Ottawa, July 7, 1999 -- The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) today released its decision concerning the duct-taping, and promotion thereof, of a CFNY-FM (Toronto) radio personality of the Humble & Fred morning show to “A. Cross”. The stunt, which took place the day before Good Friday and was touted as “the most authentic re-creation of the events of Holy week”, created immediate controversy. A complainant alleged that this mock crucifixion was “extremely offensive” and constitutes “defamation of the Christian faith”.
The Ontario Regional Council considered the complaint under the human rights provision of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ (CAB) Code of Ethics. It found no breach of the Code. While the Council noted that most often the religion dealt with in previous decisions had been a Christian religion, whether Protestant or Catholic, it observed that “the religion best known to the population ... would be likeliest to be publicly parodied” and went on to conclude that “the principles established in the various CBSC decisions on the subject would, of course, be as applicable to any religious group.”
What matters ultimately relates to the clash of the right of freedom of speech and the right of broadcast audiences to be free from abusively discriminatory comment on the basis of religion, as well as other grounds enumerated in Clause 2 of the CAB Code of Ethics. Religion is not, after all, immune from farce, sarcasm or parody. The issue to determine is whether the barb has become a poison arrow, and whether, in other words, the humoristic device has stepped over the farcical threshold and into the bitter and nasty territory of abusively discriminatory comment.
The Council concluded that the CFNY-FM had not overstepped its boundaries in this case.
Applying these principles to the matter at hand, the Council believes that the entire concept was irreverent and possibly even in bad taste. If the latter, it is not an issue with which the Council will deal as matters of taste in private broadcasting are generally left by the CBSC to the discretion of the individual either to listen to or turn off. It is only when issues rise beyond mere taste that the Council becomes involved. The principle of freedom of speech would be too compromised by the overlay by the CBSC of, in effect, a micro-managed imposition of its view of mere questions of taste. If the former, the irreverence alone of the planned event could not reasonably be interpreted as anything more nefarious than someone’s idea of how to turn humour into a public attention-getter.
Canada’s private broadcasters have created industry standards in the form of Codes on ethics, gender portrayal and television violence by which they expect their members will abide. They also created the CBSC, which is the self-regulatory body with the responsibility of administering those Codes, as well as the Code dealing with journalistic practices created by the Radio Television News Directors Association Canada (RTNDA). More than 430 radio and television stations and specialty services from across Canada are members of the Council.
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All CBSC decisions, Codes, links to members' and other web sites, and related information are available on the World Wide Web at www.cbsc.ca. For more information, please contact the National Chair of the CBSC, Ron Cohen, at (###) ###-####.