Global Courant 2023-05-06 07:23:30
Canadian regulators have launched a public consultation on calls to ban Fox News from cable packages after receiving complaints that the network has broadcast hateful content about LGBTQ2S+ people.
The public consultation, which began earlier this month, was triggered by an open letter from an advocacy group Equal Canada.
“People in Canada deserve to know that the news broadcast on Canadian airwaves is reliable and objective, and marginalized groups should be protected from malicious propaganda,” the group’s executive director, Helen Kennedy, wrote.
Kennedy specifically accused now-former prime-time host Tucker Carlson of inciting “hate and violence” against transgender people by making “false and horrific claims” in a segment that also featured Egale’s name and logo.
“The trans movement is targeting Christians, including through violence,” Carlson said in a segment in March following a mass shooting at a Nashville school.
“Egale has experienced firsthand the hate generated by a single segment airing on Canada’s Fox News,” Kennedy wrote. “This programming clearly violates Canadian broadcast standards and has no place on Canadian broadcast networks.”
Carlson’s primetime show on Fox News was the most-watched cable news show in the U.S. However, in late April, Fox News defeated Carlson, days after the network agreed to a nearly $800 million settlement to avoid trial over allegations that it promoted falsehoods about voting machines after the 2020 US presidential election.
In the letter, Kennedy urges the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC, to conduct public consultations on banning Fox News from Canadian cable packages because of its “offensive” content. The CRTC regulates television, radio and other telecommunications in the country.
“We are calling on the CRTC to begin public consultations on the removal of Fox News from the list of non-Canadian programs approved for distribution in Canada,” Kennedy said.
Since public consultations opened on May 3, more than 160 Canadians have signed on, with some commenting in defense of Fox News and others in support of Kennedy’s call to ban the outlet.
“Why would we want a broadcaster to spread untruths and harm our democracy as it did to the US,” one person wrote in Ontario.
“Eliminating sources of information that contain alternative thoughts to whatever your personal agenda may be is undemocratic and against free speech,” another opined.
“As a person who identifies as LGBTQ2SI, I firmly believe that Canadians can decide for themselves which cable channels they want or don’t want, and that Canadians can distinguish opinions from reality without options being removed on their behalf,” a person in New Brunswick listed.
The CRTC will be accept public input until June 2.
Fox News and the CRTC did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday.
