A MAGA-affiliated musician held a concert in a township just outside Ottawa on Saturday just a few days after the National Capital Commission cancelled a scheduled performance in Gatineau.
In a social media post on Saturday morning, Sean Feucht said he would be performing in an open field on the “corner of Peladeau Road and Highway 17” in Alfred, Ont., a township 70 kilometres east of Ottawa. The performance was part of the Let Us Worship movement, where Feucht falsely claimed that Christians are being persecuted in Canada.
The NCC had cancelled Feucht’s permit at Jacques-Cartier Park in Gatineau on Saturday due to what it called “public safety concerns.”
“The NCC decided not to issue an event permit following consultation with the Gatineau Police and due to concerns about public safety and security,” Valérie Dufour, senior manager of strategic communications for the NCC, said in an emailed statement.
Officials in other Canadian cities had also cancelled scheduled Feucht concerts, including Halifax, Charlottetown and Quebec City.
The City of Montreal fined a local church for hosting Feucht on Friday evening, saying the church had not obtained a permit to organize the concert. The city also said the event contradicted Montreal’s values of inclusion, solidarity and respect.
Const. Brianna Babin of the Ontario Provincial Police’s East Division told the Ottawa Citizen that officers were aware of the concert at Alfred and were monitoring it.
She added that officers were also talking to Cedar Shade Campground and the Township of Alfred and Plantagenet about the event.
The campground told the Citizen it wasn’t affiliated with Feucht’s concert.
“It’s been very good for open communication in that regard, so we know what’s happening. We have officers that are boots on the ground, like our road officers are doing patrols in the area,” Babin said.
“The thing is, with any type of big event like this …. for a big show, a big event, they would normally hire the OPP to come do traffic control, crowd control, security, that type of stuff. This is not the case for this one. It’s not a paid duty (assignment), so it’s just our road officers being aware and patrolling the area.
“The campground has hired their own security for the event. Should anything transpire, the OPP is aware of it and the surrounding detachment areas as well. We’re all in the loop.”
Babin said she couldn’t give an estimate of how many people attended the concert as of 3:50 p.m. on Saturday.
“I touched base with the sergeant around one o’clock, and he had let me know that the stage was set up, but there was nobody there at that time. Nothing had started filling up,” Babin said.
“Now I know the concert just started at three, so I don’t know the numbers … If there’s no reason for us to be inside there, then we wouldn’t even know.”
Feucht, an American Christian nationalist, has previously opposed abortion rights, COVID-19 public-health restrictions and the LGBTQ2S+ community.
He calls himself a speaker, author, missionary, artist and activist. He unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the United States Congress in California in 2020 and has held prayer concerts against COVID-19 restrictions.
His political views has grabbed the attention of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, and Feucht was invited to the White House for a faith briefing in December 2019, one week before Trump was first impeached by the House of Representatives for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Feucht is a Trump supporter, most recently calling on fans to pray after the president was diagnosed with a chronic venous insufficiency, a condition in which an individual’s leg veins don’t allow blood to flow back towards the heart. This can cause blood to collect in the legs.
With files from The Canadian Press.
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