What protestors have to say about Jordan Peterson's Kelowna appearance

A demonstration outside Kelowna City Hall Friday raised objections to the upcoming appearance by controversial Canadian psychologist, professor and media commentator, Jordan Peterson.

Peterson gained attention recently after a petition, which has now garnered 1,500 signatures was launched in hopes of getting next Friday’s sold-out show at Prospera Place cancelled.

He took to Twitter saying, “I’ve been cancelled by better people than this sorry lot.”

The protestors wanted the ear of Mayor Tom Dyas but to no avail.

Organizer Brent Forder, who admitted it was always unlikely the event would get cancelled, said the overall message they’re presenting is to start a conversation about the issues affecting marginalized communities.

“We're just at the beginning of finding out how all the different communities are affected by hate in Kelowna,” he said. “We need to invite people to give input to council and get more promotion and awareness. Maybe [we need] city events to help heal and discuss these issues and to enforce the Kelowna Community Safety Plan.”

Forder added they have received backlash from the side that seems to favour the Peterson appearance.

“We've received lots of generally belligerent, aggressive comments online like ‘go home.’,” he explained. “I had someone contact me via email and say that they hope someone comes to the protest and roughs me up. There have been a few other violent adjacent comments like that, a lot of aggressive stuff.”

Peterson is a controversial figure and speaker and has come under fire for his comments on gender identity, and the use of preferred pronouns among other provocative viewpoints.

A counter petition supporting Peterson’s performance had raised over 1,700 signatures.

Forder said while it’s disappointing the city nor the promoters didn’t step in to do anything, he launched an online platform called healinghate.ca. It’s a project aimed to acknowledge, tackle, and heal social violence related to white supremacy, misogyny, homophobia and more in Okanagan communities.

“That's going to hopefully become a communication hub, event hub and discussion forum for anti bigotry content in general for the area,” Forder said. “We want to reach out, do outreach to find the different marginalized community voices, get their essays and thoughts and ideas about how we can change the culture here.”

A community forum about facing bigotry will be taking place the night of the Jordan Peterson event, Friday May 26.