In Print

Tolerating intolerance

By Kevin Steel ⋅ February 12, 2007 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

Canada’s federal broadcasting watchdog proves strangely accepting of state oppression

As if they were taking lessons from the Maoists, when the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission decreed that Rogers Cable can market nine Chinese state TV channels, they announced it on the last working day before Christmas. That pretty much guaranteed the decision was ignored, as Canadians hustled home for the holidays. It’s a technique Beijing often employs to avoid foreign criticism: on the same day, halfway around the world, in Beijing, a “people’s court” handed down a three-year suspended sentence for human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, after what Amnesty International called “a grossly unfair trial.” Like the CRTC decision, this yule-time news was also largely ignored.

CRTC spokesman Denis Carmel told the Western Standard that the regulator considered withholding the announcement until after the holidays. “But it was ready, so we released it,” he says.

It was one of the CRTC’s last decisions under the chairmanship of Charles Dalfen, whose term expired Dec. 31. Prior to his 2002 appointment to the CRTC, Dalfen was a senior partner at Torys LLP, a huge Bay Street law firm with significant ties to Rogers Communications, the parent company of Rogers Cable. Small world.

The CRTC may have wanted its decision under the radar. In 2004, the regulator let Al Jazeera television into Canada, though it was proven to have broadcast hatred against Jews; the CRTC simply insisted any carrier edit out any hateful content–almost guaranteeing no one would carry the signal, given the cost of monitoring. Now, however, although the CRTC admits the Chinese stations have carried content hateful toward Falun Gong practitioners, Taiwanese and Tibetans, it allows Rogers to sell the nine Chinese stations–marketed as the Great Wall TV Package–without any monitoring.

Elaine Xie is co-chair of Canadians Against Propaganda (CAP), a coalition of 29 groups opposing the Chinese channels. She’s upset because the CRTC stated the only evidence of hate arose between 1999 and 2001. “This conclusion is very irresponsible,” Xie says. Last April, her group sent a letter to the China International Television Corp., requesting copies of programs known to have hateful content. The letter, naming 12 programs that aired as late as 2005, was copied to the CRTC. The Chinese ignored the request. The CRTC? Ditto. While the regulator “found several instances of the service broadcasting . . . abusive comment, these date back to 1999 and 2001, [but] there is no evidence of such instances aired by CCTV-4 since that time.” So they are “unable to conclude that the offending stories aired in 1999 and 2001 are typical of the content currently aired on CCTV-4.”

CAP is filing a complaint with the CRTC to overturn the ruling, Xie says, and “we will also be appealing to the government.”

CRTC spokesman Carmel acknowledges the commission was aware of attempts to obtain more information. “But we had to rely on the evidence that was in front of us, otherwise there is no end to it,” he says. The commission allowed an unusual, second round of hearings, to allow clear evidence to be put forward. “We don’t regulate companies outside the country, or undertakings outside the country. We did recognize that there was some old evidence, and it was indicated to us that [the channels] are better now. We also indicated if there’s breach of our regulations that are witnessed and brought to our attention, we still have the opportunity to remove the service,” Carmel says.

Who told the CRTC that the channels are “better now?” Representatives of Rogers Cable and China International Television. The latter simply denied any accusations, and the CRTC bought them–though the Chinese government has not changed its policies toward any of the slandered groups.

That bothers Falun Gong spokesperson Lucy Zhou. “It’s obvious [the CRTC] did no investigation. The policy of the Chinese government toward the Falun Gong is to defame their reputation, bankrupt them financially, and eliminate them completely. That policy has not changed. So even if we submitted footage from 1999 to 2001, the situation is still the same,” she argues.

The Tory government has in the past overturned CRTC decrees. In November, Industry Minister Maxime Bernier reversed a ruling on Internet-based telephone services (VoIP). But there, the government decided in favour of market forces. So groups like CAP might not set their hopes too high.

[This article appeared in the February 12, 2007 issue of the Western Standard.]