A follow up to yesterdays story Canadian Government Seeks Right to Censor Telefilm Projects brings us new information and the possibility that this whole mess is the fault of one man. Charles McVety. Mr McVety is the president of the right wing Canada Family Action Coalition. He claims his lobbying of people including Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day and Justice Minister Rob Nicholson as well as numerous meetings with the Prime Ministers Office have all lead to this.
“...films promoting homosexuality, graphic sex or violence should not receive tax dollars, and backbench Conservative MPs and cabinet ministers support his campaign.“
Excerpt from Globe & Mail Article – February 29, 2008 (1)
McVety appears in today’s Globe & Mail as well as today’s Leslie Roberts Show on CFRB. The latter is where I first heard of him this morning on the way home from work. (ever go to work on your day off by accident?? Yeah me too) I hurried home to write this hoping CFRB would have the show as a podcast, but apparently the station is not yet actively embracing this technology, so I’ll do my best to remember what the pair were discussing.
Roberts gave McVety an opportunity to explain first off why he supports the idea, and then went on to ask how he had been involved in getting this into a bill. Unfortunately it appeared that Roberts had entered a battle of whits with an unarmed man. McVety seemed to forget the very decency he was trying to protect by using the name of the new movie Young People Fucking right off the bat requiring an immediate use of the seven second delay. A noticeably shaken Roberts tried to direct him away from any further discussion of that particular title and move him back on track as to why this censorship was such a good idea.
Unfortunately for those of us listening, and I believe to Mr McVety as well the conversation quickly slid in a rant by McVety against Telefilm and the Canadian Production Fund on the principle of its very existence. From there he went on to talk about how the CBC should receive no public money at all, and then… believe it or not, he actually managed to get in his views on the auto sector.
The earlier Globe & Mail Article seems to be the best source of any quotes from him, not even his own website had no press release as of an hour ago.
“We’re thankful that someone’s finally listening,” he said yesterday. “It’s fitting with conservative values, and I think that’s why Canadians voted for a Conservative government.” (1)
I think Mr McVety is forgetting that Canadians did not elect a Conservative Government. They voted against the Liberal Party of Canada over the sponsorship scandal that caused a loss of 32 seats by the liberals, but a pickup of 10 for the leftist NDP, and only 25 seats picked up for the Tories… This ‘election’ put the Conservatives into power as a minority government, the smallest minority since Confederation. (2)
The Conservatives deny their moves are in any way related to Mr McVety. Telefilm and the Canadian Production Fund are not new targets for the Tories who lean farther right than their centrist Liberal Party. During a recent committee meeting Conservative MP Dave Batters urged Michel Roy, the new President of Telefilm to block funding of ‘objectionable’ films. Speaking once again of Young People Fucking Mr Batters said:
“I haven’t seen this film, but it’s my understanding that the film contains a lot of soft-porn images. It’s supposedly somewhat witty, but with very blue dialogue. It is certainly not discussion that most Canadians would share in their homes or offices.” (3)
Conservative MP Dave Batters, Speaking to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, January 31, 2008
Is he actually saying that Canadians would not partake in a conversation about sex at home or at work? (Must be a boring place up there in Ottawa.) Also, how hilarious is it that someone would start out talking about something they are opposed to by prefacing their remarks by saying they haven’t actually seen the film in question… oh well.
But seriously, Telefilm already has provisions against producing sexually explicit or overtly violent content. An excerpt from the Telefilm Film Production Guide demonstrates the type of material Telefim will not produce including films containing:
“any elements of serious or gratuitous sexual violence or exploitation, and must not be obscene, indecent or pornographic within the meaning of the Criminal Code, or libelous or in any other way unlawful. ” (4)
So as you can see such protections already exist from Telefilm. What does not exist is the right for the Government to simply quash products that they personally don’t like. That is exactly what these new provisions will allow.
It is time for all Canadians to pick up their phones and let their MPs know how they feel about this issue. You should know where I stand by now, its pretty obvious, but your MPs don’t know this. If you don’t know the number, you can look it up HERE
BTW – To all you new bloggers out there… I highly recommend writing your blog entries in a word processor first. I just spent the last hour and a half re-writing this… grrrr….
Technorati: canada, Canada Family Action Coalition, Canadian Production Fund, Canadian Television, Canadian Television Fund, CBC, Censorship, CFRB, Chales McVety, CRTC, Globe & Mail, Leslie Roberts, Stephen Harper, Stockwell Day, Telefilm, Television, Young People Fucking
(1)Curry, Bill and Gayle Macdonald. “Evangelist takes credit for film crackdown.” Globe & Mail 29February2008 29February2008, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080229.wculture29/BNStory/National/home.
(2) Canadian federal election, 2006. 28February2008. Wikipedia. 29 Feb 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_federal_election,_2006>.
(3) “CHPC – Edited Evidence * CHPC * Number 0.12 (Official Version).” Committees of the House of Commons. 31January2008. Government of Canada. 29 Feb 2008 <http://cmte.parl.gc.ca/cmte/CommitteePublication.aspx?SourceId=224640&Lang=1&PARLSES=392&JNT=0&COM=13180>.
(4) Canada Feature Film Fund Canada Feature Film Fund Guidelines 2007-2008.” Telefilm. 01June2007. Telefilm. 29 Feb 2008 <http://www.telefilm.gc.ca/upload/fonds_prog/cfff_guidelines_english_language_dev_07-08.pdf>.
