Content warning: This story contains descriptions of statements that are disparaging to Indigenous people and racialized minorities. Please read with care.
Dozens of community members attended the Nanaimo city council meeting on Monday to ask that an upcoming performance by outrage comedian Ben Bankas be cancelled.
After heated discussion, council decided it will not ask The Port Theatre to cancel Bankas’ performance.
However, it did vote to support a motion to issue a public statement reaffirming that it stands with marginalized people and visible minorities and send a letter asking The Port Theatre to “review its booking practices to ensure performances align with its stated core values of being accessible and inclusive.”
“It is very disturbing,” Coun. Ben Geselbracht said of Bankas. “I’m seeing this type of content that basically targets every race other than whites.”
In a statement sent to The Discourse on Tuesday afternoon, The Port Theatre Society said it had yet to receive a letter from the City of Nanaimo and that its “rental practices are aligned with the city’s rental practices for municipal activity centres with the commitment that public facilities be administered in a manner that is neutral, non-discriminatory and respectful of the protections under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”
The Port Theatre Society also said “the views of performers who rent the Port Theatre may not necessarily reflect our own values, and our adherence to Charter requirements does not imply endorsement of those views.”
Nanaimo resident Benjamin Bollich told council in a presentation that while the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects people “from government overreach, it does not obligate a publicly-funded venue to all platforms.”
He told council he would have liked them to meet with the Port Theatre to discuss cancelling Bankas’ show, or redistributing proceeds from the show to local Indigenous and 2SLGBTQIA+ organizations.
He would also like to see council amend the funding and operating agreement with the Port Theatre, “to establish standardized processes that uphold bylaws that keep our community safe, inclusive and respectful.”
Freedom of expression or hate speech?
During his presentation to council, Bollich quoted Bankas speaking on residential “schools”, and the killing of Renee Good by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minneapolis.
In one video clip promoting his shows, Bankas says, “I just got back from Winnipeg, it’s like an Indigenous zombie apocalypse. I was thinking it’d be nice if there’s some sort of school we could send them to.”
“Unfortunately, that ship has sailed,” he said, adding that residential schools had nice “colonial” architecture. “I’m just saying that if you want to go to a residential school now, in 2025, it’d be $40,000 a year. Those motherfuckers got it for free.”
Bollich quoted a second-hand account from a CBC podcast of one of Bankas’s standup shows where he allegedly joked about the 11 deaths at Vancouver’s Lapu Lapu Festival. In the podcast, the commentator said he was told that when Bankas joked that the killer “should have taken a few Lapu Lapu’s around the block,” the crowd cheered and one person shouted “kill them all!”
Krog told The Discourse that he doesn’t believe politicians should be determining what constitutes hate speech.
“If it crossed the boundary into hate speech, it’s up to the police to charge and the Crown to prosecute,” he said. “But the concept that we would set up committees that would determine what is free speech in this country, I think is — in and of itself — a dangerous step down the road to censorship.”
Hazel Woodrow, education program manager for the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, disagrees.
“Criminality should not be the bar for municipalities or performing venues to take steps to ensure that vulnerable and systemically marginalized people within their communities are not targeted by hate and harm,” she told The Discourse.
Noting that hate speech charges are “extremely rare” due to “police red tape and the distrust targeted communities often have towards law enforcement due to systemic racism, homophobia and misogyny,” Woodrow said hate speech charges are also applied inconsistently by police and prosecutors.
Coun. Sheryl Armstrong called the content of Bankas’ comedy “horrific” and called for a police investigation into if it constitutes a hate crime under the Criminal Code.
“People have to go and call the police when this happens, so you can actually get a proper answer, and that there actually is a proper investigation,” she said.
Woodrow said that while she isn’t a lawyer, there doesn’t appear to be a legal barrier for venues to cancel Bankas’ shows. Other venues in Canada have cancelled his shows in response to community pushback.
“The legal threshold for hate speech is intentionally high. And in terms of this particular event, most offensive comedy doesn’t meet that threshold,” Wilbur Turner, founder of Advocacy Canada said. “But there’s a difference between legality and community responsibility. They’re not the same thing, and communities still have the right to decide what reflects their values.”
As employers, venues such as The Port Theatre have a responsibility to ensure that their workplaces are “safe and free of violence and harassment,” Woodrow said.
“They also have a duty specifically towards their workers who are 2SLGBTQIA+, women, racialized, Jewish, Muslim and members of other equity-deserving communities to not invite performers or speakers (or their audience) who pose a threat to them into their workplace.”
Andrea Noble, marketing and outreach manager for The Port Theatre, said security has been hired for the event and the RCMP has “evaluated the risks specifically for the Ben Bankas show.” She said both the theatre and police “expect patrons to act with courtesy and respect towards each other, staff, volunteers, artists and anyone else.”
The Canadian Anti-Hate Network has published an anti-hate guide to help venues identify and avoid booking far-right performers looking for a platform or responding to bookings that have already happened.
City-funded or private venues?
“It’s really not about censorship,” said Holly Bright who works as an artistic director and producer in Nanaimo who has booked The Port Theatre in the past. “This person could go to a private space and have their show.”
Bright said she would also like to see trigger warnings or content advisories for shows like Bankas’.
“[Those] things are really important in order to not cause that level of surprise and concern,” she said.
There is a warning on The Port Theatre’s event page that says, “This event is strictly 19+. The show may contain adult themed or offensive material, strong language or controversial topics.”
However, it appears this warning has been recently added as a screenshot of the event page captured by the Internet Archive on Jan. 11 only said that the event was “strictly 19+.”
Coun. Ben Geselbracht said Bankas’ speech is “not something that is normal in any type of standard expectation in a publicly administered facility.”
Mayor Krog said that while he finds Bankas’ comedy “disgusting,” the issue is that there are no private venues in Nanaimo that are the size of The Port Theatre.
“So essentially you’re saying he’s not allowed to speak in our community,” Krog said.
After the council meeting, Krog told The Discourse that if Bankas was unable to find a private venue in the city it would not be an issue that concerned the City of Nanaimo.
“But I want people to understand when they’re saying you’re not going to allow him to perform [at a city-funded venue], that means he can’t perform anywhere, which frankly, supports my concern around the whole issue of trying to shut down even obnoxious people.”
“I have said over and over again, publicly, if you don’t let the racists and the bigots and the homophobes and the idiots speak, how will you know who they are?”
Respectful Spaces Bylaw and booking policies
During the council meeting, Lisa Bhopalsingh, the city’s manager for community and cultural planning, said the city’s Respectful Spaces Bylaw is not the right mechanism for addressing Bankas’ performance at The Port Theatre.
She said the bylaw is in place for the city to deal with things such as “patrons at the pool” and to keep both patrons and staff safe.
“It’s not designed to police presenters,” she said.
Bhopalsingh said when someone rents a city facility directly, there are booking agreements that include criteria asking people for the purpose of their presentation and upholding standards “while being mindful that we have to uphold the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”
Turner said venues like The Port Theatre and the City of Nanaimo need mechanisms to align their rental policies with their values. He said venues should have “very clearly articulated values for the organization” and ask people who want to rent the space if they align with those values.
Turner said when Bankas performs he uses marginalized people “as a punching bag for his jokes” but that “people pay to go see that.”
“It puts that language as a joke out into the community from the people who participate in it and laugh at it,” he said. “It’s pushing that narrative right into our community as a joke. And I think that’s the problem. This is where it comes to the community to say, ‘Is this right? Is this something that we want to be celebrating and laughing at and supporting?’”
‘This isn’t comedy, it’s bullying,’ councillor says
“I wouldn’t mince words. I think this isn’t comedy, it’s bullying and it’s appalling,” Coun. Paul Manly said during Monday’s council meeting. He asked if the RCMP had been contacted.
Bollich said it was his understanding that police can’t do anything about potential hate speech before it happens.
“So if people are sitting in The Port Theatre and decide they want to call the RCMP in the middle of the show, please do,” Bollich said.
Coun. Hilary Eastmure said it took “immense courage” for people to come to council and speak out about Bankas’ scheduled performance.
“It gives me hope and makes me feel proud that people in our community do not stand for this type of bigoted and hateful language,” she said.
Eastmure, a former journalist, said she is “not interested in censorship, but I’m also not interested in propping up and facilitating the proliferation of discrimination and bigotry in the disguise of comedy on a stage funded by taxpayers.”
Manly called the Ben Bankas show “a wake up call” for the city and said it should pay more attention to what is being booked as a rental.
Coun. Ian Thorpe said the issue for him was “censorship, and who has the right to say what is not appropriate in our city.” He said it isn’t council’s job to make that decision.
As Thorpe spoke, people in the gallery stood and turned their backs on him.
“I do not accept the idea of censorship,” Thorpe told them. “You can turn your backs on me all you wish. You’re censoring me.”
As Krog spoke, stating his opposition to the motion and saying people who have bought tickets “to listen to this obnoxious man” and “I am not going to stand in their way and tell The Port Theatre how to run its operation any more than I would like someone to tell me what I could and couldn’t say when it’s short of hate speech. For me it’s a matter of principle.”
It was at this point that a woman in the audience started shouting at Krog about what he was going to do “when they start marching downtown with their torches.” She was asked by the mayor to leave the council chamber.
As she stopped in the doorway, she turned and called Krog “a racist SOB.”
“I am not going to accept being called a racist by somebody who interrupts a public meeting,” Krog said following the outburst. “My position may not be popular, but it is my position. It is one based on principle and experience. And having read enough history to understand what it means when you start down this road to censorship.”
After the meeting, Bollich said he and others turned their backs on Krog and Thorpe because it was a way of “silently showing our discontent with supporting racism and bigotry for marginalized people.”
Bollich said that while he is grateful to councillors who “stood with us,” he would have liked to see the show moved from a city-funded venue or cancelled as happened in Kitchener, Sault St. Marie, Calgary and Edmonton.
“If they can do it, why can’t we?” Bollich said.
