BumfOnline

Supporters of CHOI-FM converged on Parliament Hill today to protest the CRTC's efforts to shut down the popular Quebec City radio station. There were numerous reasons cited to support the decision, namely the morning show host's mocking of the mentally ill and political figures (often one and the same) as well as their demeaning attitude towards women. Funny, isn't it, that when soft-core pornography is giving a generous ride on the airwaves it contains "artistic merit" while more julvenile protrayals of sex and women is "obscene" (as if the objectification of women is a real concern with the self-anointed protectors of public decency)?

Apparently, according to what a station representative mentioned on QR77 the other morning, the real reason they're getting shut down is because of their incessant ridiculing of separtist political leaders. Ottawa is allegedly concerned about pissing off the pequistes by allowing such unruly deviants to lampoon a "legitimate" political movement. Then again, it might be all horsedooey; maybe they forgot to bribe the proper authorities.

However, if the allegations are true, it would be just another click of the ratchet towards an even more authoritative - i.e., politically correct - system of speech, where certain subjects are considered taboo. Look at the way we treat those who dare to criticize our health care policy. Do you honestly believe that the government wouldn't want to silence political agitators in the name of public decency?

In his Letters to a Young Contrarian, Christopher Hitchens makes a similar point while relating his experiences in a post-Revolution Cuba:

I remember particularly a seminar with Santiago Alvarez, the grand old man of Cuban cinema. Film was a special medium of the Cuban revolution and he assured us it was unfettered. Completely unfettered? Well, he said with a slight laugh, there is one thing that is not done. No satirical portrayal of the Leader will be permitted. (The slight laugh was at the very idea that anyone would even dream of proposing such a thing.) I said, quite simply, that if the main subject of Castro was off-limits then, in effect, there could be no real satire or criticism at all.

Is he that far off from what's happening here? Actually, there are several similarities between Canada and Cuba which I can name off the top of my head: We both have regulators who ban American networks as well as home-grown programs which don't match their political ideology. Plus, as Hitchens pointed out, film is an important part of the national identity, such that both countries resort to ensuring the motion picture industry is highly subsidized.

However, just you try to make a Canadian movie with taxpayers' dollars which criticizes the homosexual movement or one which promotes gun ownership. Just try to gain funding for a movie about rampant racism and drug abuse on Indian reserves which doesn't lay at least the majority of the blame on the White Man.

But if you want to piss in a jar and stick a crucifix in it, there's no reason it couldn't make waves in this country.

Or if you wish to broadcast an infidel's beheading, Canada's the place to be.

Just make sure that the one doing the decapitation doesn't say anything about the size of the anchorwoman's breasts.

UPDATE: Jaeger, ever the indomitable journalist, risks life and limb in order to get to the heart of the story:

I hope you appreciate the sacrifices I make for you guys, getting out of a stuffy office filled with the Ottawa bureaucrats that are the typical native species in this habitat and spending a couple of hours on a warm afternoon surrounded by hot, young francophone women showing enough cleavage to show the tattoos on their breasts and occasionally getting worked up into a quite an energetic passion.

Oops, I meant to use this instead:

That is our Parliament, the very centre of our Westminster democracy and the site of Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s speeches expounding on liberty. In a healthy country it should be the central defender of liberty, not the site of a crowd outside reduced to begging for the privilege of being able to listen to the station of their choice.

Couldn't have said it better myself.