Canadian TV Regulators Can't Control Porn
OTTAWA, Apr. 3, 01 (CWNews.com/LSN.ca) - The Canada
Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)
has recently acknowledged its inability to monitor and,
therefore, censor violent and degrading pornography that is
illegal in Canada.
An expose by the CBC TV program The Fifth Estate last
Wednesday dealing with the substance of two hard core
pornography channels made available by the Bell ExpressVu
satellite TV service showed Bob Warren of the Ontario Film
Review Board visibly disturbed while responding to
questions and viewing content, reports Thomas Langan of the
Catholic Civil Rights League (CCRL). CRTC representative
Pierre Blais said that there are far too many channels to
monitor.
He did say, however, that they would look into the evidence
produced by Fifth Estate regarding Bell ExpressVu which is
owned by Bell Canada's parent, BCE. "Only after Gartner
pressed him several times did he indicate the CRTC would
look into the matter," wrote Sid Adilman in the Toronto
Star newspaper. "This proved to be academic because BCE,
informed about The Fifth Estate's report, pulled the
channels off Bell ExpressVu a few hours before the program
aired. License renewal application hearings for BCE's CTV
take place next month. Renewal is a shoo-in, but BCE would
not want embarrassing questions about its other
broadcasting service."
The hard-core pornography is troubling enough by itself,
but what makes the current revelations even more disturbing
for Canadian Christians is that they come in a context of
aggressive anti-Christian discrimination by Canada's
communications regulator. "What we find most disturbing is
that [the] CRTC has been rejecting application after
application for religious programming," notes Langan.
"EWTN, the largest religious broadcasting service in the
world, applied at the same time as Playboy four years ago.
Though Playboy was accepted on the first round of
applications, EWTN is in need of support to be licensed
now. The CRTC felt it necessary to protect Canadians not
from disturbing pornographic images, but from programming
that is based on the moral values and principals upon which
Canada was founded. Where is the balance that Heritage
Minister Sheila Copps speaks of so regularly and so
proudly?"
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April 4, 2001
volume 12, no. 94
News from the Universal Church
www.DailyCatholic.org
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