Tasteless

There is no accounting for taste.

In 2006, 10-year-old Québécois Jérémy Gabriel debuted his singing career. The boy’s voice was not remarkable— rather, it was his disability, Treacher Collins syndrome, affecting the structure of his skull and leaving him hard of hearing, which caught public attention.

In 2010, shock comedian Mike Ward added Jérémy to his set, making fun of the boy’s appearance and joking about trying to drown him.

Ward’s comedy is also unremarkable. He mostly stands out because of his willingness to cross almost any boundary of good taste, including jokes about battered women, African orphans and pedophilia.

The Gabriel family took the comedian to the Quebec human rights commission, demanding $80,000 in damages for the jokes and claiming they infringed on Jérémy’s human rights. This summer, a judge ruled in the family’s favour. Ward says he and his attorney, notable human rights lawyer Julius Grey, will appeal the decision.

This is the first time a comedian has been prosecuted in a human rights court in Canada solely for words spoken.

The case caused a stir in the community of Canadian comedians and artists. Ward was branded as an unlikely martyr. From artists who found Ward’s comedy uncomfortably tasteless to those who agreed with him, the concern was that free speech had gone up against human rights and lost the battle.

But while freedom of expression is protected in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, that protection is not absolute. Speech that causes undue panic or hate speech can be prosecuted. And it has.

Of course, Ward hasn’t been silenced. In fact, the timing of the lawsuit makes its price tag, in the tens of thousands, well worth its marketing value, with Ward’s name rising in the media just before a tour that grossed in the millions.

And last week, the Canadian Comedy Awards announced Mike Ward had won Comedic Artist of the Year. The winners were chosen by popular vote, with 27,062 people casting their ballots.

Canada’s legal system is an ancient, well-established system that is developed to govern our behaviour within our society. It’s made up of a long, detailed list of laws, principles and precedents and requires highly educated professionals to guide us through it, should our behaviour ever contravene its rules. Although not perfect, it does an important job.

But there is another system that, for better or worse, dictates public behaviour and sets out its own principles. Our voices, our money and the media we consume helps reward or punish certain behaviours within our capitalist society.

It’s a newer system, and one with many flaws. That includes the need for the public to be conscientious about the choices they make when they are consumers. But that is the system that should be responsible for governing the speech we deem acceptable.

As tasteless as Ward’s comedy is, it’s up to the highly educated people of the human rights court to decide whether he has contravened the legal code.

It’s up to the rest of us to decide the value of his comedy, by giving him attention and, of course, by paying to see his shows.

mihal@mihalzada.com