Over the past month, I have been asked whether I am being hypocritical by, on the one hand, handling Jordan Peterson’s appeal from the order imposed by College of Psychologists of Ontario restricting his freedom of speech and right to post politically contentious material, while, on the other, advising employers of their right to fire employees for attending rallies involving hate speech and making anti-Semitic media posts.
Is my position on the Peterson appeal inconsistent with my avowal not to hire any of the students at Toronto Metropolitan University’s Lincoln Alexander School of Law who signed an anti-Semitic petition, or their fellow travellers who publicly supported them?
The answer should be obvious.
One should not conflate Charter-protected rights to speak and debate freely with either criminal hate speech or speech in violation of human rights legislation. The latter can land you in jail or paying significant awards and does not have the provenance of legal discourse.
But, more to the point, one can never conflate debate and speech in the public sphere with speech in the workplace. And the scope of the “workplace” has dramatically expanded over the last several years to include speech anywhere which impacts on your employer.
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