A Comedian’s ‘Free Speech’ Show Got Cancelled After He Mocked an Anti-Fascist Rally

A Toronto-based comedian mimicked the online poster of an anti-fascist rally to promote his own "free speech comedy show" and his event was subsequently cancelled.

Danny Polishchuk, who wrote Filth City, a movie based on former Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, told VICE he created the event when he found out Ryerson University's panel, The Stifling of Free Speech on University Campuses, had been cancelled due to backlash.

The August 22 event, on the heels of the racist Charlottesville attacks, was to feature controversial speakers like University of Toronto professor Jordan Peterson, who has refused to use non-binary gender pronouns, and fired Rebel Media personality Faith Goldy. In response to it, a Facebook event called the No Fascist T.O. Diversity Rally was created and organizers told the National Post they inundated Ryerson with phone calls and emails demanding the panel be shut down.

Polishchuk told VICE he doesn't think the Ryerson panel should have been cancelled. In response, he recreated the No Fascist T.O. Diversity Rally's online poster, using the same fonts and colours and replacing the word "diversity" with "comedy"; he billed his August 28 show as a "free speech comedy show." Proceeds from the show were to go to the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

"I was like, this is kind of crazy and obviously free speech is pretty important to comedy," he said. "I just thought it would be funny to use the poster. I guess it turned out not to be funny."

On his event page, Polishchuk, who is Jewish, wrote, "When Harvard professors aren't allowed to share ideas and Jews are being called Nazis something is seriously amiss. It's okay to disagree with other people but silencing them is not the answer."

The page noted the comedy show was a fundraiser for the CCLA and stipulated, "If you're an ACTUAL (nazi) or WHITE SUPREMACIST or anything of this sort you ARE NOT WELCOME. Instead we recommend purchasing a gun and KILLING YOURSELF. If you're a member of an 'anti-fascist' group then we recommend not being an actual…. fascist and letting us have our comedy show." It also insulted Rebel Media founder Ezra Levant.

On the day of the show, Polishchuk said the venue, Comedy Bar (think: Toronto's Comedy Cellar), started receiving phone calls from people who were concerned that the event was associated with white supremacists. There were also concerns, he said, that members of The Proud Boys and Goldy might be attending.

Comedy Bar owner Gary Rideout Jr. told VICE he did not want to cancel the event but got concerned once he showed up and saw that his locks had been vandalized.

"If someone nutcase who smashed my locks in found out I got around that and was now mad that that didn't work, what were they going to do next? Put a brick through my window?" he said, noting he had to pay $425 to fix the locks. "I have staff, I have patrons that are going to the other five shows that night. So I just didn't need to be the battleground for two extreme groups to show up and duke it out."

Freelance journalist Kevin Metcalf is the one who flagged Polishchuk's event on Facebook and to Rideout Jr., pointing out to him Goldy's recent appearance on a Daily Stormer podcast.

He said he's been concerned for some time about the "cooption of the language of free expression by the political right in Canada and the US."

"There's a term in comedy 'too soon.' If you wanna do a free speech comedy night and riff on the culture war six months from now maybe it wouldn't be so close to what happened in Charlottesville," he said, noting that although people are billing this as a free speech issue, private venues have the right to choose what events they give a platform.

However, he said he did not want or expect the event to be shut down and in fact was planning on attending and potentially covering it himself.

Rideout Jr. said most of the people who called him to complain about the show "didn't even know what they were calling to complain about" and that once he explained it was just a comedy show, most seemed fine with it.

He noted his comedy club is one of the most progressive in the city, featuring niche nights for Muslim comedians, lesbian comics, and other groups.

"What I would have preferred was the show happened and then everyone there feels like an idiot because it's just a regular stand up show."

Polishchuk said there was no theme to his comedy night and that the comedians who were set to perform included people of colour and members of the LGBT community.

"For [people] to jump to the conclusion that this was a Nazi thing was very, very lazy," he said.

Asked if he was deliberately trolling the group by using the term "free speech," given white supremacists are often connected to free speech rallies, he admitted he was doing an "experiment" to see what would happen.

He said he's planning to host the show on November 11—the same night an alternative event for Peterson is scheduled—and that he'll probably keep the same name.

"They need to understand that free speech isn't being a Nazi. Just because they're sensitive about a title doesn't mean I'm going to change my life. I'm not going to be like 'I'm sorry the words free speech triggered you so badly.' Grow up."

Metcalf said he condemns the vandalism against Comedy Bar and has set up a crowdfunder to pay for the damaged locks.

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