Ronald Cohen is the national chair of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council

Bill C-10 is not alone.

The film and television community’s concern over Bill C-10 has obscured another censorship issue that should be of concern to us all. About 18 months ago, Bernard Bigras, the Bloc Québécois MP for Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie, resuscitated his 2000 private member’s bill (now Bill C-327), proposing to amend the Broadcasting Act to cope with the problem of television violence.

What problem, you might ask? None at all, based on either statistics or complaints. Not only is there no recent or reliable study documenting any television violence problem at all in children’s programming, or even adult programming, but also, public complaints to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council about TV violence have declined by 22% between 2000 and 2008.

Even so, Bill C-327 is most of the way through hearings before the standing committee on Canadian Heritage, with four days of testimony down and one to come on April 1.

Never mind that – other than the bill’s sponsor, there has not been a single voice at the standing committee in favor of the bill. Not CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein, not Women Against Violence Against Women, not the Media Awareness Network, not the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, not the Canadian Teachers’ Federation, not Media Action, not Al MacKay (a longtime voice of experience in the area), and not, needless to say, the CBSC.

Never mind that kids in 2008 have many more platforms on which to access video violence than they did in 2000: video games with enhanced graphic displays, DVDs, YouTube and other Internet sources, and so on. Television’s importance as a platform for such content has clearly been diminishing, in relative terms.

Never mind that, as indicated above, violence complaints are falling.

Bill C-327 is dangerous on a censorship basis for two reasons. First, the Bloc wishes to curtail programming even if its violent content is not inappropriate (as defined by the carefully crafted Voluntary Code Regarding Violence in Television Programming created by the private broadcasters and approved word by word by the CRTC).

Second, the Bloc has argued that complaints are not the best way to deal with potentially inappropriate television violence. They would opt for a system of monitoring television programming. That said, they do not explain how they would accomplish this Big-Brother-like feat. Banks of digital recording devices? Walls of television screens? Gaggles of human monitors? On a pre-clearance basis, so that you cannot broadcast the show until screener #1634 has put his/her stamp on the show? Or after the fact?

In whichever model, who pays?

There would, after all, be a dollar price tag. Right now, the private broadcasters pay for the system. And the CBSC responds to complaints from the best monitors of all – the Canadian public: moms and dads, at home, in front of their own sets.

There would also be a societal price tag. Canadians are not used to being monitored. There are those who even complain when the CBSC (or the CRTC) makes rulings on content as the result of post-broadcast complaints. Those who complain about the process have periodically asserted that they can make such decisions for themselves. How would they and others respond to those choices being made in the absence of a single complaint, whether before or after a broadcast? Not well, I suggest.

When MP Maria Mourani recently challenged me before the standing committee, she cited a petition from 17 years ago in which 1.3 million persons demanded a change in Canada’s method of dealing with violence on television. The prime minister responded. The parliamentary standing committee responded. And the private broadcasters responded.

The Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ Voluntary Code Regarding Violence in Television Programming was the result. A world-class set of proscriptive standards, offering the most detailed and effective provisions for the protection of children anywhere.

As of Jan. 1, 1994, it became a condition of licence for every television broadcaster in Canada. Private, public, educational, parliamentary, documentary, for adults, for children, etc. Obligatory. Period.

As a result of that code, it took only two complaints and the CBSC’s decision regarding Mighty Morphin Power Rangers later that year to ensure that program went off the air in Canada. Its departure was followed – voluntarily – by broadcasters’ removal of similarly problematic children’s programming, and no new offending children’s series ever replaced them.

It did take two complaints, although a single one would have gotten the process to the same point. In the absence of any evidence of public concern, though, the CBSC does not assume there is a problem.

Sound fair? We think so. If MPs Bigras and Mourani cannot find even one Canadian – never mind 1.3 million Canadians – who has a problem with violent content in a specific program, should anyone be losing sleep?

The system works so well that Canadians are not finding a reason to be concerned. Parliament has enough real work to do. It need not look for an additional unnecessary form of censorship.