his opposition to Bill C-16. The letter was signed by staff of several small artist run centres, including Untitled Art Society, TRUCK Contemporary Art in Calgary, Stride Gallery, The New Gallery, other organizations such as the M:ST Performance Artist Festival Society and VOICESYYC, and over 1200 individual signatures. A responding statement written by the CEO of Arts Commons at the time, Johann Zietsman, expressed Arts Commons' support for free speech which meant, "not censoring someone because we don't agree with what they have to say." The event was not canceled and was held on 27 July 2018. Censorship Controversy In early September 2018, The New Gallery released a statement describing the circumstances of what it said was censorship of trans artist, Beck Gilmer-Osborne, exhibiting in a vitrine space within the Arts Commons building and Calgary +15 Network. The New Gallery's said Arts Commons had turned off the 3-channel video work being exhibited in the space because, Arts Commons said, it contained swearing and nudity that had garnered complaints from patrons. On 29 August 2018 Arts Commons sent The New Gallery a letter saying the video work would have to be edited to remove the nudity and coarse language or the artwork would be taken down. In response, on 8 September 2018, The New Gallery provided an open-letter written by the exhibiting artist, B.G-Osborne, in which Osborne stated that "rather than re-edit and censor my work to comfort certain viewers who are offended by the very banal acts of swearing and non-sexual nudity, I have decided to remove the piece from the space entirely." Osborne said it was ironic that an artwork that uses the imagery of cisgender actors playing trans characters to criticize the offensive portrayal of trans people was being criticized as offensive. Arts Commons owns the walkway and vitrine spaces but each is individually curated by a different gallery or art organization. Arts Commons programming director Jennifer Johnson said in an emailed statement to CBC that "while Arts Commons believes the piece, A Thousand Cuts, has merit, the language and images contained in the video and audio component are not a fit with our commitment to creating a public space for all." In 2006, Arts Commons (at the time the "EPCOR CENTRE for the Performing Arts") also received criticism for censoring a transgender artist who was exhibiting in the same +15 walk way space with another of Calgary's