Coun. Green misfires on Jordan Peterson
Ward 3 representative expected to seek NDP nomination is known to showboat
On Tuesday, Coun. Matthew Green is holding a news conference in front of the city hall “Hamilton” sign to make a “special announcement.”
Rightly or wrongly, the presumption is Green intends to state whether he’ll seek re-election in Ward 3 or step aside to chase the federal NDP nomination in Hamilton Centre when incumbent MP David Christopherson retires next year.
For Green’s sake, let’s hope nobody tries to hijack his event like he himself did last year to Coun. Terry Whitehead’s media conference on LRT, which turned the whole thing into a gong show.
The point is, it’s quite clear Green has more than a little showboat in his veins. It’s generally served him well in building his social justice brand during his rookie term on council. But sometimes his grandstanding can backfire, making him look like a know-it-all given to Ready-Fire-Aim tactics.
A case in point was his recent finger-wagging lecture to the Carmen’s Group — which manages the cityowned Hamilton Convention Centre — for allegedly bringing University of Toronto professor and bestselling author Jordan Peterson to town for an upcoming speaking event.
Peterson rose to fame a couple of years ago because of his opposition to government-compelled use of fabricated gender-neutral pronouns. But he has since become an international celebrity for challenging radical leftist ideology and prevailing politically correct orthodoxies. That’s made him both a champion of free speech advocates and a target for certain types of intolerant progressives and identity politics activists.
Green began by complimenting the Carmen’s delegation — which was at city hall making a pitch to take over management of FirstOntario Centre and Concert Hall — for being a “class act.” But he went on to note his reservations about the Peterson event, claiming it’ll generate the kind of negative attention that doesn’t fit “the brand of inclusion that I think that we’re trying to build in this city.”
Green strongly encouraged Carmen’s to “up your standard of care in terms of doing due diligence when you book within quasi public-private partnerships.” He said what Carmen’s does at its own facilities is up to them but warned the Peterson event will generate the kind of attention “that I don’t think you’re going to want to attribute to the Carmen’s brand.”
“Just a piece of political advice you can take or leave. And I’m sure I’ll have all the free speech advocates emailing me as I speak.”
Beyond his cavalier fearmongering, the problem with Green’s little harangue is neither the Carmen’s facilities nor the Convention Centre is hosting the July 20 event. It’s actually being held at FirstOntario Concert Hall by Spectra in partnership with Live Nation Entertainment. Ready. Fire! Aim.
Green later apologized to Carmen’s when, thanks to a journalist’s tweet, he discovered his blunder. But he returned to the subject after Live Nation chair Riley O’Connor, who was there to ostensibly support Spectra’s bid to run all three former HECFI venues, weakly said he’ll take note of Green’s concerns.
Green maintained Peterson’s views are “not based in any type of academic rigour or scientific truth.”
“In fact, you will find that this event will court an alt-right faction, that will be just short of a kind of fascists, into the city.”
Actually, Green is wrong. Peterson’s scholarly track record on personality psychology and belief systems is beyond dispute as are his scores of peer-reviewed publications. Agree with him or not, anyone who has watched his online lectures or media interviews knows he’s extremely nuanced and nothing but reasonable.
Whether or not Peterson acts as a magnet for alt-right goons when he comes to town remains to be seen. What we do know, however, is his speech at McMaster University last year was disrupted by leftist bullies. That’s been the pattern since his meteoric rise to fame.
That makes Green’s attempt to link Peterson to “fascists” another case of Ready. Fire! Aim. The fact is, Peterson is a free speech advocate yet one of the true hallmarks of fascism is a desire to suppress it.