The Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association has announced the formation of an industry group to create a national home video labeling system. So far, the group has agreed that a standard Canadian classification rating should appear on all home video packaging and that the system would operate on a voluntary basis. Industry and government officials in Ontario and British Columbia are currently discussing these and other labeling issues.

The implementation of national ratings, based on Ontario Review Board classifications, is the group’s ideal approach with the understanding that ‘the nomenclature utilized in the ratings must be useful to all Canadians,’ according to a news release.

Millard Roth of the cmpda and Daniel Lyon of Astral Entertainment Group are acting chairmen of the as yet unnamed group. Members include Dan Johnson of the National Association of Canadian Film and Video Distributors, Noah Segal of Malofilm, Chuck Van Der Lee of Rogers Video, and Shelly Davine of the Video Software Dealers of Canada.

Despite complications of a stickering system in place in Quebec, which cmpda president Roth says ‘every member of the group is opposed to,’ and the recent creation of a retail-level labeling system in the Maritimes, Roth says the group wants ‘to create a marriage among the various classification systems.’

Plans are for the system to be in place by the beginning of 1995.