OTTAWA – A controversial radio host who made demeaning comments about Indigenous women breached the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ Code of Ethics, says the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC).
On November 15, 2016 at 11:30 AM, CHOI-FM (Radio X, Quebec City) host Jeff Fillion talked about allegations of sexual assault against Indigenous women by police officers in remote regions of Quebec, a story that had been covered by Radio-Canada. No charges were laid after an investigation, and Fillion said that he had not believed the allegations from the beginning.
Fillion said that, according to his police contact, the young, handsome police officers with attractive wives and young families would not be tempted by the “messed up” Indigenous women in remote communities who have rotten teeth, hepatitis and substance abuse problems. One of Fillion’s co-hosts added that it was a “horrible tragedy” that this is the situation on First Nations reserves, and that policing those regions is difficult.
The two hosts revisited the subject during the program Maurais Live on November 23 at 8:05 AM. Fillion repeated that he felt it was unfair that Radio-Canada had tarnished the reputations of the police officers.
The CBSC received 31 complaints about these broadcasts, though only nine were eligible to proceed through the CBSC’s process and just one complainant requested a ruling. The station responded that Fillion intended to be critical of the Radio-Canada story that had originally reported the allegations and of the challenges in policing remote communities, rather than to incite hatred towards Indigenous peoples.
The CBSC’s French-Language Panel examined the complaint under Clause 2 of the CAB Code of Ethics and Equitable Portrayal Code which prohibits abusive or unduly discriminatory commentary on the basis of race, sex or ethnic origin, as well as under Clauses 4, 5 and 7 of the Equitable Portrayal Code regarding stereotyping, stigmatization and degrading material.
The Panel concluded that Fillion’s characterizations of Indigenous peoples did violate those code provisions and that he did not adequately clarify that he was denouncing sexual assault and not intending to stereotype or degrade Indigenous women.
Although Fillion did attempt to attack the Radio-Canada coverage of the story, this was not the main thread of the discussion, continues the decision. Rather, it was the abusive and unduly discriminatory comments about Indigenous women that stood out in the dialogue.
