Opposition continues to build ahead of a Vancouver performance by controversial Alberta comedy group Danger Cats.
The comedy group that sparked a firestorm of criticism selling T-shirts making light of serial killer Robert Pickton’s crimes is scheduled to perform in Vancouver Sunday night, and protesters will be there.
Lorelai Williams, cousin to Tanya Holic, one of Pickton’s 49 victims, has organized the protest that she hopes will also act as a call to action.
The shirts, which depicted Robert “Willy” Pickton grinning and holding a slice of bacon with the caption “Pickton Farms, over 50 flavours of hookery smoked bacon” represent hate speech, she said, and should be treated as such.
“I want people to stand with us, from government to law enforcement, to deem this hate speech because it is hate speech,” Lorelai Williams, cousin of Tanya Holic, one of Pickton’s victims, said. “They are committing a crime.”
Williams said the Danger Cats, and any support they’ve seen, has ultimately exposed the racist underbelly of the country and it’s no laughing matter.
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“It’s harming the families, physically harming the families,” Williams said. “Family members are getting sick, going to therapy, having nightmares, not being able to sleep. They have caused the families harm. That’s what it’s doing right now.”
The comedy group said in an Instagram post they were trying to bring the issues to light
“No comedian’s agenda is to ‘dehumanize’ a people or make the world worse. We make rooms full of people laugh and arguably make it better,” the Danger Cats post reads. “Dark material should be delivered in a way where it’s more funny than it is shocking but oftentimes that’s a very tough equation to pull off, but we still gotta try.”
Williams disagrees with the notion that it was a joke that fell flat, saying “nobody in their right mind” would think it was.
“This is not a joke. Our family members are not a joke. My cousin is not a flavor. My cousin is not hickory smoked bacon,” she said. “This is so disgusting.”
Pickton was convicted of six counts of second-degree murder in 2007 for killing vulnerable women he targeted on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. He is suspected of connection to at least 49 murders, many of them sex workers, and Crown stayed charges in another 20 killings after his conviction.
Protesters told Global News the Danger Cats show is being held at East Georgia Street and that’s where they will be protesting.
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