Canadian Heritage committee  Good afternoon. My name is Catherine Wong, and I'm an articled student at the B.C. Civil Liberties Association. The BCCLA was formed in 1963 and is Canada's most active advocate defending civil liberties and democratic freedoms. The association has a long history of providing in

Canadian Heritage committee  The association's position on this, Mr. Scott, is that we don't believe it should be the role of the state to regulate what is available for individuals to watch. It should be up to individuals to decide whether they want access to something, whether it's through payment or self-

Canadian Heritage committee  If the goals are to bring a better balance, then there should be guidelines along with this bill stating that the purpose of this is a better balance and availability of programming. That's not the case. It's a general, broad, vague law that just says they shall have the power to

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes.

Canadian Heritage committee  I completely agree with you that restriction does affect discernment in terms of exposure and development of faculties in children. That being said, I think parents have a prerogative to do so. Much as I might want to deny it sometimes, we are all products of our parents, our fam

Canadian Heritage committee  In terms of your initial comment, madame, there are differences between violence against women and, I would say, regulating violent content on television. We have over 1,000 members, so we're not all going to agree on how you define civil liberties, but traditionally speaking, c

Canadian Heritage committee  I'm sorry. I thought you wanted me to comment on your initial point.

Canadian Heritage committee  You're asking in terms of how...?

Canadian Heritage committee  Do you mean in this specific circumstance?

Canadian Heritage committee  To date, I believe there is a 9 p.m. threshold that the commission has decided to uphold. I know there were hearings held, but I don't know the logistics of how, if this were to be passed into law, the actual commission would make the laws. It's very vague, so I'm assuming that t

Canadian Heritage committee  If the question is about subsection 163(8) of the Criminal Code, that's a separate case. We're using that as an example of how the delegation of powers went wrong. In that case, the delegation of power to determine what was obscene was given to customs officials. In that case the

Canadian Heritage committee  The position paper that Mr. Siksay is referring to is one that we had drafted in 1995, I think specifically relating to violent programming directed towards children, and specifically with regard to the technology of the V-chip, which at the time was coming into prominence. The

Canadian Heritage committee  Our concern, I think, is that it doesn't prohibit the prohibition of news content. It doesn't state the value of free speech in political, creative, artistic expression, and I think that's very problematic.

Canadian Heritage committee  The association played a big role in the Little Sister's case. We were a co-plaintive. We fund-raised on behalf of the owners of Little Sister's to be able to litigate it. Sadly, it's still ongoing, despite the 2000 ruling from the Supreme Court of Canada. What we can learn fro

Canadian Heritage committee  I think we would disagree with that. This is something I would have to take to my board for a more definitive answer. But we generally take a principled approach to free expression. This is an almost non-negotiable point with us. Whether it's government regulated or privately reg