Achi news desk-
The backlash 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 highlighting the crimes of serial killer Robert Pickton is scheduled to perform in Vancouver on Sunday night, and there will be protesters there.
Lorelai Williams, cousin of Tanya Holic, one of Pickton’s 49 victims, has organized the protest which she hopes will also act as a call to action.
The shirts, which depicted Robert “Willy” Pickton smiling and holding a slice of bacon with the caption “Pickton Farms, over 50 flavors of hook-smoked bacon” represent hate, he said, and should be treated as such .
“I want people to stand with us, from the government to law enforcement, to consider this hate speech because it is hate speech,” said Lorelai Williams, cousin of Tanya Holic, one of Pickton’s victims. “They are committing a crime.”
Williams said that the Danger Cats, and any support they have seen, has ultimately exposed the racist underbelly of the country and it is no laughing matter.
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“It harms the families, physically harms the families,” said Williams. “Family members get sick, go to therapy, have nightmares, can’t sleep. They have caused harm to the families. That’s what he’s doing right now.”
The comedy group said in an Instagram post that they were trying to bring the issues to light
“The same comedian’s agenda is to ‘dehumanize’ 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 presented in a way that’s more funny than it is shocking but that’s often a very difficult equation to pull off, but we still have to try. “
Williams disagrees with the idea that it was a joke gone flat, saying that “no one in their right mind” would think it was.
“This is not a joke. Our family members are no joke. My cousin is not a taste. My cousin is not hickory smoked bacon,” he 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 involvement in at least 49 murders, many of them sex workers, and Crown charges stayed in 20 other murders after his conviction.
Protesters told Global News that the Danger Cats show is being held on East Georgia Street and that is where they will be protesting.
& copy 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
