Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for appearing here today.
We're studying a bill here today called Bill C-327, whose purpose is to reduce violence on TV. So this obviously touches on the issue of censorship and the like. On the other hand, we also live in a liberal democracy in which a fundamental principle is that citizens are free to act as they so wish and are free to express themselves as they so wish, provided that this expression or those acts do not harm others or harm others in a way that's unacceptable to society at large.
So we have free expression in this country. That being said, this free expression is limited by libel and slander laws, by the potential harm this expression could cause to others, and so on. There is a lot of jurisprudence around this regarding books and film. Over the years, the Supreme Court's interpretation of this area of law has evolved from one of meeting a community standard involving public decency and public morality to one involving harm--the harm test--whereby what is acceptable or not acceptable is decided on the basis of whether the materials cause harm to others. My question concerns this harm test.
Now, we're studying the issue of television in this bill. Television is satellite, cable; it's not the same as books and film. Books and film are in the private domain, and television and cable and satellite are in the public domain, but I think there are parallels between the jurisprudence that has been developed in the Supreme Court's rulings on books and film and what goes on in television.
So my question for the panellists is whether you can point this committee to any empirically based studies that have been undertaken that make definitive links between violence on TV and harm to others in society.
Mr. Chair, through you, could we start with Madam Wing and hear her response on that?