Canadian Heritage Committee on March 6th, 2008

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mauril Bélanger]

Ladies and gentlemen, we'll begin this 20th meeting of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, which today, pursuant to the Order of Reference of Tuesday, October 16, 2007, concerns Bill C-327, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act (reduction of violence in television broadcasts).

We welcome our witnesses, Women Against Violence Against Women and the Media Awareness Network. We ask you to introduce yourselves, and we grant you about 10 minutes each.

Are you all going to make a presentation?

There are two presentations, so you have 10 minutes each. Then we'll proceed to a question and answer session where you'll have five minutes each.

Who will be first?

[Irene Tsepnopoulos-Elhaimer, Executive Director, Women Against Violence Against Women]

Thank you, and good afternoon. My name is Irene Tsepnopoulos-Elhaimer from the WAVAW—that's Women Against Violence Against Women—Rape Crisis Centre. I would like to thank you all for the opportunity to provide input to your deliberations and tell you how thrilled we are to be invited to the House of Commons to share with you some of the knowledge we have gained from doing anti-violence work at Women Against Violence Against Women Rape Crisis Centre in Vancouver for the past 25 years.

We're not here to engage in a discussion about censorship. When we have material that needs to be censored because it is deemed violent, we've already crossed a boundary. Instead of looking at censorship and boycotts as a means of creating social change, we need to examine the source of the violent imagery and not the media through which it is disseminated.

It is difficult to determine whether media violence helps to create violence or if it is a representation of the values and the very real violence in our society. In addition, it is a very difficult task to determine what messages are portrayed by the depiction of violent acts, as the context in which they are presented changes their impact, nor is it a given that reducing the depiction of violent acts actually addresses the real root causes of violence.

We do know that open dialogue can change attitudes and minds, and the media can be used to great effect to generate this kind of dialogue if the will and the support are there. What we need are more messages that promote a positive, empowered view of women and the relationships we have, as well as messages that provoke questions and dialogue about what we as a society continue to allow as acceptable behaviour. Many of the most insidious gender stereotypes that can lead to violence seem innocent and even desirable to many. There is plenty of room in the advertising world to provide a contrast to violence as usual, but those who would create and distribute those messages are competing with the corporate dollars that pay for sexy and sexist ads to sell anything, and with ad standards—in the case of our public broadcaster, CBC—that are stricter and more limiting toward advocacy advertising than they are toward product ads.

We must remember that we are having this conversation while Canada and the U.S. are waging war and killing other human beings. We are here with a firm grasp of the climate in which Canadians are living and the reality of violence against women in Canada.

What is violence against women? Violence against women is defined as any act that results in or is likely to result in physical, sexual, or psychological harm or suffering—including threats of such acts—as well as coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether in public or private life.

Why does violence against women happen? Violence against women could be attributed to a number of socio-cultural factors, including historically unequal power relationships between men and women; differentiated socializations of boys and girls; women's unequal access to the political, economic, and legal sectors of society; unequal symbolization of women's and men's bodies; and the use of violent means to solve interpersonal conflict.

Violence in Canada looks like this. In 2002, 69 women were killed by a current or former spouse or boyfriend. That's one to two women per week. A minimum of one million Canadian children have witnessed violence against their mothers by their fathers or father figures. In 52% of these cases the mother feared for her life, and in 61% the mother sustained physical injuries. Children who witness violence against their mothers often exhibit signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, and their social skills and school achievement are adversely affected. One-half of all Canadian women have experienced at least one incident of sexual or physical violence.

In 2002, 27,100 sexual assaults were reported to police. That number represents approximately 10% of all sexual assaults that year. One in six women are abused during pregnancy. Between April 1, 2003, and March 31, 2004, more than 95,000 women and children were admitted to 473 shelters across Canada. Forty percent of women in Canada have been sexually assaulted. Aboriginal women aged 25 to 44 are five times more likely than non-aboriginal women of the same age to die of violence, and more than 500 aboriginal women have gone missing or have been murdered over the past 30 years.

The estimated cost of violence against women in British Columbia, including policing, incarceration, health care, transition houses, sexual assault centres, lost work time, child services, and court proceedings is approximately $1 billion. In Canada, the cost is over $4 billion per year.

Kofi Annan, the former United Nations Secretary General, said:

Violence against women is perhaps the most shameful human rights violation. And, it is perhaps the most pervasive. It knows no boundaries of geography, culture or wealth. As long as it continues, we cannot claim to be making real progress towards equality, development and peace.

Violence against women is the barometer of the status in which women are held in our world, indeed our country. While Canada has implemented some formal equality measures, we've clearly not achieved substantive equality.

What this committee and all levels of government should be focusing on is how to change social attitudes and power-based structures of oppression that perpetuate this violence. Instead, we've seen all levels of government entrenching inequality for women, people of colour, and the poor.

In the words of Zara Suleman, a gender equity equality activist lawyer:

In Canada we have the language of equality. We're signatories to conventions, declarations and treaties that promote equality. We have the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, whose purpose is to protect and enshrine our equality rights. Our leaders speak freely and proudly of our equality in a way that assures the world that we've figured it out.

Or as the website on Foreign Affairs says and highlights, “We are the world leaders on gender equality.”

In Canada we say one thing and we do another. Last year we saw 12 of the 16 Status of Women Canada regional offices closed, including the one in Vancouver. We also saw the word “equality” removed from the mandate for funding for Status of Women Canada grants. In Vancouver we can invite the world to Canada for the Olympics and build within very tight deadlines expensive accommodations and facilities, but within the downtown east side of Vancouver the poorest and most vulnerable of our communities are left homeless, with disregard from our federal, provincial and municipal governments.

In B.C. we saw drastic cuts to legal aid funding in poverty law, immigration, and family legal aid services, mostly used by women, people with disabilities, poor and working class communities, people of colour, and aboriginal communities.

In 2005 and 2006, Stephen Harper committed to support women's human rights by taking concrete steps to uphold Canada's commitments, recommended under the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. One of these recommendations was to make resources available for equality test case litigation in all jurisdictions. In September 2006 the Harper government announced it would end all funding to the court challenges program of Canada, which had its mandate to provide resources for test case litigation regarding equality rights.

Without the court challenges program of Canada, key cases that have argued women's equality rights, sex discrimination cases, pay equity, and a host of other cases involving human rights would not have been able to go forward.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mauril Bélanger]

You have one minute.

[Irene Tsepnopoulos-Elhaimer]

Yes.

Women in Canada continue to make less money than men. If women were indeed equal, we would not be dealing with real-life or TV violence and we'd certainly not be here discussing this bill.

It's of no use to control images of violence on television without eliminating inequality of women and marginalized groups in reality.

As I said earlier, what we need more of is messages that break the spell of “violence as usual”, and to this end WAVAW is currently launching a youth-driven, web-based awareness campaign to end violence against women by busting gender myths and stereotypes.

Through our superpower project, we recognize that the medium of television is not the only influential broadcast avenue with which we can address the issues of violence, especially with youth. When youth are engaged and educated, they become leaders in social change. They become active agents in shifting paradigms that will contribute to ending violence. We're starting to see this happen both with the multicultural youth in Vancouver and aboriginal youth in Kitimat village who are collaborating on this project.

We'd like to see similar programming on television in support of an integrated strategy to end real-life violence.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mauril Bélanger]

Madam Tsepnopoulos-Elhaimer, I apologize, but I have to interrupt you. We are going to stick to the 10 minutes. I've gone slightly over.

[Irene Tsepnopoulos-Elhaimer]

It's done.

Thank you very much from all of us at WAVAW Rape Crisis Centre and from the women we work for.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mauril Bélanger]

We'll go on to Ms. Wing, for the Media Awareness Network, for 10 minutes as well.

[Cathy Wing, Co-Executive Director, Media Awareness Network]

Thank you.

My name is Cathy Wing. I'm the co-executive director of the Media Awareness Network, Réseau Éducation-Médias.

I'm very pleased to be here today to present this submission to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage as it debates Bill C-327, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act.

We laud the motivation behind this bill protecting the health and the well-being of Canadian children. And we welcome this opportunity to illustrate the critical role that media education plays in supporting the healthy development of children, and in giving Canadian citizens—adults and children—the tools they need to effectively manage media content issues.

Media violence is an issue that educators, broadcasters, parents, and academics have been debating for many years in this country. Throughout this long-standing debate, media education and the fostering of media literacy skills in young people have always been recognized as key elements in any effective strategy to address the issue.

Indeed, the CRTC's 1996 public notice on TV violence stated that although industry codes, classification systems, and technology would play a role, public awareness and media literacy programs represented most of the solution to the issue.

Our organization was born out of a CRTC round table on TV violence in 1995. It was initially formed under the auspices of the National Film Board of Canada. Since that time this national, bilingual, not-for-profit education organization has firmly established itself nationally and internationally as a leading centre in media education. Since our inception we've been fortunate to have had the long-standing support of Canadian media industries and the Government of Canada, both through financial contributions and participation on our board of directors.

Our vision is to ensure that Canadian children and youth possess the necessary critical thinking skills and tools to understand and actively engage with media.

Belief in the importance of media literacy in the education of young people is growing in this country. It is now a mandated area of curriculum in every province and territory, and our resources and programs are used in every jurisdiction in Canada by school boards, faculties of education, libraries, and community organizations.

Young people today often are spending more time interacting with media than they are in school. When they're using media—watching television, listening to music on their iPods, surfing the web—they're absorbing a large part of their knowledge about the world and themselves and others. And this informal learning is generally taking place without critical reflection or guidance.

For this reason, it is essential that young people are taught critical thinking skills in order to be thoughtful and engaged users of all media. A media-literate individual has the critical thinking skills to interpret and value media content and to understand media's cultural, political, commercial, and social implications.

One of the primary lessons of media education is that media productions are not reality, but they are deliberate constructions and the result of a series of choices. Media education encourages young people to consider the role of violence in media. Is it essential to the plot of a movie? Is it factored in just for drama or excitement? What are the differences between real-world violence and media violence? Is the violence shown to have realistic consequences or does it trivialize the psychological and physical trauma of real-life violence? How is it used to sell films to international audiences? What is the role of violence in news programming? What are the impacts on society? And how do factors such as age, gender, race, religion, and cultural background affect how we interpret violent media?

The media education curriculum also teaches students that they have a voice and a role to play as active media consumers who can talk to the entertainment industries and express their opinions through the mechanisms we have in place in Canada to address media content issues.

There is a body of research emerging that is examining media literacy as a health promotion strategy. Several studies point to its effectiveness in mitigating potential negative media influences on the physical and mental well-being of children and youth. For example, research has indicated that media literacy lessons incorporated into standard curriculum can help reduce potentially harmful effects of TV violence on very young viewers.

One U.S. study of third and fourth graders who were given a course in media literacy decreased their time spent watching TV, playing video games, and reduced their use of verbal and physical aggression as judged by their peers.

Another study of a year-long media literacy curriculum found children in early grades watched less violent TV and identified less with aggressive characters after the intervention.

Other studies have concluded that media literacy can help high-risk youth develop more responsible decision-making skills. An evaluation of a media literacy intervention program implemented by the Massachusetts juvenile justice system showed that learning to deconstruct media messages helped juvenile offenders think critically about the consequences of risky behaviours and helped them develop strategies to resist these impulses.

Helping to support the healthy development of children and youth through the acquisition of media literacy skills has become more critical than ever as our young people turn to the Internet as their main source of entertainment, information, and communications.

Our media environment has changed considerably since Canada's broadcasting initiatives were introduced to address TV violence. The convergence of media platforms and the availability of wireless communications technologies mean that rating and classification systems and legislation and industry codes and guidelines are no longer enough to protect children, particularly as they increasingly use the Internet to access video games, television, movies, and music.

We were born at the same time as the World Wide Web and we've grown with the Internet. We've watched its potential being realized and we've monitored the risks and concerns associated with its use. It was clear from the start that the Internet would bring new challenges to many of the media issues of concern we were dealing with, particularly media violence.

In 2005 we conducted a national survey of more than 5,200 Canadian students about their Internet use. One-third of kids' favourite websites contained violent content, and 34% of Grade 9 boys said they had visited a violent gore site on purpose. New research from anti-racism organizations shows that violent and hateful content is growing in interactive web environments such as social networking sites and user-generated video sites.

In this new media landscape where our young people are moving beyond geographic and regulatory borders to access media content, responsibility for protecting children is shifting to individual households, schools, and communities. There is no question that media violence is and will continue to be an area of concern to Canadians, as evidenced by the proposed legislation from the honourable member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie. As media violence continues to be debated in our public institutions, Media Awareness Network encourages all Canadians to support the practice of media literacy as a key response to media content issues of concern.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mauril Bélanger]

Thank you very much. We'll now proceed to the questions.

Madam Fry.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Thank you very much.

I want to thank both groups for coming and sharing your experience and some of your knowledge with us. My first question is directed to WAVAW. I gather either Irene or Dalya could answer it.

You talked a lot about the need to change social attitudes to the power imbalance that creates that violence in society, in spite of the laws we have. Have you been able to do any research, or do you think that research on the impact of the increasing amount of gratuitous “sex” and the very young prepubescent girls who sell things on the media has made a difference to violence against women, in younger and younger women? Have you done that research? Do you think that research is necessary? How have you been impacted by the lack of money for research due to the closing down of the research arm of Status of Women Canada?

That's for you, and then I will ask Cathy one question, if you don't mind, Cathy.

You made a very important point that Internet use is obviously.... If we talk about violence in television, it may be useless if we don't look at the other platforms, because those platforms could be there for people to watch just as well as television. You're suggesting that if we did some education and media awareness and gave media literacy skills to young people, it would help them deconstruct the violence they see on TV. How do you propose to go about doing that? Does that mean if they have the skills to deconstruct, it doesn't matter what they see, that they would be able to filter it and understand it and put it into perspective?

The other piece that attaches to that is that we talk about it in terms of fantasy TV, movies, film, etc., but then the news shows us violence against women and young people, especially in war zones, and the inability to differentiate between the two becomes increasingly difficult for young people.

If you could answer those questions for me, I would be pleased. Thank you.

[Irene Tsepnopoulos-Elhaimer]

Research is very important. It's an important factor that allowed us to gather all of these statistics that have brought us to the substantive knowledge that we have up to this point. Of course, the front-line workers, the activists, and the women who are working with women and children who experience violence need to be able to work together so that we can continue to get a really clear picture of where we're going.

Research is always important, and it's important that the organizations that work in the anti-violence field are working with the researchers. I think that's one of the very important pieces to looking at ways of ending violence in real life.

Of course, for television it's the same. I think we've all realized that what we see on TV is an expression of what we're living, and it's very important to have strategies that deal with the images that are being portrayed. We'd like to see financial incentives that promote attitudinal and social change towards equality. I think that's the way to tackle the same old business as usual, the violence, here we go again. The support is very important—this financial support—in giving air space for public service announcements from social justice and equality-seeking organizations.

If we had opportunities to use their space and to provide alternatives, I think that's a space that we would also like to be supported in, especially with the youth. Not only do we want them to have education and critical thinking abilities—in understanding how media plays itself out—but we also want them to be active agents. We want them to be able to participate and make messages that are about social change. We see a clear role for youth in internalizing it and then actually being able to make the difference instead of being passive and receiving information around what media is. We want them to be able to participate and to help shape the future, a future without violence.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mauril Bélanger]

Ms. Wing, I'll give you a minute. We'll be over time, and I'll make sure that we get equal time.

Ms. Wing, you have a minute.

[Cathy Wing]

Thank you.

Yes, we don't think of media literacy as a magic bullet. Of course there are many other people who have to play a role in this. Broadcasters have to play a role--they have to adhere to the broadcasting code for violence--and parents have a very important role to play. We all have a role to play in protecting our most vulnerable citizens from disturbing and age-inappropriate content. So there is more than media literacy that we can do.

Half of children in Canada have a television set in their bedrooms, and 30% have their own Internet-connected computer. We need to do a better job in reducing access, and access is the huge issue. More and more Canadians are accessing the Internet through their cell phones. We have to be more active in protecting young children from age-inappropriate content, and hand in hand with that, we have to teach them the media literacy skills that will mitigate any negative influences of content, which they will come across.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mauril Bélanger]

Thank you.

Madame Mourani is next.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good afternoon, mesdames. I'd like to ask Ms. Wing a question.

We recently met with the CRTC, which explained to us how the present system worked. It's essentially a system based on self-regulation and, consequently, on the willingness of the industry and broadcasters to comply with and enforce the code. It is also very much based on complaints.

The CRTC is not used to going to see whether there is a problem, but rather to waiting for complaints. We were told that the present system was working very well. My big question is the following. Do you, who work in this environment and who see the impact of television violence on young people, really believe that the present self-regulatory system, the codes and rules of which were first governed by the industry, then validated by the CRTC, and which works through a complaints system, is sufficient?

[Cathy Wing]

I'm sorry. One role of media educators is to make sure we have a well-formed populace who understands the mechanisms in place in Canada. I think they are not well understood. That's what we try to teach young people. We try to teach them the role of the codes of the Broadcast Standards Council and of the CRTC. Those are important mechanisms in place in Canada that Canadians, especially young people, need to know about.

We have teaching lessons on our site where kids develop their own television code, where they mentor and talk to younger kids about the impact of violence on them. We teach them about the different mechanisms that exist.

Also, I have to come back again to the whole idea of access. A watershed hour in a country with several times zones is not as effective as it could be. We have satellite television, we have Internet access, we have many things in the homes that mean children will be accessing content inappropriate to them, regardless of the best efforts of the industry. As parents, I think we need to take up and play an active role.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

I agree with you that parents, and even young people, have an active role in this regard. I myself have worked with youths, and I would tell you education and awareness still need to be done. Don't you believe that the government has a shared responsibility through its agencies, such as the CRTC? That's the CRTC's role, in my opinion.

I was considering the following question. In a way, the bill asks the CRTC to establish regulations to reduce violence in television for children. What do you think of the way it currently operates, which is very much based on self-regulation—so it's a question of will—and on a complaints system? As a result, the CRTC controls the entire system, but, in a way, doesn't interfere in it too much. Don't you think the CRTC has a fundamental role to play, an active role, not a passive one, that is to say waiting for complaints? It's more than awareness that must be done with families, children and society in general; you're entirely right on that point. The CRTC's role in this matter lies at another level.

[Cathy Wing]

I have to say, as an educational organization not an advocacy organization, that we do advocate for education only. We look at the systems that are in place in the country. We educate people about them. We show them the debates. As a matter of fact, we have a very interesting media violence section on our site. Those materials have been the most downloaded materials on our website since we went online. We show the studies that show there is a causal effect with aggressive behaviour. Then we show the studies that show there is no causal effect. We lay out all the information and let people educate themselves. We let them bring those debates into the classroom.

That is what we advocate for: education and critical thinking.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mauril Bélanger]

Thank you. Your time is up.

Mr. Siksay, go ahead, please.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for being here today.

I want to say that I'm particularly happy that WAVAW is here today. I want to thank Ms. Tsepnopoulos-Elhaimer and Ms. Israel for their presentation. WAVAW has made a huge difference on the Lower Mainland of British Columbia in supporting women who've been victims—victims is probably the wrong word, you'd probably correct me—who've experienced violence. You've supported them through that experience but also sought social change that really has had a positive effect on our community. Whenever WAVAW has been invited to a meeting, the clarity of the challenge that comes from WAVAW has been helpful to me, both as a man and also as an elected official. You've done that again today, so thank you.

I wanted to ask a couple of things. They're probably more specific than I want to be, but you did mention the importance of advocacy advertising and the difficulty or impossibility of getting that on the public broadcaster, in particular the CBC. Could you talk a little bit more about how you perceive that and the importance of that, particularly with regard to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Radio-Canada?

[Dalya Israel, Victim Service Medical Support Worker, Women Against Violence Against Women]

I think this particular topic was brought up in conversations with colleagues of ours who have done work in the past with companies like Adbusters, where popular media has been taken and shifted into attending to more social justice-based ideals and starting to challenge and support people to think critically about the continuous perpetuation of very specific stereotypes in society.

I think, in particular, those types of subversive ways of getting people to start thinking critically are seen as advocacy-type projects or images, and they've been stopped from being in the mainstream. They've been relegated to a special interest grouping. I think that was specifically around images like that.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

So it's been impossible to get that kind of counter-message on public broadcasters, and on the airwaves generally?

[Dalya Israel]

Right.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

I think Adbusters has a court case that's proceeding. I think they just had a setback with that court case recently, but I know they're continuing to pursue it. I appreciate the importance of needing to get that kind of message on the airwaves.

You mentioned in your presentation financial incentives to attitudinal change. I wonder if you had any specific suggestions. I think at the end of your presentation you were getting into some of the specific project work that you were actually doing, but the time ran out. I wonder if you might tell me a bit more about what you had in mind there.

[Irene Tsepnopoulos-Elhaimer]

First of all, we'd like to have money to be able to do advocacy. Advocacy is forbidden. It's dangerous for the survival of organizations. We can't do that. And it's impossible to do social change without advocating for change. So that's a conundrum.

Our organization has been around for 25 years, and we don't even think about being able to have a spot on TV to do any educational awareness or any kind of commercial, any access. It's not even in the realm of the imaginary at this point.

So what we do is work with male and female youth. We work with them not only for awareness and education, but actually to get them to make and create stories. With this particular superpower project, they get to put out their own commercial, their own talk show. So they really get to be actors. We've seen how that changes them. Once those male youth, those female youth, get an idea of what that looks like, creating their reality instead of passively accepting what's on TV, they're ingrained for life and they have a new sense of being actors in the world. And they're actors who then go on to make social change.

We'd like a national strategy, a strategy to end the violence against women. We have an idea of using a feminist gender budgeting framework that supports full human rights and equality for all women and peoples in Canada. So we need to be really focused on a comprehensive strategy for how to do this work, including youth and media.