Has Sean Feucht left Canada yet? I suppose the bigger question is: Would anyone have known he was even here if CBC hadn’t launched an all-out crusade against the Christian singer? If the monkey-see monkey-do politicians had passed up the opportunity to show their progressive bonafides?

The answer to the first question is, yes, Sean Feucht has left Canada, at the end of a month-long whirlwind journey that garnered him more publicity — all free — than he’s likely ever received.

I would hesitate to believe that more than a handful of people in any community across Canada would have been able to pick Feucht out of a lineup before a small gathering that was to hear the Christian “MAGA” pastor sing and preach was shut down by Parks Canada in July. Other cancellations soon followed. But once the rent-an-outrage gang caught wind and joined force with CBC, then with other media, to have him cancelled, there’s now hardly anyone in Canada who doesn’t know Sean Feucht.

Advertisement

A little about Feucht. He is an American Christian singer, songwriter and former worship leader who founded the Let Us Worship movement, which organized worship concerts across the United States against pandemic restrictions on people gathering. He has expressed public opposition to homosexuality and transgender issues. But here’s the big one — he’s a Republican, having run for Congress in 2020 (placing a distant third in California). He’s also among the worship leaders who visited U.S. President Donald Trump for a faith briefing at the White House in 2019, hence the “MAGA” tag attached to him during his tour of Canada.

It is, of course, the MAGA connection that has driven CBC’s outrage, though his other stances are high on its progressive hit list. So a number of Canadian cities from Charlottetown to Abbotsford, B.C., under the guise of potential safety concerns, cancelled or denied permits for Feucht’s performances, which turned out to be little more than worship services to small groups. Montreal even fined a church for hosting him without a permit, which led Feucht to sum up the absurdity of this whole mess: “I don’t think you need a permit to worship.”

However, cancel culture didn’t have its way nationwide and Feucht was allowed to perform in Edmonton and Saskatoon. 

Advertisement

Say what you will about CBC, it is like a dog on a bone when it finds a cause. But did those supposedly in the know not realize what the outcome would be? In its quest to censor one without the “right” views, Feucht could not have asked for greater publicity for his cause, and all of it not costing him one nickel. A $1-million (if not more) advertising spree, brought to you by the taxpayers of Canada.

Whether Feucht’s message resonates with you or not, there is quite the lesson from this silly ordeal, one Canadian media learned 40 years ago. But apparently no one at CBC remembers one of the greater shames in the laurels of Canadian media history, the case of Ernst Zundel.

Zundel was the German-born neo-Nazi publisher of Holocaust denial literature who also basked in the glow of the media attention when he was charged for distributing his reprehensible anti-Semitic filth (with titles like “Did Six Million Really Die?”). His 1985 trial saw him found guilty, but for Zundel things could not have been better. Showing up every day to court with his coterie of supporters, his hard hat emblazoned with “Redefreiheit Freedom of Speech,” he soaked up the free publicity showered upon him by the national media circus his Toronto trial turned into. His anti-Semitic tropes were plastered across the headlines and newscasts, like Feucht, at no cost to himself.

Thankfully, when Zundel’s conviction was overturned on a legal technicality and he headed to a second trial, lessons had been learned. Convicted again and sentenced to 15 months imprisonment, he was ignored by the media this time around. A conscious decision was made to not offer free publicity ride for a second go ’round. 

Ultimately, Zundel would have his conviction overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada in 1992, with little media fanfare. Upon his death in 2017, again there was little media interest.

Advertisement

So, has the CBC learned anything from history? Apparently not. Not content with stirring up public backlash against an unheard of singer and pastor, it’s gone even farther. In recent days, it launched its own investigation into the charitable arm of the singer’s Burn 24/7 group. 

Not to sound holier than thou, but we at the Register, indeed most of the faith-based media, stayed far away from this story (save for one piece on censorship we ran, and of course this column). Shame that so many others did not have the foresight to do the same.