French comedian Dieudonné, who has a lengthy criminal record for hate speech and incitement, was refused entry to the country on May 10 by Canada Border Services agents shortly after his arrival at Trudeau Airport from France that afternoon.
His defiant attempt to deliver his scheduled performance in Montreal the next day via videoconference from France did not happen, after the place where he booked space for an audience, the Evo Montreal student residence on Sherbrooke Street, cancelled that reservation at the last minute.
Dieudonné was scheduled to give 10 solo shows at a Montreal art gallery beginning tonight, but the owner of the venue said he has cancelled the shows after the comedian was turned back.
Dieudonné was also booked for two shows in Quebec City and a final one May 18 in Trois-Rivières.
Just hours before Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, which is his full name, flew out of France May 10, he was convicted on yet another hate-related charge by a Paris court and handed a two-month suspended jail sentence and a 10,000-Euro fine.
READ: REFUSED ENTRY INTO CANADA, DIEUDONNÉ VOWS TO TRY AGAIN
It concerned his show last year La Bête immonde, which was found to be racist and inciteful, specifically for its treatment of Jews.
Dieudonné, 50, has received some 15 convictions over the past several years in France, as well as Belgium. In 2014, he was banned from entering the United Kingdom to perform out of concern for public safety.
He is infamous for ridiculing of the Holocaust and describing Jewish conspiracies and nefariousness, as well as for having expressed empathy for the terrorists who committed the murders at the Charlie Hebdo magazine and a kosher supermarket last year in Paris. His comments have been made not only in the form of satire on stage, but in other public platforms.
Canadian Jewish groups had urged that Dieudonné be barred from the country. B’nai Brith filed a formal complaint with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs pressed federal authorities to recognize that Dieudonné’s humour has long crossed the line from comical to criminal.
Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre stated firmly that the Frenchman was not welcome in his city, although Quebec City Mayor Régis Labeaume refused to condemn him.
On May 9, Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel called on the federal government to not let Dieudonné in. Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly responded that the decision on whether he would be permitted entry was up to the CBSA. According to immigration law, Canada can ban anyone with a criminal conviction for up to five years afterward.
In the House of Commons May 10, Rempel asked if the government “use[d] its power to prevent this man from entering Canada?”
Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale responded: “The professional officers of [the CBSA] take all relevant factors into account, including the existence of a criminal record.”
CIJA applauded the CSBA’s decision. In a May 11 statement, Quebec co-chair Rabbi Reuben Poupko said: “Admissibility to Canada is not a right, but a privilege. Dieudonné forfeited this privilege with his numerous criminal convictions… The border services agents made the right call yesterday in upholding specific criteria required for entry into the country…
“In the context of a rise in violent and deadly anti-Semitism in Europe, professional anti-Semitic agitator Dieudonné is not welcome in Quebec or Canada tomorrow anymore than he was today.”
The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies also commented.
“We are pleased that Dieudonné was sent back home,” the organization’s president and CEO Avi Benlolo said in a May 10 statement. “At the same time, we are saddened that he was invited to Montreal in the first place and, despite his racism, he filled 10 shows [a total of 2,000 seats].
“Given that he has publicly denied the Holocaust and frequently makes jokes about gas chambers and invented Jewish conspiracies, what does this say about our social environment?”
Guy Chigoho, owner of Espace Mushagalusa, the venue where the shows were scheduled to take place, said he found nothing of a racist or hateful nature in the script for the show Dieudonné was to perform, called En Paix.
READ: DIEUDONNÉ BARRED FROM ENTERING CANADA, RETURNS TO FRANCE
The local promoter of the Quebec City shows, Gino Sainte-Marie, a founder of the Festival de jazz de Québec, similarly defended the material, which he had also seen in advance. En Paix has been staged over the past year throughout France without any legal issues, he pointed out.
Dieudonné was to have taken to the stage at LaScène Lebourgneuf. He was last in Quebec City in 2008, when he was a star of the ComediHa! Fest.
His last scheduled show in Montreal in 2012 at the Corona Theatre, booked by major promoter Evenko, was cancelled after Jewish groups protested.
