Canadian Heritage committee  We define violence in the broadest possible way, which is to say that if the complainant says it's violent, we accept that it's violent. Our assessment is basically of two kinds. We need to determine, first, whether the violence is gratuitous. You have to bear in mind that under

Canadian Heritage committee  Not exactly. What we said is that they're not allowed to show any gratuitous violence at any time of the day or night.

Canadian Heritage committee  We can show you the tapes. We get the tapes from the broadcasters as part of the system. We have them. Any time you want to look at them--

Canadian Heritage committee  That varies with the year, but let's just say about 70% to 75% of the formal decisions that we render--and I mentioned this during the CBC hearings when we were here testifying, as well--go against broadcasters. We can give you the precise numbers.

Canadian Heritage committee  Should I shorten my presentation?

Canadian Heritage committee  Oh, une minute. Second is the cost issue. I won't go into that in detail. You have it in my.... Well, you don't have it in my oral presentation, but you can. Any system, as Mr. von Finckenstein said, would be very expensive and intrusive. I should add, of course, that the pres

Canadian Heritage committee  Monsieur Bigras has relied in considerable measure on the fact that there was a Laval study in 2004. That's the study that has indicated a very significant increase in the number of violent acts. The trouble is that study—first of all, it's a little bit older than that—counts eve

Canadian Heritage committee  Merci, monsieur le président. Thank you very much, everyone. My name is Ronald Cohen. I'm the national chair of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council. With me today is John MacNab, the executive director of the CBSC. I thank the committee for inviting us to express our views

Canadian Heritage committee  I would prefer to leave you to take such an implication, if I may. I can speak to the validity of the system, and so on; whether it should be we who undertake such an activity on behalf of another broadcaster, the public broadcaster, is not a decision for us to initiate.

Canadian Heritage committee  There is. We use, first, the CAB code of ethics, which in clause 5 deals with news and in clause 6 deals with the full, fair, and proper presentation of news, opinion, comment, and editorial. We also use the Radio-Television News Directors Association of Canada code of journalist

Canadian Heritage committee  I'm not a sociologist, but I would say that generally speaking in Canada, this is a good thing. To my mind, the way multiculturalism is practised is a good thing for society, and I do not see how it is tantamount to the balkanization of communities. I believe that traditions are

Canadian Heritage committee  I think the question is a very good question. I don't know that it would be up to us in any way to advise the public broadcaster of what it should do, but what might be important, Mr. Abbott, is to look at it from the point of view of the Canadian people, of the population of thi

Canadian Heritage committee  Why?

Canadian Heritage committee  Are you talking about legislation that deals with violence per se?

Canadian Heritage committee  No, our tools do not include legislation. We have codes, remedies, but no legislation.