Canada’s violence classification system has to look just like the American’s.

Five years after Virginie Lariviere’s anti-violence petition, behind umpteen studies on violence in television, a million panels, international conferences, position papers, and cross-country checkups, what do we have? A classification system sharing the same particulars as our American counterparts.

Did anybody ever think it wouldn’t? Or that it could and would still be workable?

The secrecy surrounding the details of the Canadian classification system, being kept tight as the Airbus facts, is perplexing, since the same principle at work in the creation of a digital tv standard is at work here:

We can put the finest Canadian industry minds on the case to come up with the best solution, but at the end of the day, nobody cares. They may grant us audience, even allow the odd suggestion, but a North American standard is defacto dictated by the Americans. Unless we’re planning on replacing the 80-plus percent of our airtime American programming occupies (with Cancon maybe?), blacking out the alphanets, and aerial spraying gray-market subscribers, proposing a classification system markedly different than the American’s is senseless.

But instead of clarity, what do we have?

Well, there’s Keith Spicer, tripping through the Sorbonne, touting a business card with an Ernst & Young logo, and leaving agvot to deal with deadlines that completely ignore the reality of what is, in this case, the North American marketplace.

There’s a year of v-chip tests behind us with not one iota of test results available ever. It’s not a leap to come to the conclusion that there were too many levels to the original prototype of the classification system, that it proved inordinately difficult to rate programs appropriately and consistently, that end users were confused, and that the test results illustrated the system’s failings.

Finally, we have 20 industry executives working overtime on a classification system that matches but doesn’t copy (?) the American system, and double-overtime to keep the details under wraps.

Why? So the regulators, politicians and the public perceive the due diligence the industry has paid this particular issue? See paragraph one.

Because it’s politically incorrect to admit the Canadian industry wants the same thing Valenti & Co. want? i. e., a classification system which harkens to the political agenda but doesn’t inhibit advertisers, costs scads of money and man-hours, and/or confuses the consumer to the extent that the whole exercise has been a waste of time.

Or maybe it’s not pc to admit the Americans have us by the nose on this one. The mouse/elephant analogy is fading. The lay of the land means sometimes we’re the elephant’s tail, and in this case, it’s difficult not to say so be it.

After the endless years of debate, it’s a relief to almost be back at the point where creating quality kidvid gets 100% of the focus. It’s something Canadians are particularly good at, and one sphere of autonomy the North American marketplace will always afford.