OTTAWA – Telling immigrants to go home if they don’t like it here and saying that pit bulls – along with their “white trash” owners – ought to be put to sleep, doesn’t violate the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ Code of Ethics, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council said today.
Last September the topic of Bruce Allen’s 90-second editorial, Reality Check, which airs on Corus Radio’s CKNW, was immigrants and the accommodation of their traditions. The following week, Allen appeared on the Christy Clark Show to discuss his commentary, which had generated considerable public controversy.
The CBSC’s British Columbia Regional Panel concluded that the Reality Check did not violate the Human Rights Clause of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ (CAB) Code of Ethics, but the six-person Panel was evenly divided on whether the editorial violated another Code clause relating to the proper presentation of opinion, comment and editorial. The Panel also observed that the Christy Clark Show provided a balanced discussion on the issues.
In his Reality Check, Allen mentioned a number of cultural problems ethnic or religious minorities had encountered, including: Sikh children denied passports because they were wearing “handkerchiefs” in their photos, an immigration plan to change common Sikh surnames Singh and Kaur, burka-wearing women encountering resistance when trying to vote, turban-wearers refusing to wear helmets when motorcycle-riding, etc. Allen concluded his piece with “if you are immigrating to this country and you don’t like the rules that are in place, then you have the right to choose not to live here” and “If you don’t like the rules, hit it. We don’t need you here. You have another place to go; it’s called home,” says the CBSC release.
Two weeks later, Allen did an extended Reality Check, in which he said he was actually opposed to the instances of “race-bashing” he had described, and he apologized for offending people.
The B.C. Regional Panel examined the public’s complaints under Clause 2 of the CAB Code of Ethics, which prohibits “abusive or unduly discriminatory material or comment which is based on matters of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion,” etc.
The panel unanimously concluded that the Reality Check did not violate that Clause because while most of the examples appear to be Sikh-community focused, they are not all of that nature. In any event, the Panel finds none of the examples cited problematic in their mere mention, under the Human Rights Clause.
When it came to pit bulls, an owner of such a dog objected to a segment on the Michael Coren Show broadcast on Astral Radio’s CFRB, Toronto last August (when it was still a Standard Radio station). The subject of the segment was pit-bull attacks and Coren recommended that all pit-bulls be killed and averred that all pit-bull owners were morons, trash “or other choice epithets,” says the CBSC release.
“There is nothing positive that pit-bulls do,” Coren was quoted as saying in the CBSC release, and that a solution to the attacks would be to “round them up, put ’em all to sleep.” He suggested that pit-bull owners are trying to maintain an image of “white trash, semi-criminal[s]” and joked that they also should be killed. He spoke with callers, some of whom agreed with him and some of whom did not, adds the release.
The CBSC received a complaint from a listener who was concerned that Coren disparaged pit-bull owners and advocated violence against them and the Ontario Regional Panel disagreed, saying that Coren wasn’t really advocating pit bull owners be killed.
