It was in this latter Rick Salutin production that he gained the greatest recognition, playing William Lyon Mackenzie and Lady Backwash.
The play, which premiered in Vancouver in 1978, went on tour internationally, garnering positive reviews on Broadway, where Peterson won the Clarence Derwent Award for most promising performer,[4] in London's West End.
[4] In October 2000, he performed in Hysteria at the Canadian Stage and in January 2001, he appeared in Clout at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.
[3] His more notable television work includes 1998's Nothing Sacred (a movie for which he also co-produced and appeared in the stage version), Night Heat and This Is Wonderland.
He also appeared as Hank Stewart in the Hippocratic Oath episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents for AHF Film Productions.
Much to the dismay of his son and his wife Emma (played by Janet Wright), he uses his new-found free time to unwittingly annoy his family and the town at large.
[13] Peterson and his wife live in Toronto, Ontario, with their two daughters, although he still frequents his home province of Saskatchewan, where he owns a cottage on Katepwa Lake in the Qu'Appelle Valley near his hometown.
For his portrayal of Leon Robinovitch on Street Legal, he was nominated for the Gemini Award for Best Performance by a Lead Actor in a Continuing Dramatic Role six times: in 1987, 1989, and every year from 1992 through 1995.
In 2004, he was nominated (alongside fellow Corner Gas actor Brent Butt) in the "Pretty Funny Television Performance – Male" category.