[Epoch Times, July 15, 2021](Epoch Times reporter Jason Unrau report / Ji Wei compilation) When the Canadian tenor Remigio Pereira (Remigio Pereira) stood in San Diego Peco Park 5 years ago, for the United States When he sang the Canadian national anthem, he never expected that one of his actions would change his life.
Pereira changed the lyrics of two Canadian national anthems. He did not sing, “With sincerity, see you rise/True North is free and strong!” Instead, he sang, “We are all brothers and sisters/All lives are important to great men .”
“The national anthem is the platform for people to hear that message. In a song, the words express everything.” Pereira said to the English “Epoch Times”: “That incurred a death threat to me. I was killed by me. The band was fired, and the cancellations of other shows flocked to me. I was blocked.”
Within a few hours, Pereira went from being a highly respected musician with multiple platinum and Juno awards to a man to be scorned. It was July 12, 2016. Pereira recalled that what inspired him to do that was the murder of a black man.
“I woke up that morning, browsed some of my social media, and watched a video of Alton Sterling being killed.” Pereira said, “The moment I saw that video, I knelt down in the hotel room and said, God, what can I do? What needs to be done? For me, (re-singing) is sending a message of unity—we are all together.”
But Pereira evoked condemnation. Former National Hockey League coach and commentator Don Cherry criticized him for privately changing the national anthem; later that month, Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau warned artists not to use “such precious works” at will.
When Pereira tried to apologize through social media, he was ridiculed. Today, the 47-year-old singer and guitarist still feels uneasy about his ill-fated experience. Pereira said that his apology at the time was “not for what I said, but because people were not ready to accept the information.”
Subsequently, a series of large-scale concerts organized by Pereira and Toronto guitarist Pavlo to promote their 2015 album was put on hold, and he officially withdrew from the famous Canadian male quartet The Tenors in November 2016.
Pereira, who grew up in the Ottawa area, said that the ownership of The Tenors was recently settled and he received “less than 2% of the 15 million yuan.” He recently sold his house to make a living, only to disclose that he had built a yurt “on the east coast mountain”.
Pereira is still attending the live performance. In 2017, he wrote a song “I Do It For Peace”, telling why he changed the two national anthem lyrics. His most recent public appearance was at the “No More Blockade” Canada Day rally in Ottawa on July 1.
So does Pereira think he is the first victim of Canada’s “cancel culture”? Pereira said: “I’m sure there are others, but what happened to him is made public, and people believe in the media’s coverage of the incident.”
Editor in charge: Yue Yi
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