Nenshi Grills Smith in Legislature over Jordan Peterson’s School

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith confirmed today that her United Conservative Party government is keen to help provide provincial post-secondary accreditation for the Peterson Academy, the online school of controversial psychologist and bestselling author Jordan Peterson.

On Wednesday, The Tyee published an investigation, based on documents obtained through freedom of information request, that revealed Smith met with Peterson on Aug. 1, 2024, to discuss accreditation for his online school.

About a month after that meeting, Peterson, his daughter and his son–in-law met via an online video conference with former advanced education minister Rajan Sawhney to press their case for accreditation.

Smith’s chief of staff, Rob Anderson, also directly intervened twice with the ministry, including with Myles McDougall, Sawhney’s successor as advanced education minister.

The documents show the ministry produced an evaluation of how to grant accreditation, and, as recently as June 2025, there was even an assessment of changing the law to allow the accreditation.

In a statement, McDougall’s press secretary told The Tyee the Peterson Academy has not made a formal request for accreditation.

In a testy exchange in the Alberta legislature Wednesday, Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi noted that Smith is a “huge fan” of Peterson, having appeared on his podcasts, and even having “informally named a law after him.”

Nenshi asked Smith how appropriate it was for her office to “interfere” with the ministry to help Peterson’s school to gain accreditation.

“We think that Jordan Peterson is putting forward an incredible platform trying to bring down the cost of a university education, and you bet we are more than happy to talk with him to see if there is a way he can get accredited in Alberta,” Smith said, brushing aside Nenshi’s reference to Smith’s cronyism.

Smith’s government has advanced the so-called Jordan Peterson law, formally known as the Regulated Professions Neutrality Act. If enacted, it will restrict the regulators for such professions as lawyers, doctors and nurses from disciplining their members for “off-duty” conduct.

In a high-profile 2022 case, the College of Psychologists of Ontario sanctioned Peterson, a now-former University of Toronto professor, for comments he made online and on The Joe Rogan Experience, one of the most popular podcasts in the world.

Peterson appealed the sanction, mainly on freedom of expression grounds, all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. He argued his social media posts and other comments were “off-duty opinions” and the college did not have the authority to regulate his non-professional, political speech.

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled it would not hear Peterson’s appeal on Aug. 1, 2024, the same day Peterson met with Smith.

Smith, Anderson and Peterson did not respond to interview requests from The Tyee.

Smith told the legislature that her party was “inspired by Jordan Peterson to pass a law to ensure that those professionals do not end up facing sanction from their professional college for offering an opinion.”

Universities are supposed to be places “for free speech, for open and vibrant debate,” she said. “Sadly, it has moved away from that direction.

“But we think that initiatives like [the one] Jordan Peterson is putting forward are restoring free speech and are going to restore that robust environment, and that is going to be good for democracy,” Smith said.

Smith’s UCP government has repeatedly used closure during this sitting of the legislature to limit debate, including on four pieces of legislation in which the UCP employed the notwithstanding clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to evade scrutiny by the courts, a move unprecedented in Alberta or Canada.

Earlier this week, the UCP shut down an afternoon sitting of the legislature to avoid answering questions from Independent MLA Peter Guthrie, who quit the UCP during the ongoing scandal involving health-care procurement.

In an interview with The Tyee, Nenshi said Smith “has no remorse and no shame, even when she is caught out on something that is clearly wrong.”

Former Alberta premier Ralph Klein was known for apologizing when he was found to have done something wrong, Nenshi said.

“But this premier never, ever does,” he said. “She either doubles down or she blames someone else.”

The Peterson Academy is a wholly online school that offers instruction through on-demand videos of lectures on a range of topics. While many of the instructors are from prestigious universities and offer orthodox instruction, a good number of the lectures, one expert said, tend to square with Peterson’s alt-right perspective. Some deny the overwhelming preponderance of science of global warming and vaccines.

Nenshi wondered how an academy that offers “YouTube videos and AI-generated content” could play a role in a post-secondary system that is so badly underfunded that a polytechnic in Fairview, Alberta, is being closed by the government.

(A UCP MLA presented a petition in the legislature on Wednesday calling for the government to keep open the Northwestern Polytechnic campus in Fairview.)

In response, Smith rhetorically asked: “Guess what our most successful university is in Alberta? Athabasca University, which is a distance-learning university that educates more than 38,000 people per year and has one of the most esteemed MBA programs in all of Canada.” She also said she understood there was a group in Fairview who were working to save the polytechnic.

Over the past more than three years, The Tyee has produced a string of stories about UCP political interference in Athabasca University, located in the town of Athabasca, about 150 kilometres north of Edmonton.

The most recent story, published in September, detailed the exodus of senior executives under a new president and board of governors.

Former advanced education minister Demetrios Nicolaides directed the firing of nearly the entire board in order to in turn fire the world-respected president in what turned out to be a futile and ultimately abandoned attempt to force more executives and staff to live in the town.

Peterson and his daughter and son-in-law, who are listed as the executives for the Peterson Academy, live in Arizona. The academy has no presence, no infrastructure, in Canada or Alberta. It also has no degree program.

Nenshi said Smith’s comparison of Athabasca University to the Peterson Academy shows that “she either herself believes that YouTube videos equals a university education, or she believes that Albertans will fall for this when it really is just a grift.

“Neither of those two things are what Albertans look for in a leader.”

If you have any information for this story, or information for another story, please contact Charles Rusnell in confidence via email.