Dr. Jordan Peterson, a popular intellectual critic, warned Canadian Christians to stand up for their religious rights if they valued them, because the Canadian government does not.

Peterson, a University of Toronto professor, exhorted Christians to defend their liberties in light of a recent Canadian Supreme Court case concerning Trinity Western University. Justices ruled in the case that Ontario and British Columbia law societies could refuse accreditation to law students from Trinity Western University because of the university’s “community covenant,” which binds students to a Bible-based lifestyle, part of which restricts sexual activity to the context of heterosexual marriage. Christians had better defend themselves in an articulate way, Peterson said, because the Canadian government does not prioritize religious liberty, according to Lifesite. 

“Better stand up for yourself, because your religious rights are very low on the rights totem pole at the moment,” Peterson said in a video published Wednesday. “And that’s going to get worse, a lot worse, before it gets better. So if you think your religious freedom is worth having, you better be ready to defend it, and you better be ready to do that in an articulated way, because you’re not a priority — put it that way.”

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When asked how Canada’s Christians could begin defending religious liberty, Peterson responded that they needed to start voting in elections. He explained that people do not engage with Canada’s political system because it usually functions well even without their involvement, but that the time of impersonal politics had come to an end in Canada.

“But I don’t think we’re at a point right now where you can avoid making the political personal, and that’s a sign that things are destabilized,” Peterson said. “If the traditional types are concerned about preserving what they have, and also having the right to continue to engage in their faith-based activities, then they better take a good, hard look at the people who are opposing that and decide what they’re going to do about it.”

Peterson also said the body of Judeo-Christian beliefs is inextricably related to political and economic institutions based on concepts of individual liberties and sovereignty. He argued that Canadians should seek to change their understanding of how traditional Christian beliefs form the metaphysical basis for the kind of government and society that Canada seeks to maintain.

“I think we need to understand how they’re related more fundamentally, because I see the entire doctrine of individual sovereignty and individual rights as a logical extension of the Judeo-Christian notion that there’s a spark of divinity that characterizes each individual person, that we’re made in the image of God,” Peterson said. “That’s the metaphysical presupposition. I think those metaphysical presuppositions are unbelievably important and primary. And so I’d also say to the faith-based types, it’s time to take a great leap forward.”