Despite being among nine new non-Canadian satellite services approved by the CTRC on July 15, it looks like the Arabic-language news service Al-Jazeera, out of Qatar, will not be hitting Canadian airwaves anytime soon.

According to the CRTC ruling, Al-Jazeera met the required criteria and the commission could not deny the application without infringing on freedom of expression rights. But in the wake of complaints received by the CRTC that accuse Al-Jazeera content of being anti-Semitic, the service was approved under a set of restrictions that make it highly unlikely Canadian distributors or satellite providers will start offering the service anytime soon, because the costs of complying would be too high.

Among those restrictions, the CRTC places the responsibility on distributors for ensuring that no racist or abusive comments are aired. The ruling went so far as to grant distributors special permission to alter or delete content from Al-Jazeera feeds, something they are forbidden to do with any other property. Distributors will be required to record all Al-Jazeera programming and maintain those records for a specific amount of time.

‘Cable companies do not want to be forced into the position of having to decide what is appropriate for Canadians to watch. This sets a frightening precedent and virtually ensures that no distributor will ever carry this service in Canada,’ said Canadian Cable Television Association president Michael Hennessy.

Al-Jazeera has been marketed in the U.S. since 1998 without any such restrictions, and the news service can be freely accessed in England, France and Israel.

Other new non-Canadian satellite services granted approval in the July 15 CRTC ruling include the German-language German TV; Spanish-language Canal SUR; South American CineLatino; Grandes Documentales de TVE, which provides documentaries in Spanish; an Argentinean women’s service called Utilisima; the Spanish and Portuguese subtitled movie service Eurochannel; Romanian-language Romanian Television International; and Arabic-language ART Movies.

Most controversial among the rejections was the CRTC’s decision not to approve Canadian distribution of the Italian-language general-interest service RAI International, which angered many of the country’s Italian-Canadian population. The commission stated that the service was denied because it would compete with Canadian channel Telelatino.

-www.crtc.gc.ca