--- title: A Lot of Canadians Really Don't Want Kanye at the Pan Am Games description: Kanye West will perform at the closing ceremonies of the Pan Am Games, despite the ire of Canadian Twitter users. canonical: https://time.com/3960219/kanye-west-pan-am-games-canadians/ author: Joanna Plucinska article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-07-16T04:27:22.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:22:12.059Z og:title: A Lot of Canadians Don't Want Kanye At The Pan Am Games og:description: Even though the games are supposed to be pan-American og:url: https://time.com/3960219/kanye-west-pan-am-games-canadians/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6f2abf06341b7c3f/69885b1b8e0601560e461685/479503990.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Hot 107.9 Birthday Bash Block Show og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: A Lot of Canadians Don't Want Kanye At The Pan Am Games twitter:description: Even though the games are supposed to be pan-American twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6f2abf06341b7c3f/69885b1b8e0601560e461685/479503990.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # A Lot of Canadians Really Don't Want Kanye to Perform at the Pan Am Games by [Joanna Plucinska](https://time.com/author/joanna-plucinska/) ## Joanna Plucinska Jul 16, 2015 4:27 AM UTC  Kanye West performs at the Hot 107.9 Birthday Bash Block Show at Philips Arena on June 20, 2015 in Atlanta, Georgia Kanye West performs at the Hot 107.9 Birthday Bash Block Show at Philips Arena on June 20, 2015 in Atlanta, GeorgiaPrince Williams—WireImage by [Joanna Plucinska](https://time.com/author/joanna-plucinska/) ## Joanna Plucinska Jul 16, 2015 4:27 AM UTC Kanye West will perform at the closing ceremonies of the Pan Am Games, despite the ire of Canadian tweeters. The main problem? Some Canadians think the games — and the main music acts — simply aren’t Canadian enough. This year’s games are being held in Toronto, Canada’s most populous city. As soon as organizers announced on Wednesday that Kanye will headline the July 26 closing ceremonies at the Rogers Centre, social media erupted with posts calling for them to reconsider. > [](https://twitter.com/OptimistDeb/status/621505516653703168) > [](https://twitter.com/radhzrry/status/621501187616047105) > [](https://twitter.com/MarkRubello/status/621402612349284352) A petition has even been launched on [Change.org](https://www.change.org/p/toronto-pan-am-games-don-t-have-kanye-west-perform-the-closing-ceremony-for-the-toronto-pan-american-games?recruiter=21807740&utm%5Fsource=share%5Fpetition&utm%5Fmedium=facebook&utm%5Fcampaign=autopublish&utm%5Fterm=des-lg-no%5Fsrc-reason%5Fmsg) calling for organizers to replace the rapper with a Canadian artist. Canada has some pretty big-name music acts, like Toronto native Drake, Deadmau5, indie rockers Metric and pop star Nelly Furtado. Some Torontonians are perfectly happy with Kanye, though. > [](https://twitter.com/GirlGhostbuster/status/621500485678182400) > [](https://twitter.com/Glorious%5FChris/status/621496409037123584) Others brought up an entirely new point — why are Canadians protesting Kanye when Pitbull is also on the bill? > [](https://twitter.com/sryimcrazy/status/621461606527057920) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3960219/kanye-west-pan-am-games-canadians/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3960219/kanye-west-pan-am-games-canadians/"},"headline":"A Lot of Canadians Really Don't Want Kanye to Perform at the Pan Am Games","datePublished":"2015-07-16T04:27:22.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:22:12.059Z","description":"Even though the games are supposed to be pan-American","url":"https://time.com/3960219/kanye-west-pan-am-games-canadians/","keywords":["Newsfeed","celebrities","Music","Kanye West","Canada","Toronto"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6f2abf06341b7c3f/69885b1b8e0601560e461685/479503990.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Joanna Plucinska","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/joanna-plucinska/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6f2abf06341b7c3f/69885b1b8e0601560e461685/479503990.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Hot 107.9 Birthday Bash Block Show","caption":"Hot 107.9 Birthday Bash Block Show","creditText":"Prince Williams—WireImage","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3960219/kanye-west-pan-am-games-canadians/","name":"A Lot of Canadians Really Don't Want Kanye to Perform at the Pan Am Games"}}]}] ```