Meet Dr Yipeng Ge:
A primary care physician and public health practitioner based in Ottawa, Canada (or what he calls Algonquin Anishinaabeg), Ge hates Canada and Israel, referring to them as “settler colonial,” and wanting their abolishment.
He rails particularly against Israel on social media and, in fact, got suspended from his medical residency at the University of Ottawa, for social media posts the media called “pro palestinian”, which Jewish doctor Dr. Yoni Freedhoff drew attention to on his Substack.
Those posts include explicitly equating zionism with the genocide of Palestinians, upholding and sharing conspiracy theories about the hospital blood libel, and the support and defense of the eliminationist and/or genocidal chant “From the river to the sea” which his post explains if it makes you feel uncomfortable it’s because you probably believe Palestinian freedom is a threat to Jewish safety and that if the phrase “Free Palestine” makes you uncomfortable it’s because you probably benefit from the oppression of Palestinians
A petition was launched “in solidarity with Dr. Yipeng Ge for advocating for the human rights of Palestinians”, and calling on “the University of Ottawa to reverse the suspension of Dr. Yipeng Ge and to issue an apology for the failure to engage in due process in the investigation of Dr. Yipeng Ge and other students of the University of Ottawa who have been unjustly denied their fundamental right to free expression.” The petition also attributed his suspension to “Anti-Palestinian discrimination, including racism and censorship.”
The university decided to reinstate Ge, but he decided not to return
“I feel incredibly harmed by this process, and I don’t know how to continue within this institution because of what’s happened,” Ge told CBC on Friday.
“I’ve given almost eight years of my life to this institution. And for them to do something like this without any kind of conversation beforehand, I find [it] just incredibly appalling and egregious.”
and also resigned from the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) board of directors. He has been playing the victim ever since.
Ge even spoke to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, study of the protection of freedom of expression, advocating for legislation to limit how health regulatory bodies can police their own members on their speech.
My name is Yipeng Ge. I am a family doctor currently practicing in primary care and refugee health in Ottawa.
I completed my medical school at the University of Ottawa, and was awarded the Anne C. Amberg Prize, a convocation award, for the best combination of academic accomplishment and sensitivity to community health issues. I completed my Masters of Public Health in health and social behaviour with a certificate in public health leadership from Harvard University.
Also as a scholar and practitioner of anti-racism and health equity, I was on the Canadian Institutes of Health Research anti-racism advisory committee, and I helped develop anti-racism education for the University of Ottawa’s Department of Family Medicine. During my time at Harvard University when I first visited Palestine, I deepened my learning on settler colonialism and bearing witness to apartheid and occupation as determinants of Palestinian health, as this has been my area of study here on Turtle Island related to Indigenous health in Canada.
I was a resident in public health and preventive medicine at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Medicine. I sat on Faculty Council, the highest governing committee for the Faculty. And I was on the board of directors for the Canadian Medical Association last year.
I learned intimately this past year that the boundaries of freedom of expression in Canada have been severely limited as it pertains to speech in support of health and human rights for Palestinians and Palestine.
My experience of institutional anti-Palestinian racism and limitations on our freedom of speech parallels the stories of many who have chosen to speak out about human rights violations in Palestine. Anti-Palestinian racism is a form of racism and discrimination adjacent to Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism but also distinct from both. It is a form of racism that seeks to silence, exclude, erase, stereotype, and dehumanize Palestinians and their allies. This often results in severe sanctions and disciplinary actions that profoundly impact the lives of Palestinians and their allies, a practice which was advised against by the Office of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. This is a freedom of expression issue.
Last year around this time, a family doctor and Faculty member shared my social media posts and publicly mischaracterized them as antisemitic and inflammatory, and sent them to the University and the Canadian Medical Association. He was someone that was neither a patient nor a direct colleague or supervisor of mine.
My social media posts were from my personal accounts and in no way was I trying to speak for any of my places of employment or affiliation. These posts were criticized as being inflammatory, racist, and antisemitic simply because they advocated for Palestinians having the same human rights as everyone else, aligning with international law.
I met with senior leadership of the Canadian Medical Association, and my social media posts were criticized and I was pressured to put together a public apology and provide personal one-on-one apologies to certain people in high-ranking positions and who hold influence on the association.
Soon after, I received a phone call from the University, informing me of my immediate and indefinite suspension citing a level 3 breach of professionalism for my social media posts. A level 3 professionalism breach means repeated instances of an individual’s behaviour and conduct despite intervention or a concern for the individual’s clinical care or quality of care of services. No prior conversations were held, nor were concerns ever raised regarding my social media posts or professionalism before. Patient safety was raised as a concern; however, in my duties as a resident in public health I was completing a rotation at the Public Health Agency of Canada without any individuals working under me who I was responsible for supervising, and without direct patient contact.
The University’s professionalism subcommittee who reviewed my case recommended immediate reinstatement without any disciplinary action. They suggested an apology be issued by the University, which they never gave. I feel deeply harmed by the University in causing emotional and psychological distress and has permanently altered my career path in public health.
As I sat on Faculty Council this past year, I witnessed multiple cases of medical students’ social media posts be discussed as “professionalism” concerns, and it was clear that a fair process was not being followed. It was shared during these meetings that there were no clear bylaws or processes, and that their legal counsel was creating the processes as they went. There were statements shared in these meetings that were rooted in anti-Palestinian racism, anti-Muslim, and anti-Arab hate without any accountability.
The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario has informed me of multiple complaints against me of a similar nature related to social media posts, and not related to my clinical competency and conduct within the clinical setting. This is taking away time and resources from me, my legal counsel, and ultimately the College itself in managing legitimate cases related to professional competence and conduct.
My purpose today is to ask this Standing Committee for support in holding institutions to account for overstepping in their policing of people’s right to free speech and to recognize the appalling normalization of anti-Palestinian racism in educational institutions and places of employment, such as the University of Ottawa and the Canadian Medical Association.
This is not a partisan issue. There are solutions that are already being proposed, including a Conservative private members bill (C-257) titled, ‘An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act (protecting against discrimination based on political belief)’. Last week, the Alberta Premier along with the Justice Minister said that their government will review professional regulatory bodies such as the College of Physicians and Surgeons which plays the important role of regulating professional competence and conduct, and introduce legislation next year to limit how they can police their own members on their speech.
All of this is disingenous gaslighting.
The posts that earned Ge his suspension were tame compared to many others that should concern anyone possibly relying on medical care from Dr Ge – especially “Zionists.” And not just “social media posts from his personal accounts” – Ge has also been holding disturbing placards at rallies.
You see, he outright supports Hamas terrorism, which he calls “justified resistance” and “honorable struggle”
I mean, he really supports their terrorism:
even linking it to “good medicine”:
And make no mistake about it, he fully supports their goal to destroy and dismantle Israel ‘”from the River to the Sea”:
and supports October 7:
In addition to this disturbing terror support, Ge does actually dabble in antisemitism, when he compares us to the Nazis, clearly against the IHRA working definition of antisemitism:
Naturally, not a word from him about the Israelis murdered and kidnapped, nor about Christians being murdered in Syria.
Unbelievably, he has even been published in a health journal, the International Journal of Health Policy and Management (IJHPM), promoting the idea that health professionals should be” supporting through unwavering solidarity for collective liberation through the Indigenous resistance and resurgence movements in Turtle Island to Palestine.”
So while Ge denies these views affect his “professionalism” and “clinical competency and conduct within the clinical setting”, I beg to differ. How could anyone trust he would treat “Zionist” patients well? He supports our murder at the hands of Hamas after all. And I am not even sure regular Canadians – who he sees as “settlers” – would feel too safe either.
Yet he continues to practice and was even recently invited to give a lecture at McMaster University about “decolonizing anatomy education”, and “to spend time strategizing and building community together for Palestinian liberation and collective liberation.”
I firmy believe Dr Ge has no business treating patients or lecturing to future health givers, given his vile, pro terrorism views.
Please report Dr Ge to the CPSO here or by calling 1-800-268-7096.
And no, this has nothing to so with “anti palestinian racism” and everything to do with real concern for patient safety.
