Canadian comedian Mike Ward wins decade-long legal battle

Canadian comedian Mike Ward has won his  decade-long free speech battle to make jokes about a disabled child.

Judges on the country's Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favour of the comedian's argument that his material mocking singer Jeremy Gabriel did not amount to discrimination. The decision overturns a 2019 ruling by the highest court in Quebec.

Ward’s case was a cause celebre for campaigners who said the original ruling was a curb on freedom of speech.

In his stage act and in stand-up specials which aired between 2010 and 2013, Ward made jokes about the shape of Gabriel’s head and his hearing aids, which were originally deemed discriminatory against Gabeiel's rights to ‘dignity, honour and reputation’.

Known as Petit Jeremy, the singer has the skull deformity Treacher Collins Syndrome, which also made him severely deaf.

In his act, Ward joked that people had only let ‘ugly’ Gabriel sing with celebrities because he would soon be dead… and said he tried to drown Gabriel, but he wouldn’t die.

The comedian’s lawyers had argued that since Gabriel’s singing career is based on his triumph over disability, the subject is in the public arena and so fair game for jokes.

Ward said he was targetting the 'sacred cows' of Quebec's celebrity industry and argued that 'it shouldn't be up to a judge to decide what constitutes a joke on stage'

Now Canada's highest court ruled that the routine did not breach the province's rights charter, saying that while some of the comments were 'nasty and disgraceful' and 'exploited feeling of discomfort in order to entertain'  they 'did not incite the audience to treat Mr Gabriel as subhuman'.

The ruling added that while it was 'likely' people would be inspired by to mock Gabriel based on Wards jokes, that would not be the comedian's fault.

The judges that disagreed with the majority ruling said  they though vulnerable and marginalised people should 'be free from the public humiliation, cruelty, vilification and bullying that singles them out on the basis of their disability'.

'Wrapping such discriminatory conduct in the protective cloak of speech does not make it any less intolerable when that speech amounts to wilful emotional abuse of a disabled child,' the dissenting justices said.

In a press conference after the ruling, reported by Canadian broadcaster CBC, Gabriel had a message for Ward, saying: 'I would like to tell him how I felt when I first heard the jokes. That I tried to end my life... How it felt at 13 years old because a 40-year-old man said you should die, that you thought it was the right thing to do.'

Gabriel's family first started their legal action in 2012, when the singer was 15.

Published: 30 Oct 2021