Canada Wants Its Fox News

NewMax ^ | 4/27/04 | Carl Limbacher

[Integrityrocks]

Did the Canadians take the word "communisim" out of the dictionary so they never learn it in school? I mean... it spells out pretty clearly their so-called government.

": a totalitarian system of government in which a single-authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production and social, economic and cultural activities.

[Allan]

Are they trying to outlaw internet sites, too??

Not yet. But don't think they wouldn't like to.

A few years back there was talk that the CRTC should have authority over the Internet
as well as the airwaves.
Hasn't happened yet, but give them time.

[NorthOf45]

"The other provinces should join France and watch Al Jazeera."

Ahhh ... no.

[CaptainK]

She was a scary nut. If FOX gets into Canada she will be appoplectic with each nights viewing.

[victoryatallcosts]

No, no- I'm in British Columbia.

[Wacka]

In the 80s there was a case in Ontario where a man and his wife raped and tourtured her sister and another girl and then dismembered and buried them in cement.
The Canadian courts put a total gag order on the trial and wouldn't allow the TV or papers to print a word about it. They were even taking Buffalo, NY newspapers away from people crossing the border into Canada.
Of course it was stupid, because you could watch Buffalo TV and see all the details of the trial.

[BunnySlippers]

Nothing about Canada bothers me more than it's Stalnist system of cultural regulation.

I was shocked to read in the WSJ some years ago that Canada requires a certain percentage of singers on radio to be Canadian. Just silly! And stupid.

[Allan]

Are you serious?

Absolutely. See this:

Canada: Proposed legislation to toughen penalties for buying illegal satellite services

[Allan]

Ping to #30

[TheLion]

Glad you weighed in! I was going to ping you. Another thread around here said Fox beat out CNN and MSNBC combined....in the ratings!

[victoryatallcosts]

Yep, that's true. The result being that a lot of shit makes it on the air regularly that otherwise never would.

[BfloGuy]

I've lived my entire life on the Canadian border and have always loved Canada. I went to college in Montreal in the 70's and wanted to stay there (even submitted an application but young white guys with no particular skills or money weren't on the list for admission).

I'm glad now. While it's still an absolutely beautiful country and while I know that its "Silent Canadian Majority" still exists, I just could not bear the political and social climate over there.

Canada is a window into our future -- unless we change things.

[Free2Be49]

Yes, this is absolutely true.  The Canadian government drives around in vehicles with satellite detection equipment looking for unbrainwashed citizens trying to watch information sources not sanctioned by their government.  If detected, the offender is subject to criminal penalties.

When I heard this, I called my sister and said this is the official line that having been crossed, makes your country officially a socialist nation — not becoming socialist but they have arrived.  Even in Saddam's Iraq, rich people could have satellites to various countries.  Some houses would have three of them.

[NorthOf45]

All of this talk about the Canadian government roving the streets looking for illegal satellite signals ... I have yet to read/hear about it. Do you have a source, or is it hearsay? It's my understanding that the signals get scrambled periodically by the satellite service providers. I don't own a dish so I'm not the most informed on this issue.

[-YYZ-]

OK, time to set a few things straight.

The US digital sattelite services will not knowingly sell their equipment and service to someone in Canada. They don't have the broadcast rights for Canada. Same for Canadian sattelite services in the US. If you have or want to get an old-style big sattelite dish, you're free to tune in and watch anything you can legally get the equipment to tune in.

The Canadian gov't has been clamping down on US digital sattelite dishes in Canada to protect the Canadian sattelite services, and also because almost all the people using US sattelite dishes here are stealing the signal with "cracked" equipment, which is a violation of our equivalent of the DMCA. I'm not saying I agree with it, but it's more about cultural protectionism than it is censorship.

As to Fox news, the CCTA made an application to bring in it, along with HBO and some other services (ie in a single application). Again, in protectionist mode, HBO and the others are being kept out of Canada because they would cut into the viewership of Canadian cable channels that buy programming from HBO and others for broadcast in Canada. That was last year. Here's a link to a news article about this: Toronto Star

The CCTA has just (a couple of weeks ago) made application to bring in FOX News again, this time by itself in an application. It remains to be seen how quickly this will be dealt with, and what the outcome will be.

I'm not saying that I'm too happy about this stuff, and that I wouldn't rather that we had free access to all the US cable channels, but this is more about protecting Canadian cable channels than it is about censorship. Prove me wrong if you can, but otherwise this thread is mostly half-truths, supposition, and Canada-bashing.

[NorthOf45]

Thank you YYZ ... that's pretty much what I thought.

[BillM]

The latest proposed legislation makes it clear that the government is not just interested in piracy. They would concentrate mostly on piracy of canadian signals if this were true.

They want to control access to choice. That is censorship by any other name. It is not legal to have Directtv even if you subscribe to all the canadian cable and satellite suppliers, thereby eliminating the financial argument.

[-YYZ-]

And how would they write a law to enforce that? As much as I dislike the Canadian government's approach to this issue, I respectfully disagree with your opinion. You can call it censorship if you like, but the intention is not to keep out any particular programs or ideas, but to protect Canadian business interests. Which still sucks, but it's not what many of the posters in this thread have been saying.

One thing these laws do illustrate is how firmly the Liberal government is in the pocket of various corporate interests in Canada, in particular BCE who operates Bell ExpressVu. I'm outraged too, but not because the intention is to deprive me of certain ideas or programs.