Media / Media Bias

Political correctness run amok

by arthur Weinreb, associate Editor,

July 19, 2004

Last week the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) announced that they would not being renewing the licence of CHOI-FM in Quebec City. This was the first time that the regulator has refused to renew a broadcast licence as a result of on-air remarks being found to be "offensive". Prior to this decision, the failure to comply with regulations concerning content such as Canadian content of music were the only reasons the CRTC refused to allow a station to remain on the air.

The decision stemmed from complaints made against Jeff Fillion and andre arthur, on-air personalities that are perhaps can be best described as cheap Howard Stern clones. amongst their transgressions were:

• saying that the weather announcer had an "incredible set of boobs" and adding that any idiot can do the weather;
• saying that a psychiatric patient didn’t deserve to live because "he’s a freaking burden on society", and
• criticizing african students in Canada because they were the sons of dictators and people who plunder their country so that their children can go to school in Quebec.

In its ruling the CRTC said that station undermined the multicultural

and multiracial nature of Canadian society. The CRTC added that they a duty to make sure that broadcasts reflect "Canadian values".

Translation: The CRTC, an independent government body is out to control the media in such a way that the values of the Liberal Party of Canada and their values only are reflected in programming. We all know from the past election, anyone who does not agree with the Liberals is un-Canadian and does not have so-called Canadian values.

as childish as the remarks about boobs and killing psychiatric patients were, they did not warrant the CRTC pulling the station’s licence and throwing its employees out of work. Lesser penalties would have sufficed.

The CRTC’s mention of the african students is more problematic and CHOI-FM claimed to have information about the sons of african dictators attending universities in Quebec. Corrupt dictators and their inner circles accumulate tremendous wealth in africa and it sounds reasonable that some of the children of these people are studying in Canada. Of course if we ever find out whether or not this is true, it won’t be on radio or television. The overreaching of the CRTC will lead to broadcast chill.

Poor Don Cherry — it’s only a matter of time before they get him.