Nanaimo’s “Hate Speech” Problem: When Council Uses Criminal Words for Political Work
Nanaimo council just stepped onto a slippery patch of ice: it condemned a performer’s content, tied the discussion to “hate speech,” and then tried to thread the needle by saying it can’t censor anything—while still urging the Port Theatre to review bookings.
Let’s be upfront: I’m not writing this to defend vulgar comedy. I watched a couple short clips. The language isn’t for the church crowd. But what I heard—while offensive to some—wasn’t an instruction manual for violence. It sounded more like dark humour that a lot of people (apparently) find funny, because here’s the part too many people want to pretend doesn’t matter:
The show is sold out. The Port Theatre’s own listing shows ticket prices up to $73.50 (all-in), a 19+ restriction, and a clear warning that the show may include “offensive material,” strong language, and controversial topics. (The Port Theatre)
That fact matters, because cancelling or politically “choking off” a lawful performance isn’t only about the performer. It’s also about the audience—adults who knowingly paid to attend.
So what exactly did council do?
According to the Nanaimo News Bulletin, council passed a motion requesting a review of Port Theatre booking policies to ensure performances align with “accessible, inclusive and welcoming,” noting the theatre is run by a non-profit society with a co-management agreement and City funding.
Coun. Ben Geselbracht, the mover, put sharp language directly into the motion—calling the content “consistently demeaning and dehumanizing” toward multiple groups, and saying some remarks “appear” to condone harm or death. He also shared a list of quotes from past stand-up performances, and said the City can’t censor, but can signal values and request a review.
Coun. Hilary Eastmure anchored her support with a legal-sounding frame: freedom of expression matters, we don’t have a right to be shielded from mere offence, but the Criminal Code defines hate speech as crossing the line into things like advocating genocide, publicly inciting hatred likely to breach the peace, or wilfully promoting hatred.
Then Coun. Paul Manly went further—arguing council was “dancing right along the line” and offering a rhetorical substitution: swap “anti-Semitism” for “anti-Indigenous” and “Holocaust” for “Residential School system,” and you’d have similar hate speech.
And that brings us to the core problem.
1) If it’s criminal hate speech, why no legal process?
When elected officials invoke the Criminal Code and use “hate speech” language, the public hears a serious allegation. But council’s action here wasn’t a referral to police, Crown, or any legal review. It was: a statement + a letter asking for a booking review.
That’s a mismatch.
If councillors truly believe this crosses a Criminal Code threshold, the responsible steps are straightforward:
preserve full clips and context (not snippets)
report to police for assessment
let Crown decide whether charges meet the standards for prosecution (and the Criminal Code’s specific requirements)
If council isn’t prepared to do that—fine. But then it should stop using language that implies a criminal line has been crossed. Call it what it is: offensive, demeaning, bigoted, not aligned with civic values—whatever council believes—without using criminal terminology as a political hammer.
2) “A quote list” is not a legal finding—and context matters
Here’s where a lot of public “cancellations” get sloppy: pulling one or two words from a routine, stripping context, and using the snippet as proof of something bigger. It happens all the time—on every side of politics.
Geselbracht’s motion included a list of claimed remarks.
A fair question for any councillor making this kind of case is:
Did you personally hear the full set? Did you verify context? Did you review full recordings, not just curated clips?
Because if council wants the credibility of “criminal-code language,” it must also accept the discipline of evidence, context, and due process.
3) “Publicly funded” isn’t a magic wand for viewpoint control
Yes, the Port Theatre has a public relationship with the City through funding and a co-management agreement.
That doesn’t automatically grant city council a blank cheque to enforce whatever “values” are trending that week—especially after tickets are sold.
That’s why Counc. Ian Thorpe’s warning matters: who defines “inclusive and welcoming,” and how do you square “welcoming to all” with excluding a performer because the viewpoint is disliked? He argued people can “vote with their feet” and dollars.
Mayor Krog—who still called the comedian “repugnant”—made the deeper point: once councils start using taxpayer subsidy as a lever to pressure organizations, that logic can be applied to almost any non-profit or civic-adjacent group.
Today it’s a comedian. Tomorrow it’s a speaker you like. That’s the nature of the tool you’re building.
4) The sold-out crowd matters: censorship hits the audience too
This is the part council critics often skip: when you deny a lawful performance that’s already booked and sold out, you’re not only “stopping harm.” You’re also overriding the choices of paying residents—adults who knowingly bought tickets to a 19+ event that warned them in advance.
In plain language: if you cancel it, you’re censoring the crowd as well as the comic.
That doesn’t mean the show is good. It means the principle is bigger than our taste.
5) Canada is already drifting toward speech control—so council needs discipline
Zoom out: federally, Canada has been trying to expand online speech controls for years. The proposed Online Harms bill (Bill C-63) was introduced in 2024 and died on the Order Paper when Parliament dissolved in January 2025.
But we’re not done. Reporting suggests the government has been preparing to revive online harms legislation in 2026, and Ottawa continues to frame new regulation as a looming option.
So when municipal councils casually toss around “hate speech” labels in local debates, it normalizes the idea that offence equals prohibition. That is exactly how free expression gets squeezed—not always by one big law, but by a thousand small “reviews,” “requests,” and “standards” that quietly narrow what’s allowed.
6) A better Nanaimo standard: condemn what you hate, protect what you must
I agree with the principle behind the famous line often credited to Voltaire—though it’s more accurately traced to Evelyn Beatrice Hall’s paraphrase of Voltaire’s attitude: defend the right to speak, even if you despise the message.
Nanaimo can do both things at once:
Condemn speech you consider ugly or beneath civic standards.
Stand with residents who feel targeted.
Insist on safety and order in the room.
And still refuse to blur “offensive” into “criminal” without proper legal process.
If council wants Port Theatre booking standards reviewed, fine—but the review should be clear, transparent, and prospective, not a political reaction applied after the fact to a sold-out show.
And if councillors want to use the words “hate speech” in a Criminal Code sense, then they should be prepared to do the hard part: evidence, context, and the proper legal channel—not just moral outrage plus a letter.
Because “dancing along the line” is exactly what Nanaimo can’t afford—especially when the line is one of the last things protecting all of us from whoever gets offended next.
One more thing: if you’re screaming people down, intimidating them, or trying to ruin them because you don’t like their opinion—congratulations, you’ve become the very thing you claim to oppose.
Protest? Fine. Boycott? Fine. Write rebuttals, hold signs, make your case. That’s democracy.
But if your method is harassment and intimidation—trying to make people afraid to speak—then you’re not defending “safety” or “inclusion.” You’re enforcing conformity. And that’s not a healthy civic culture in Nanaimo or anywhere else.
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