An annual “family-friendly” dance in Montreal was cancelled on Sunday because organisers charged separate admission prices based on the attendee’s race.
The Shake La Cabane FAM-JAM was scheduled to be held at La Cabane community centre on Sunday, however, organizers decided to cancel the event following public outcry over the ticket prices. Organizers were chargin $25.83 for general admission but only $15.18 for attendees who were black, indigenous, or people of colour.
Another pay structure for the dance included free entry for white children under the age of two years old, with that same offer granted for black and Indigenous children but with the age being extended to 12 years old.
Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon responded to news of the dance with a social media post saying, “What all Quebecers want, no matter their skin colour, is equal treatment without discrimination. That’s exactly the opposite of what this organization is doing.”
The situation was first reported on by La Press on Saturday, which Quebec-based human rights lawyer Juilius Grey called a display of “flagrant discrimination.”
Following news that the event had been cancelled, Grey told True North that this should serve as a wake-up call to others.
“This is a wake-up call to our society to be less concerned with communitarian goals and more with the intrinsic worth of each individual,” said Grey, who also specializes in constitutional law.
Critics noted that race-based pricing is also likely a violation of the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, under section 10, which enshrines “full and equal recognition and exercise of (a person’s) human rights and freedoms, without distinction, exclusion or preference based on race.”
Dance organizers responded to the blowback in a social media post, saying that “The BIPOC Ticket Type” (now called Equity Price Ticket)” was aimed at providing support for “marginalized groups in our community.”
“While we hold that true reparations are to be made by the entities that plundered in order to gain power (the State, corporations), micro-reparations in the name of solidarity, not charity, like these stand to gesture towards ways we can create more access while asking what other ways might we betray supremacies to best serve the collective,” it said.
Upon announcing that the dance would be cancelled, the group said that it was in response to receiving “SO much hate and misunderstanding about our BIPOC ticket pricing.”
Going forward, organizers said that they plan to continue to practice a stratified pricing structure for future events, however, it would be based on family income instead of the attendee’s race.
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