PORNOGRAPHY, SHEILA COPPS AND SOCIAL REENGINEERING THROUGH BROADCAST REGULATION

By Thomas Langan

"It's been a long time since we've seen something this violent here at the Board" commented Mr. Bob Warren of the Ontario Film Review Board to the CBC show the Fifth Estate on Wednesday night. Mr. Warren was visibly disturbed while responding to questions and viewing content the two hard core pornography channels which Bell Express Vu has shut down.

He should have been disturbed. According to the documentary, the channel has been allegedly broadcasting degrading and violent pornography illegal in Canada. Mr. Pierre Blais, CRTC representative said that there are far too many channels to monitor.

The Catholic Civil Rights League, though disturbed by the allegations, is not surprised by Bell Express Vu's problems. Pornography is very profitable. So lucrative in fact that there are dozens of pay per view and pay channels available on cable, satellite and alternative suppliers in Canada.

As one of Canada's largest companies, Bell Canada Enterprises, is only one of dozens of large North American businesses that become addicted to the hoards of cash that the formerly underground culture brings in profits. General Motors was put on the spot in December of last year for its subsidiary Hughes, through the DirecTV broadcast satellite division, for hundreds of millions in profits. Investors urged GM to dump the division, which it is in the process of doing. Recent reports indicate that Rupert Murdoch of News Corp. is not adverse to the scandals of pornography is interested.

But the really dirty secrets come in the form of pornography addiction. People ring up huge sums in bills to cable and satellite companies, similar to the bills formerly rung up by people calling telephone sex chat lines. The total acceptance of pornography, as with total acceptance of gambling, brings with it the individuals who need the constant fix of pornography. What are these companies or the CRTC doing to address these problems of addiction? The addicts run up thousands in fees for these movies yearly. It can be a staggering cost to a family that is already short on funds.

The regular soft-core stuff gives way to the hard core, fetish, bizarre and then finally violent and degrading, which is illegal in Canada. But this was the kind of scene that Hana Gartner exposed in her Fifth Estate piece as being on the True Blue and Extasy channels.

Rape scenes are illegal in pornography in Canada, but are acceptable in dramas like the Soprano's episode that aired last Monday night. The brutal scene in the Soprano's spurred an outcry from a certain segment of the viewing community. But why then should ANY rape scenes be allowed on publicly licensed Canadian airwaves even if it does contribute to the plot?

There is also the factor which some refer to as "bleeding". Anyone while channel surfing late at night, encounters a station that is poorly scrambled by the cable company with full audio of moaning and groaning. Takes little time to realize that it is pornographic in nature. But porn being fantasy to begin with, it doesn't take much of a stretch to suggest that underage teens and tweens could fill in the less than well scrambled signals while viewing. Recent studies in the US show that a huge percentage of teenagers have television sets in their bedrooms. With no one supervising and a poorly scrambled signal, what is to stop the curious?

But what we find most disturbing is that all the while the fair CRTC has been rejecting application after application for religious programming. 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?

It is in essence a social reengineering of Canada. Is it really that surprising when the Minister for Heritage, who is responsible for retaining Canadian culture, stands up in the House of Commons and screams "what do you know about Christianity?" to and Evangelical Christian on the other side? Well if she were getting her information on Christianity from the Canadian licensed broadcasters, the Honourable member would be pretty much limited to slurs, stereotypes, aspersions and misinformation contained in Canadian and American drama and talk shows and oh yeah, don't forget fantasies of clergy having sex on porn channels. All of which is defended as free speech in decision after decision by the CRTC and the private broadcasters.

What is always forgotten, is that in the US about 10% of all broadcasting is religious. The mainstream secular content that we receive unedited acts to some degree as a balance to the religious programming. Yet we are 'protected' from any positive element of religious programming by the CRTC. Never told about the religious institutions that are helping to pick up the pieces of the lives destroyed by gambling and above mentioned pornography. Free speech is only for the pornographers in Canada. The Heritage Minister, and Secretary for Multiculturalism Hedy Fry have to as themselves "what do we know about Christianity?" Cut the faux piety ladies, if it comes over the television airwaves, very little in reality.

Where is the balance?

Quit the social reengineering. Get back to regulating standards. The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council is a joke and investigate the real story behind this porn scandal.

Thomas Langan President - Catholic Civil Rights League

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