the legislation is going to do more harm than good and I also firmly believe which I do that it is more in the issue of an ideological move than something that's designed to address the concerns that it purports to address I would also like to point out briefly that you know what should happen when I made that video and this is relevant to the question was that like maybe people paid attention to ten minutes teach it to it for ten minutes and maybe it got a newspaper article and it disappeared but I put my finger on something that's what I thought and the fact that this issue hasn't gone away in nine months quite the contrary it's exploded not only in Canada but in all sorts of parts of the world means that I means to me that I have some evidence that my choice of level of analysis was correct and that there's far more going on here so to speak than the mere surface issue that we're purporting to discuss and so I take exception to the notion that I am somehow abandoning my personal responsibility to my students which is something that I believe is in fact driving what I'm doing I believe that my obligation of my students constantly is to tell them what I think and to make that as informed and careful an opinion as I can possibly matter master and that's what I do yeah both chemical Anika Simoni I think that you understand that if you come to participate or to appear before a Senate committee studying a bill regardless of what we think of the question that I mean my question for you is do you make a difference between your opinion what you say and the fact that the University which pays you I believe unless I'm wrong the university considers you to be under its legal responsibilities and so you are in a situation of authority over your students and this means that you can give an A or an F to your students the components of the legislation I think that's rolling I'm going to move on in a cinder McDonald Thank You chair dr. P signed a car seat for you the thing that concerns me most of this legislation is compelled speech I think that's very concerning this committee has heard from Megan Murphy who told us her opposition to this concept of gender fluid e fluidity because she believes gender is a social construction doctor GAD sod also told to the Federation because of his belief in evolutionary biology what this shows is that with bill C 16 we are prematurely shutting down a discussion on gender and sex and it's far from cellular appears to be first settled and in my opinion when we look to the provincial definition set up other Commission's we are enshrining the theory of a gender spectrum into the law and one of you commented that's exactly what we're doing learns and I think I think that that might even be more dangerous than in my opinion than the compelled speech issue because the social constructionist view gender isn't another opinion it's just wrong so because and I can I can tell you why that is fairness okay one minute to do that if well the proposition that's instantiated for example in this particular visual which is a good representation of the of the philosophy of the policies is that there's no causal relationship between these four dimensions of identity and that's palpably absurd I mean ninety-eight percent of people it's ninety nine point seven percent of people who inhabit a body with a given biological sex identified without biological sex it's their incredibly tightly linked if you can't attribute causality to a link that that's tight that's not in time you have to dispense with the notion of causality altogether and then of the people who identify say as male or female who are also biologically male or female the vast majority of them have the sexual preference that would go along with that and the gender identity and the gender expression these these levels of analysis are unbelievably tightly linked and the evidence that biological factors play a role in determining gender identity is in a word overwhelming there isn't a serious scientist alive who would dispute that now you get you get disputes about it but they always stem from essentially from the humanities and as far as I'm concerned I looked at it very carefully those arguments are entirely ideologically driven it's a tenant of the ideology that identity is socially constructed and that's partly why it's being instantiated into law because there's no way they're going to win the argument but they can certainly win let's say the propaganda war especially by hoisting this sort of reprehensible advertising information on children and that's part of the that's part of the express intent I would add the trans complainants have been covered under the existing grounds of sex before the tribunals across Canada and as Minister justice said they are bringing this legislation in as a symbolic gesture and so yeah I leave it to you to question what that gesture may be but but this community has been protected under the existing grounds that are found in most the human rights codes across across Canada on the grounds of sex picked if you assume original to share mr. brownlow mr. Peterson D and Justice Vagner from the Supreme Court in a seminar at the Ottawa University in early March of this year which is couple of months ago stated the following of course he was not giving a decision from the bench you know but he was expressing his views and if you allow me I will quote him it's short when the court eventually faces a question touching on transgender identity these two preposition will provide essential frames of reference first one that identity is not fixed but changing that's the first proposal and then the second one that identity is not innate but contextual I repeat that identity is not innate but context to all and of course I I read that when I try to understand the implication of this you know those two binary kinds of elements that and he says the court so I bet that he might have spoken to colleagues or you know the profession generally would you would you have a quarrel with that kind of approach to the definition of transgender reality or if you think that it's a proper way of approaching legally the issues because as you forcefully explain somebody one day might challenge you know the proposal the policies and all what could stem from the enactment of those legislations so in other words we'll find ourselves in the court one day and we will have to our you know to analyze and argue the case at least taking into account that references that those references that justice wagner mentioned not long ago so oh you you will react to that well I want to a at first I want to make sure I understand your question properly so when the justice said this was he implying that the identity is not fixed but it is changing and that identity wasn't innate and it was contextual or was he outlining the thus the the arena within which this debate might take play nowyou is essentially it was the unit was another speech on this century it was more if I can use an expression that mr. Broun will understand it was rather an arbitrary you know in a conference the conference was about identity but of course since you know identity is a topic of comment on you know common debates in Canada he felt that it was helpful if he would you know I should say put his grain of salt in being England in the public key date by establishing with he thinks is you know how to define transgender identity and established some parameters okay so let's let's assume that it is changing and contextual yeah okay then why is conversion therapy a problem see this is what see the thing is is that when I started opposing this bill people immediately assumed that I was transphobic and racist and all these other epithets that they're perfectly willing to trot forth at a moment's notice but you know there's been a tremendous attempt to make conversion therapy for people who are gay illegal right and the proposition is predicated on the idea that the identity the sexual preference identity is not changing nor contextual it's fundamental and really what that means is that it's grounded in something like biology it's okay fine let's scrap that okay no it's going to be changing in contextual okay then why can't it be changed with context and so this is part of the problem with the policies is they're so incoherent that they're going to work against the people that they're designed to protect now people have a hard time believing I care about that but you know the fact that I've been called things doesn't mean that that's what I am so you know a lot of people who have let's call it a non-standard identity the tightest argument they have for public acceptance of that identity is that it's powerfully constrained by biological processes that are beyond their voluntary control so instantiate this view of humanity the social constructionist view of humanity and you can waive those claims goodbye because they're completely they are at complete odds with the social constructionist viewport and I think that's a big mistake and I really do believe that that will backfire hard against the people who this legislation is designed to protect if it's mutable changeable only subjective and and transformable on a whim then why should anyone have any respect for it gentlemen I have to intervene the hour has flown by and we all very much appreciate your appearance here today in your testimony as well thank you we will suspend briefly before hearing from the next cases [Music]

Channel: Jordan B Peterson

Views: 1,134,590

Rating: 4.9396181 out of 5

Keywords: jordan peterson, psychology, free speech, maps of meaning, university of toronto, transgender, senate, C16, Bill C16, freedom of speech, political correctness, neo-marxist, authoritarian, personality

Id: KnIAAkSNtqo

Length: 60min 9sec (3609 seconds)

Published: Thu May 18 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/MustardOrPants]

This is great. Peterson is utterly fascinating.

[u/foll-trood]

If you don't have the time, just watch the end (paraphrased: "If gender identity is fluid (=a social construct) then why is conversion therapy a problem?")

also:

Update: on May 18, C16 sailed through the Canadian Senate with no amendments.

[u/Bizkitgto]

Canada is slowly becoming the future in Demolition Man...well, we all are...let's face it.