Conrad Black: Jordan Peterson’s Case Has Profound Implications for Canadians’ Rights and Freedoms

Commentary It was my privilege and pleasure to participate with perhaps the most eminent contemporary Canadian, Prof. Jordan Peterson, and the prominent American television and internet commentator, Tucker Carlson, in a spontaneous presentation to a live audience of 8,000 in the principal indoor stadium in Edmonton on Jan. 24. I was ostensibly the moderator, but that consisted in presenting a topic for discussion which all three of us would then tackle in sequence. It was a rollicking and, speaking for the three of us on the dais, a most enjoyable evening. Tucker Carlson is a charming man personally and publicly, with an excellent sense of humour, and alternates profound statements of principle with the provocative apercus of an engaging gadfly. Jordan Peterson makes no pretence to being a barrel of laughs but is an eye-wateringly erudite psychological and philosophical scholar. He presents his views in a rolling thunder of brilliant and intense articulation. I just played it down the middle, added a few light touches, and where it seemed appropriate, smoothed some of Tucker’s more flamboyant reflections, and helped explicate a few of Jordan’s more complex formulations....