OTTAWA – Radio host Louis Champagne’s “disparaging” comments about homosexuals contravene the Human Rights Clause of the CAB’s Code of Ethics, the CBSC ruled this week.
The remarks occurred during the morning show Champagne pour tout le monde broadcast on CKRS-AM (Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean) back on February 19, 2007. Champagne conducted an interview with a Parti Québécois representative, and while questioning the party’s support in the local listening area, asked whether a party with an openly gay leader and other homosexual candidates would fare well in the region. Referring to the blue collar workers in the region, Champagne questioned [translation] “do you really think that when you present them with another homosexual, you won’t be asked the question: ‘Is the Parti Québécois a club for fags?’” The PQ representative responded that the candidates’ private lives were not relevant to the campaign.
Following a public outcry, CKRS’s parent company, Corus, gave Champagne a one-week suspension from the airwaves and required him to read an apology on air upon his return. The CBSC also received a request to investigate the matter.
The CBSC’s Quebec Regional Panel examined the complaint under Clause 2 (Human Rights) of the CAB Code of Ethics, which prohibits the broadcast of abusive or unduly discriminatory material on the basis of, among other things, sexual orientation. The Panel concluded that Champagne was fully entitled to question the PQ candidate about the receptivity of local voters to homosexual candidates, but that he crossed the line when he used the derisory term “club de tapettes” [“club for fags”]. The Panel explained its decision in the following terms:
The panel “considers that Louis Champagne’s tone was ‘sneering, derisive and nasty’, hence in breach of Clause 2 of the Code,” says the decision.
“As to the word ‘fag’ [‘tapette’ in French] itself, the Panel considers that it balances tentatively on the fence, acceptable in some circumstances […], but totally unacceptable, when used in the aggressive, hostile manner of the February 19 broadcast of Champagne pour tout le monde,” it adds.
