The government of Ontario has been given another four months to bring its theater laws in line with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, dodging an April 30 deadline laid down last year by the province’s Superior Court of Justice.

The Liberals now have until the end of summer to push through the more Charter-friendly Film Classification Act.

The new bill will replace the Theatres Act, which the same court struck down this time last year, ruling that it violated freedom of expression by granting censorial powers to the Ontario Film Review Board and to the Ministry of Consumer and Business Services. The ruling stemmed from a legal battle between the province and Glad Day Books, a gay-aimed store in Toronto that came under legal fire in 2001 for selling sexually explicit videos.

Ontario was given one year to fix the problem but recently asked for an extension, citing political delays. Lawyers for Glad Day and the Canadian Civil Liberties Union opposed the move, claiming that the province was dragging its feet, but, in his ruling, Justice J.A. Juriansz allowed that the political process was ‘unpredictable’ and that ‘some bills… move more quickly than others.’

The Film Classification Act recently passed second reading.