St. Catharines not asking Meridian Centre to cancel Jeff Dunham show
City council will create policy for future acts
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City council won’t ask Meridian Centre to give American comedian Jeff Dunham the hook after an hourlong discussion Monday night about his controversial upcoming performance in St. Catharines.
The city’s anti-racism advisory committee argued the ventriloquist uses puppet characters based on racist stereotypes and asked council to request ASM Global, which manages the centre for the city, consider cancelling the show.
Councillors voted 10-2 against that motion. But they did unanimously support the creation of guiding principles for future performances at all city facilities with input from equity seeking groups or advisory committees or both.
“In that decision we must always remember as council we’re not the ‘Thought Police.’ We are not the ones that ban books,” said Mayor Walter Sendzik.
“It’s not our decision, even though it’s our facilities. But if we can have a policy, those who are making the choices for selection, they’ll be able to look at it and say, ‘Here’s what’s best for our community moving forward.’”
The Jeff Dunham: Seriously North American tour is scheduled to make a stop at Meridian Centre on Nov. 20. The 110-square-metre venue is almost sold out.
The anti-racism committee passed a resolution calling for the cancellation of the performance because of characters used in the act that include a bearded skeleton called Achmed the Dead Terrorist and a Latino puppet named José Jalepeño.
Committee chair Saleh Waziruddin told council there’s been a brazenness of hate crimes such as the vandalism at Harriet Tubman School and other acts in which people have no hint of shame or fear of getting caught, including the recent harassment of Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland captured on video.
“They get this daring from the normalization of hate, from making a mockery and the butt of jokes of racialized people, women and 2SLGBTQIA+ people,” Waziruddin said.
He said council didn’t need to take his word for it — Statistics Canada reported police have seen a 72 per cent increase in hate crimes in just two years.
Waziruddin argued St. Catharines should pursue cancellation of the event and start reversing what’s been called an escalating wildfire of hate in the country.
Grantham Coun. Bill Philips said the show was almost sold out and council had received emails from people supporting the event. He asked Waziruddin if he was worried about backlash against the committee.
“If this gets cancelled, there’s going to be 4,000 or 5,000 people, however many seats have been sold, who are going to be very upset because the anti-racism committee has brought this forward and it’s going to have some negative effect on the good work that you’ve done so far. Is that not a concern at all?”
Waziruddin said there’s a long history of not wanting to upset people who either are racist or who think racism is funny.
“I think the damage that’s caused by this kind of performance is much greater. And that’s what we should be focusing on and not on the people who bought the tickets.”
St. Andrew’s Coun. Joe Kushner said the discussion reminded him of one several years ago when a group wanted books banned in the library. He said council decided their policy was they shouldn’t get involved, even though the books were insensitive, and it was up to the library board. He said that was the right decision.
Council spent half an hour behind closed doors with the city solicitor for legal advice before voting separately on whether to ask ASM to cancel the Dunham event and ask city staff to create the guiding principles for facilities.
Merritton Coun. Greg Miller, who brought the anti-racism committee’s motion forward asking for the cancellation request, said council has “scoffed” at the committee’s recommendations a number of times in the past.
“I think it creates an atmosphere of distrust when we ask for this committee to give us their experience and we don’t take those experiences seriously,” he said.
“What they’re asking for us to do is pretty basic here, to ask the Meridian Centre to consider cancelling a show that racialized people in our community consider harmful and hateful.”
St. Patrick’s Coun. Karrie Porter, the other councillor to vote in favour, said she worries about any employee at Meridian Centre who’s Muslim and has to sit through an Achmed the Dead Terrorist performance.
Porter said she understood because of contractual obligations that council couldn’t tell ASM what to do or force it to cancel, but said it was a great opportunity to ask it how it can improve its bookings and align with the city’s anti-racism committee.
“It is a municipal facility, it is taxpayer funded to some extent and I feel this is an important opportunity for ASM Global to take a look at our equity, diversity policies and where we’re going as a community and do a better job booking better acts.”
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