OTTAWA — Part of the title was missing — guess which — from the poster when Young People Fucking was screened Thursday night for the Parliament Hill crowd. The ‘uck’ was blotted out, each letter replaced with sticker that cheekily reminded anyone who cared to look that the film at the center of the Bill C-10 debate was also a selection at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

The film has since become a lightning rod of controversy and has cost one MP’s assistant her job.

Distributor Maple Pictures organized the screening to give senators, parliamentarians, staffers and others the chance to see the film for themselves. MP Denis Coderre, the Liberal critic for Heritage, and Liberal Senator Terry Mercer were among the attendees, out to say their piece about the importance of freedom of expression in Canada.

‘My Canada includes freedom of expression, and I do not think politicians should get involved in creation,’ said Coderre, who after the screening gave the movie three stars out of five.

Mercer vowed to prevent the Tory bill from passing the Senate. It has already made its way through three readings in the House of Commons and for weeks has been lingering before the Senate banking committee.

‘We should be encouraging creativity. I don’t necessarily embrace every book or film, but who are we as a government to tell people what’s creative?’ Mercer stated.

Bill C-10 proposes to withhold federal tax credits from movies deemed to be ‘against public policy’ because of pornography, violence or promotion of hate crimes.

Charles McVety, president of the Canada Family Action Coalition, refers to Young People Fucking as pornography, and holds it up as an example of why Bill C-10 is necessary. Movies like it, he said earlier in defense of the bill, should not receive tax credits, though he has said he has not seen the entire film.

McVety did not show up, nor did anyone from the Conservative Party. But Victoria van Eyk did. The former MP’s assistant says she was let go after her boss’s name, Conservative Gary Goodyear, appeared on the guest list because she had ordered a ticket.

‘I’m young, I like movies and I wanted to see the film,’ said the 22-year-old. ‘It’s no big deal. All the young Conservative staffers want to see it.’

But it’s not the kind of film that the Conservative Party supports, she said, adding, ‘I could have exercised better political judgment.’

Van Eyk told reporters she would not have been fired if she had ordered a ticket for a movie like the new Indiana Jones.

The creative team behind the movie is lapping up the publicity in advance of its June 13 release in a dozen or so cities across Canada.

The publicity is ‘quite crazy. When we did the movie, we never imagined the outcome of the sensational title. It’s a good thing that our movie is focusing attention on [censorship],’ said producer Steve Hoban. ‘I hope we can help squash Bill C-10 and that we get a lot of people lining up to see our movie when it opens.’

Ironically, as the screening for Young People Fucking ended, many others were lined up for a free sneak preview of the saucily titled Hollywood film Sex and the City.