The House resumed at 8 p.m.
Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: For this very important piece of legislation, I think we should have a quorum in the House.
Mr. Speaker ordered the bells to be rung.
8:06 p.m.
THEATRES AMENDMENT ACT
Hon. Mr. Elgie moved second reading of Bill 82, An Act to amend the Theatres Act.
Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, as I indicated in a lengthy statement to this House in May, the purpose of these amendments in part is to bring commercially distributed videotape under the authority of the act. Approval and classification of tapes will be carried out using exactly the same methods and standards as are currently applied to film distributed for public exhibition. In addition, videotape retailers and distributors will be licensed in the same manner as motion picture distributors.
The lack of content information on videotape products is an area of particular concern to consumers, especially those videotapes for viewing by children. A sticker bearing one of the four film classification symbols now used in Ontario will be applied to videotapes, enabling consumers to determine content and suitability for home use. These four classifications are: family, parental guidance advised, adult accompaniment required under age 14, and restricted to persons 18 years of age or over.
The expansion of the jurisdiction of the Ontario Board of Censors into the area of videotape regulation comes as a direct result of the explosive growth of this medium over the past few years. Consumers are buying and renting videos at an ever-increasing rate and they are looking for more information about the tapes they are taking into their homes.
As is the board's present practice in dealing with film, videotapes submitted for approval will be judged on their own merits. The board may from time to time request as a condition of approval that certain cuts or eliminations be made if it considers those scenes to be in contravention of community standards as will be set out in regulation. I want to make it clear, however, that an identical video version of a theatrical film will receive the same treatment and classification as the film itself.
Other amendments in this bill will meet the courts' requirement that the board's criteria should be codified to comply with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms of Canada. Community standards will be prescribed by way of regulation, setting out the criteria under which the board may refuse to approve a film or videotape for commercial distribution. In addition, the four well-recognized film classifications in use at present will be formalized and included in the act.
8:10 p.m.
As I indicated in May, the guidelines used by the board are neither arbitrary nor repressive. In fact, most people will view them as being flexible while still maintaining a generally accepted standard based on a community consensus. These guidelines have been widely distributed in brochure form to theatres, community groups, libraries and schools over the past few years. Historically, informal feedback from the community and surveys of public attitudes have allowed the board periodically to reassess its guidelines to determine whether they continue to reflect the attitudes of the vast majority of Ontario's citizens.
Is it really any surprise that recent surveys show the vast majority of Ontarians do not want a proliferation of violent films? They do not want violent rape scenes depicted on film in which women are portrayed as enjoying their own degredation. The people of Ontario are reacting and speaking out on this issue. They are sending us a very clear message and we have an obligation to respond.
I should also point out to members that the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry), in concert with other provincial attorneys general and ministers of justice, is reviewing and making recommendations for amendments that will strengthen federal Criminal Code provisions respecting obscenity. Ontario has stressed the need for amendments to the code to deal with the rapid increase of violent pornography entering Canada and we have stressed the need to beef up the customs and excise provisions in this area.
The Attorney General has also recommended review in the area of possession of obscene or excessively violent material, particularly child pornography. He has also called for changes dealing with the undue exploitation of cruelty or violence with respect to women.
Bill 82 will officially formalize the appeals procedure available to film and video distributors who are unhappy with the board decision. This appeal process has been in use by the board as a matter of practice since 1981 and it involves the prompt rescreening of a film by a different panel of board members. Rescreening has shown itself to be an effective and expedient way for film distributors to obtain a final ruling from the board.
The amendments will also pave the way for the eventual expansion of the board, allowing for an even broader and more diverse representation of the Ontario community. At present, the board is made up of 15 appointed full- or part-time members and one full-time, nonvoting chairman. This amendment would provide for the designation of one or more members as vice-chairman. An enlarged board could well exceed 25 members.
Another amendment provides for the renaming of the board to reflect more effectively its primary function. The Ontario Board of Censors would be known as the Ontario Film Review Board. Approximately 2,000 films and videotapes are handled each year and the vast majority of those are simply classified before distribution.
Further, the Theatres Act is being amended to require the director of the branch to provide the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations with an annual report, which upon receipt will be presented to this House, tabled and may be referred to committee for review.
In addition, the power of the theatres branch inspectors appointed under the act will be more clearly defined. It is the duty of those inspectors to supervise the examination and testing of projectionists and, by written order, to prohibit the screening of any film the inspector believes has not been approved for exhibition.
Also, the classification of theatres is updated. One regulatory change will be that theatres used primarily for exhibition of film other than so-called standard film will also be licensed. For example, the theatrical exhibition of videotape as well as eight-millimetre and 16-millimetre film will require a licence under the act.
The bill also amends two subsections of section 222 of the Municipal Act, which provides local municipalities with authority to regulate adult entertainment parlours. At present, there is an anomaly in that this subsection exempts premises licensed under the Theatres Act from such municipal bylaws passed under that section. This has effectively created a gap allowing both live entertainment and film to be featured in a licensed theatre.
Before concluding my brief opening remarks, I would like to remind the members that there is a much larger issue at stake here, even larger than film censorship, whether one considers it licensed or whatever, and the laws required. I do not want to conclude these remarks without addressing it briefly. There have been many theories about the connection between degrading pornography and violence with anti-social behaviour, or at the very least with a process of desensitization to those things in society that would ordinarily offend us were we to see them for the first time.
There are those who say that the problem is one of male anger, which if not fed by pornography and violence will find another outlet. However, there are groups that have concluded, as has the Metro Toronto task force from its point of view, and as have many other researchers, that there is a connection between sexual aggression and exposure to pornography. I can only ask, why allow a known catalyst to continue simply by arguing that if it were eliminated, there are other catalysts available?
So much of film violence and pornography uses children and women as its subjects. I am one of those who happens to believe there is a compelling need to work even harder at creating a society where children are nurtured and not abused, where women are treated equally and not degraded, and where one person's power over another does not mean subservience. I agree that creating that ideal kind of world will not be easy. It may even be impossible, but that does not mean we as legislators should not strive for that goal.
I look forward to the debate with the members with respect to this bill on this occasion and at the committee level on the amendments that may be proposed.
Mr. Sweeney: Mr. Speaker, let me say at the outset that I approve of the main principle behind this legislation. I have one major objection that I hope we will deal with in committee; that is, the bill calls for the cabinet to make the decision with respect to community standards.
This party is on record under a number of circumstances as indicating that it feels it would be preferable for an all-party committee of this Legislature, with the opportunity for open public hearings, to make those decisions. We say that not because we believe that the government, the minister or the cabinet is deliberately going to distort its findings. Our intent is rather to recognize that there is a wide spectrum of public concern about this issue.
As we find with many issues, there are those at either end of the spectrum and there are many various points along the way. It is our sense that this is one of the issues where it is desirable to get as much public support as possible. In order to do that, one must provide the public with as much opportunity as possible to make its input and to know that the decisions with respect to community standards at least are based on that broad public input and as much public consensus as it is possible to get on an issue such as this.
8:20 p.m.
We feel fairly strongly that is important. This is one of those kinds of issues where nobody can make a decision and say: "That is it. Take it or leave it." It is one of those kinds of issues where all sides must be listened to and heard from. For that reason, we will recommend in committee an amendment whereby an all-party legislative committee will make that decision and not the minister and his cabinet colleagues.
I was pleased to note, with respect to that very issue, that section 13 of the bill does provide for a review of the board's decision with respect either to approval or classification, and that the panel of five members would not be those who were involved in the first decision. That is a good idea. I say that because, no matter how carefully a board of censors is selected, there can be times when it may overstep its proper jurisdiction. Simply knowing there is someone else out there who will review a decision they make, if it is not a good decision or at least if it is made too lightly, will perhaps give them cause to be a little bit more careful. We think that is a good idea.
In dealing with the overall issue, we have to be very careful about the nature of the beast we are discussing here. The unfortunate thing is that there are too many people in our society who still believe pornography is erotica or what is sometimes called soft porn -- the girlie magazines we used to know. If that is all we were talking about, quite frankly, I believe we would not be here dealing with this legislation at all.
What we have to understand very carefully is that there has been a dramatic and significant change in the kinds of material we are talking about. That was driven home to some of my colleagues in a very dramatic way, which is the only way I can put it, when they were invited by Project P of the Metropolitan Toronto Police to view some of the material which was under question.
My colleagues are reasonably sophisticated, worldly men and women, but the response they came back with was disgust. It was revolting, unbelievable; they could not believe their eyes and ears. They could not genuinely believe this -- I guess all we can call it is garbage -- was being peddled in Ontario. They could not believe it because it is not the sort of material that comes to their attention in any kind of a regular fashion.
This has been called, for want of a better word, the new pornography. That word is used and bandied around so carelessly these days -- the new this, the new that and the new something else. Perhaps in this particular situation it is appropriate because we are dealing with a dramatically and significantly different phenomenon.
We are dealing with a form of pornography which really is new, which goes way beyond the bounds of acceptability within our society. It is only when people are directly exposed to it, when they see for the first time precisely what we are talking about, that they begin to get the message.
I noticed, for example -- and I stand to be corrected by my colleagues in the New Democratic Party -- that it has normally been the NDP's position on philosophical grounds to oppose censorship in any form. However, it is my understanding that, at its 1984 convention, its women's committee was able to push through a motion condemning this new pornography and going a small way -- and I have no way of knowing how far that is -- towards censoring this new pornography.
I make this point only because I respect the philosophical and ideological position my colleagues to the left take. But even if some of their members have begun to recognize that one can push anything too far, that there are some limits, then I think we all have to take note very carefully.
We are speaking of a balance of rights. As so often happens in this Legislature, we have those in our society who say literally anything goes and we have those in our society who say there have to be some limits. This is what we are dealing with here. Those who would say anything goes are those who would say: "No one, but no one, has the right to say what I shall watch, what I shall listen to or what I shall read. Nobody under any circumstances for any reason has the right to interfere with me." Being a Liberal, I must say that holds a certain amount of attraction.
But then there is a second obligation of this Legislature, and that is to protect people in our society, to protect people who are vulnerable and who are exploited. One of the things we have to look at is how many people in our society are hurt or damaged in one way or another by someone else who is motivated by this kind of garbage. We have to ask that question.
The minister has clearly pointed out that there is no universal agreement on this. But there are enough examples and enough studies have been done to raise very serious questions about cause and effect.
I remember very clearly Barbra Schlifer, the young lawyer who was brutally raped and murdered on the day she passed her bar examinations. I remember the reports of finding her abused body and the fact that in the immediate vicinity were also found magazines dealing with the exploitation of women in bondage. I remember in a number of other situations in which people were captured and convicted of crimes like this, when their rooming houses or apartments were searched, a horde of these kinds of materials was often found.
Once again, that is not necessarily a cut-and-dried case, but when it happens over and over again, one has to stop and think. There has to be some connection there.
The minister used the word "desensitizing," and I must agree with him. It is an aspect of this whole question that really concerns me. What we have to realize is that each one of us as a human being is constantly struggling with those opposing forces within us, the opposing forces of good and evil, of right and wrong.
It is something we all have to work through, from the day we are conscious of reason till, probably for most of us, the day we die. It is something we have to deal with in the normal course of events anyway. But when we continually expose people to degrading kinds of activities, to brutalizing activities, then there cannot be any doubt that over a period of time this desensitizing takes place.
8:30 p.m.
A couple of studies and a couple of experiments have been done. One of them in particular examined a group -- in this case they all happened to be men -- on the group's position on certain issues. It showed them a particularly brutal and degrading film where women and children were exploited and degraded and asked them for their reactions, and those reactions were noted.
Then that group was shown several more films of the same kind. Invariably, after a long exposure to several films of that nature, the reaction was, "Perhaps it is not quite so bad." In some cases, what was revolting and disgusting at one time became humorous, but even worse was the reaction: "The women in the film seemed to enjoy it. They seemed to agree with it."
We should stop and think about that, about the way in which it changes attitudes and the way in which it might develop motivation. That is something we have to be conscious of and we have to ask ourselves, do we have the right in our society to allow that to develop?
We have come to the point where we have to say that we have a responsibility we simply cannot overlook. I think we have often limited this debate to the consumer, to whether people have the right to see, listen to and read whatever they want, and in many cases it is a difficult question to deal with.
Let us look for a second at the other side of it. If no product were produced, there could not be a consumer. Let us go back to the production and ask ourselves the extent to which women and children are almost invariably the victims of these productions. We very rarely see a man. There are occasional ones, but not many. The victims are women and children.
What degree of vulnerability, what degree of harassment, what degree of exploitation takes place in producing these films and videocassettes? I have no first-hand knowledge of this. I have never talked to anyone who actually produced one and I have never observed one being produced, but I have read a number of reports and they lead me to one inescapable conclusion. Far too often, the women and the children in these productions are victims themselves. They have been exploited. They have often been forced into situations in which they did not want to participate.
Do we have any responsibility whatsoever in this? It probably would be difficult actually to get at the centres of production. By far and away, they are offshore. It is my understanding that well over 90 per cent, if not more, are produced beyond the confines of our own country and, therefore, we are not likely to be able to get at them directly.
Perhaps we can send back a message. Perhaps we can say by legislation such as this and by a change in the attitudes of our society, which we hope will flow from such legislation: "You are not going to be able to peddle that garbage in this community, in this province and in this country. If you cannot peddle it, perhaps you should not waste your money or time making it."
By doing that, perhaps we can begin to go a little way to protect the women and children who are so exploited, who are so vulnerable and who are so much the victims of this kind of production. They often talk about consent being given, but we should ask ourselves, how can an immature child who is the victim of what is called kiddie pornography give consent in this kind of situation? How can they really understand what is happening and how they are being used? How can they really understand the impact of what is being done and of what they are doing?
In that situation, I would say the word "consent" is a joke. An immature child cannot give consent in that situation in the way I, and I hope the rest of my colleagues in this House, could understand the word "consent."
In October 1983, Judge Borins was asked to review 24 of these videocassettes. Under his understanding of obscenity and his understanding of the law, he pronounced 11 of the 24 to be obscene. I suggest that is a pretty high record; it is almost 50 per cent. It is something we have to recognize is happening more and more.
A third point I would like to suggest with respect to the principle of this legislation is the escalation that invariably takes place when one is dealing with this kind of material. We all know we can very quickly become satiated at one particular level. Then we have, to use the common expression, to up the ante. It has to become just a little bit more violent. It has to become just a little bit more degrading; otherwise, the customers tend to leave. Once that level of satiation is reached, the ante has to be upped once more. There is more violence, more degradation. It goes on and on, and we have to wonder whether there is any end to it.
Is this what we are going to say? I would hope not. I would hope we are saying, "Yes, we recognize that aspect of the human condition and we are going to draw a line." We are going to say somewhere, "Enough is enough." We are not going to allow this escalation, this upping of the ante, to continue endlessly.
It is interesting to note that an organization such as the Association of Canadian Television and Radio Artists, whose membership includes actors and actresses who are involved in other kinds of entertainment, is badly split on this issue. As a matter of fact, at one time ACTRA had passed a resolution indicating its opposition to this new pornography and agreeing that some government action needed to be taken.
Then from among its own ranks there appeared a group of people who said: "Wait a minute. We could be the victims of that legislation. Maybe we better take another look." It is my understanding they are still taking another look. Even in a group like that, we have a split. Some could conceivably consider themselves as the innocent victims of legislation that might be perceived by them as being repressive. We have some of their members saying: "Maybe it has gone too far. Maybe even we have to agree that in today's society we cannot allow this to go on endlessly. There has to be some limitation to it."
8:40 p.m.
The editor of Saturday Review, Norman Cousins, spoke and wrote about this issue. I would like to share with my colleagues one paragraph he wrote because, in many ways, it sums up what I have tried to say here this evening:
"The trouble with the kind of wide-open pornography that is rampant today is not that it corrupts, but that it desensitizes; not that it unleashes passions, but that it cripples emotions; not that it encourages a mature attitude, but that it is a reversion to infantile obsession; not that it removes the blinders, but that it distorts the view. Prowess is proclaimed, but loving denied. What we have is not liberation, but dehumanization."
That is the issue. To allow this new pornography to continue to escalate, to allow women and children to remain vulnerable and exploited, dehumanizes not only its victims but all of us. We as legislators must support this legislation.
Mr. Allen: Mr. Speaker, I rise to address my remarks and initially those of our party to Bill 82, An Act to amend the Theatres Act, which has been introduced by the minister and briefly commented upon by him this evening.
I want to make it quite clear that this party and its members, like the member who has just spoken and like the minister, deplore from the depths of their being the tide of so-called new pornography and extreme violence that inhabits so much of the media around us today. On that, none of us in this House has any disagreement.
That provides one side of the backdrop against which we are speaking tonight and out of which this bill arises. There is also another backdrop about which the minister did not speak at great length: the judgements that arose with respect to the act this bill seeks to supplant, the previous Theatres Act, and the traditions out of which those judgements came and that lie embodied now in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms of this country.
Where we stand at this time in facing this bill is precisely the point at which there is interaction between those two phenomena, both of them pressing, both of them urgent and both of them arousing very deep feelings which in many respects are extremely subtle and not easy to address.
Before launching into some more wide-ranging remarks, I want to say we will be opposing this bill. It has nothing to do with having any less concern than the minister himself with that first order of question. The issue this bill raises is not whether the new pornography is degrading with respect to women or, if applied in the same measure to men, it is not degrading in the extreme for men. That is not the issue.
The issue is, how does one best get at it? How does one best legislate with respect to it? The issue over the long run is, how does one deal with that kind of matter in such a way as not to trespass upon legitimate freedoms of expression that inevitably are difficult to disentangle from this kind of material? It is not simply the objective fact of the matter. It is not the portrayal itself. It is so often the context, the purpose, the motive. All those elements have to be weighed in the balance.
I submit that the present bill, in addressing itself more particularly to the problem of the new pornography, responds only in a mechanical sense to the recent judgements of the Divisional Court and the Court of Appeal and, more recently, the judgement of Judge Bernstein with respect to the powers of entry and seizure. By responding to those judgements only in the most mechanical way does the minister respond to the other reality which is an essential part of this debate.
In short, the bill remains essentially a bureaucratic response. It is entirely improper in the extent to which it closes off due process. It is entirely improper in the extent to which a bureaucratic process offers no recourse to the courts; it closes off judicial appeal. In those respects it may well soon find itself before the courts and may well be judged to be ultra vires and in violation of the charter itself.
In this party we would have liked to have engaged in a process initiated by the minister which would have permitted us to rethink the whole process of how one responds rather than just to take an old act, tinker with it a bit, hammer out a few sections and hammer in two or three more, and think one had done the fundamental job that had to be done with respect to this serious and perplexing issue. That is not what we have. I regret that I stand in this House having to oppose the bill. It was initially well intentioned, but it has not been subjected to, nor is it the product of, that kind of rethinking. It is not the kind of genuinely reflective and concerned legislation which all of us in this party had hoped it would be.
There can be no doubt in any of our minds that we are being subjected to an incredible wave of pornography in all forms of media, not just film. It is regrettable in some respects that our discussion has to be related simply to theatres and to films. There is a whole host of literature and media, ranging from film to new comic books -- there was an article on those in one of the weekend papers -- and normal forms of print, that simply revel in exposing the bizarre, the grotesque and the torturing of the flesh, and indulging in all sorts of depictions of sexual variety for the heterosexual or the homosexual. That is not the core of the issue. Admittedly, we have to respond to that. We have to find the legislative dikes that will contain it without doing an injustice to our traditions of free expression.
8:50 p.m.
In responding to that, many of us find ourselves somewhat perplexed. I want to read a small paragraph from one of our most distinguished authors, who herself has been the subject of censorship of a local and rather prudish variety, Margaret Laurence. She says, confronted by the new pornography:
"I have a troubled feeling that I may be capable of doublethink, the ability to hold two opposing beliefs simultaneously. In the matter of censorship, doublethink seems, alas, appropriate. As a writer, my response to censorship of any kind is that I am totally opposed to it. But when I consider some of the vile material that is being peddled freely, I want to see some kind of control. I don't think I am being hypocritical. I have a sense of honest bewilderment. I have struggled with this inner problem for years, and now, with the spate of really bad video films and porn magazines flooding the market, my sense of ambiguity grows. I am certain of one thing, though. I cannot be alone in my uncertainty."
She goes on to refer to a number of issues in the debate and notes what I think we all have to affirm:
"Pornography is not in any sense life-affirming. It is a denial of life. It is a repudiation of any feelings of love and tenderness and mutual passion. It is about hurting people, mainly women, and having that brutality seen as socially acceptable, even desirable."
She goes on to comment on perhaps that most famous work that lies at the bedrock of the line of modern arguments with respect to freedom of expression and the whole issue of censorship, namely, John Milton's, Areopagitica, a speech for the liberty of unlicensed printing to the Parliament of England in 1644, in which these words appear:
"He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true wayfaring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat."
Milton had a sense of where the issue lay. A later figure, Roger Williams, in opposing the power of the state in so many respects, had another sense of where the issue lay when he emphasized the need for integrity, for what he called soul freedom. Nothing should be permitted to trespass upon the inner growth of the quality of the soul.
What we are faced with in this issue is precisely that this inner integrity of person is being trespassed upon in two respects. It is being trespassed upon by this immense flood of vile matter, which presses upon us so heavily. At the same time it is being trespassed upon by every bureaucratic order that closes off appeal and by every refusal of judicial recourse and due process. Unfortunately, and I hate to say this, this bill in some measure, like the new pornography, trespasses upon Roger Williams's sense of soul freedom in that respect.
When we debate this issue, we have to realize that there are many forces and many agencies in our community and in our country that serve to act as dikes, as repressants with respect to new moves and new movements. We have to realize that we are not, through the Theatres Act, going to contain the whole tide; that we are not, through the Theatres Act, erecting the only barrier.
We have at our hand, and must strengthen, for example, the Criminal Code provisions in this respect. We must at the same time have resort to and strengthen the Human Rights Code in this respect so that civil as well as criminal actions can be entered. We have legislation such as the Broadcasting Act, which recently has been the subject of much discussion with respect to strengthening provisions relating to discrimination having to do with sex in order to cope with the introduction of the kinds of film that came with the entry of pay television into Canada not so long ago.
There are such organizations as the Canadian Periodical Publishers' Association, which has its own committee, and the press, which has its own committees for examining the quality of what is purveyed through the press and through the periodicals of this country. They are alive and they are active. Whether one totally agrees with them or not, they do their job. Arnold Edinborough was telling us this morning how he viewed the recent Penthouse publication. His committee, which works as a committee of the Canadian Periodical Publishers' Association, has been looking at that issue with a view to how appropriate or how mistaken it was. Those agencies are there. They are part of our community.
Beyond that, there are all kinds of options in this society of ours for free expression: reacting, demonstrating, picketing and making it known that the community standard is not that which is represented by the films on display in the video shop or shown at a particular gallery. There are a lot of ways in which the dikes can be tended in their own way and which can add to the bulwark of support in our concern about the new pornography.
As we see this rising tide of concern, exhibited as the minister well noted by the Metropolitan Toronto Task Force on Public Violence Against Women and Children, as bodies such as that bring their force to bear upon the subject and groups such as Project P of the Metropolitan Toronto Police lay their charges, as they recently have done most vigorously, we should not forget that one does get action through the courts.
My colleague the member for Kitchener-Wilmot (Mr. Sweeney) referred to the Borins decision. He did not mention how much it has already affected the video retailers in Ontario, who now use a different measure. They now self-censor on the basis of what they heard in that court decision.
I repeat, we should not simply think in this Legislature that we are tackling that whole tide in and of itself through one little instrument, namely, the Theatres Act, because to do so is to apply standards of effectiveness to it that are totally unrealistic.
The member for Kitchener-Wilmot made reference to the fact that this party has had a long tradition with respect to civil liberties. Some of our most distinguished figures, such as Frank Scott, laid down many of the parameters in which the whole discussion of the relationship between the state, law and civil liberties is undertaken in this country. Significant groups in our society have their freedom by virtue of the courage and outspokenness of a man such as that. We honour him when we reflect upon these issues to the best of our ability.
The tradition that has been built up and the campaigning of people such as Frank Scott and others who are not from our party resulted in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We have to remind ourselves constantly in this debate that the charter set out certain freedoms that were much more fundamental and important than others. The second clause of the Charter of Rights reads:
"Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms: (a) freedom of conscience and religion; (b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication; (c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and (d) freedom of association."
The objections one might raise against certain other freedoms listed throughout this whole Charter of Rights must be much stronger in their terms than those which can be brought against that particular list of fundamental freedoms.
9 p.m.
In our tradition, freedom of expression -- it used to be called freedom of speech -- stands at the very bottom and base of everything that makes a democratic process possible. Without it, and without all the supporting structures that lie around it, democracy really means very little. As we move into this debate and go further into our hearings, into committee of the whole and third reading, we need to keep those considerations very central in our debate.
What has happened as a result of that charter and the fundamental nature of that particular clause is that we have had the court decisions of the last year that have affected this legislation, the old Theatres Act.
There are a number of ways in which this bill before us is a problem. I have stated in particular terms what I think the general problem is. Let me just illustrate this with reference to some elements of the bill without getting into anything like a clause-by-clause consideration.
In the first place, this bill redefines the Board of Censors as being the Ontario Film Review Board. That stands in clause (1)(1)(a). I have to say that is a very bad start because the bill goes on to outline a structure that, in any proper use of language, is a censorship board of a much more rigorous kind than we have ever had in Ontario. To speak of it as an Ontario Film Review Board is a euphemism that is used with some deliberation to obscure the trend and tendencies of what follows.
It is something like the discussion we had with Mary Brown when we went to the censor board and looked at her clips from recent films. She tried to describe what she was trying to do in Ontario. It was not censorship. What she was doing was taking community standards, laying them over against these films and passing them or not -- at least her board was passing them or not -- excising them or not, based on community standards. She was sort of an impersonal force there in the middle of all this process that was going on. She tried to explain to us that it was not censorship.
If it was not censorship, what on earth was it? It could not be described as anything else but censorship. Likewise, if this Ontario Film Review Board which proposes to review and can prohibit -- and not provide appeal beyond itself -- film of any description in any place is not a censorship board, I do not know what it is. It is not exactly the greatest tribute to the honesty that I think motivates the minister to have used that euphemistic language.
The bill goes on to give the board power under subsection 3(5), "subject to regulations, to approve, prohibit and regulate the exhibition and distribution of film in Ontario." There is nothing in this act any more that distinguishes between public and private. The right of prohibition is finally absolute because, while there is an appeal built within the act, the appeal remains an appeal within the review board itself.
It is true there is some improvement which goes some way to meet the concerns of Judge Bernstein in the recent judgement that returned the film that was seized at A Space art gallery last spring, and it allows a much more elaborate process by which notice is given and then warrant is used with respect to the seizure of artefacts, whether projection material or film.
It does, finally, still retain subsection 3(9), which exempts the board from the application of the Statutory Powers Procedure Act. In other words, due process is not permitted. I ask again how that is possible under the new charter. That may have been the practice in the past and now it is explicit in the new act, but how does it stand under the terms and spirit of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? I cannot see that it is a particularly harmonious relationship as best I can work my mind around that question. All this business about going along with the need for orders and warrants for seizure and entry really is very much nullified.
Under approval of films for advertising, I see there are no criteria to be included in this act. One would have thought a bill that presumed to deal substantially with the issue at hand, and especially since it still includes such arbitrary powers and places such limits on due process and upon appeal beyond the board, should at least have had accompanying it the regulations by which we could see just how this was going to be applied. Yet they are not here. There are no criteria and, therefore, to vote for this bill is to buy a pig in a poke. One cannot say anything better of it than that.
There are other passages I could refer to that allow for an extreme amount of harassment of small galleries and petty distributors who will be exhibiting a film one or two nights and that is the end of it. That should not be permissible in Ontario.
Under the appeal process that it sets up, normally one thinks of an appeal as going to a higher body where a judgement can be made on a lower decision. What we have is the same board constituting simply another panel of much the same people, a reconstitution, in other words, of the same appeal body but certainly not an appeal to a higher court.
So it goes through the act, with remnants of arbitrariness that are disturbing, with elements of bureaucratic finality that ought not to be tolerated. Because we feel that is the overall cast of the bill, we do not see how that kind of arbitrariness will resolve the problem at hand which, as I suggested at the beginning, is a problem that results from the conjunction of the new pornography and the new spirit of the charter.
What I submit to the members is an alternative way that is at once rigorous, that provides ample opportunity for legal action that can be pursued by not just those in charge of enforcing the criminal law but also the civil law, and that allows the community to know what goes on with the minimum of suppression; inevitably, the tighter it is made, the more one has the spreading of a black market in this invidious media material.
9:10 p.m.
Our party would propose as an alternative, in addition to amending the Human Rights Code in Ontario to prohibit the publication of material that discriminates among people by exposing to hatred any person or class of persons, not only on account of race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, citizenship, creed and so on, but also because of sex and sexual orientation. We would add these latter two to the long list of items that would come under such hate literature or hatred action.
Second, in addition to the Criminal Code amendments that have been put forward by one of our colleagues in Ottawa and that have in some measure been followed up but not yet established in the code, we would also license those who distribute films and videotapes. There would be provision for the suspension or cancellation of a licence if a licensed company or individual is found to be in violation of the Human Rights Code, the Criminal Code or the Theatres Act in relation to any film or videotape being distributed.
We would also amend the Theatres Act, but we would do it in these respects. Of course, we would like the present act to establish a classification system based on community standards for films and videotapes.
Second, we would define in legislation those community standards to proscribe violent or sexual pornography. We would establish a public, independent, representative board to classify films and videotapes and, in consultation with applicants, with power to recommend that parts of films and videotapes that it believes violate community standards be excised.
We would permit the applicant to appeal the recommendation to an appeal panel of the classification board. Failing resolution, the applicant could reject the recommendation but be subject to a charge of violating the Theatres Act if the film or videotape is offered for public viewing, distribution or sale. Such a charge would be heard in a court of law and the judgement based on two factors: whether the film or videotape violates community standards or whether because the film or videotape is of significant social, educational, cultural or artistic merit, the board's recommendation should be set aside.
In other words, the issue ends up in the courts. One has the option of rejecting what the board recommends after an appeal process, but once in the courts the argument can take place, pro and con, in terms of all the elements that need to be considered with respect to the media item at hand.
We would, therefore, be proposing to remove the right of the board to prohibit the exhibition, distribution or sale of films or videotapes. In particular, we would make special provision for films or videotapes that portray or promote the sexual exploitation of children to allow the board to order excisions before distribution, sale or viewing. Such orders would be appealable to the courts.
That last provision is extremely important. We would understand it would normally also be backed up by the children's legislation already before this body with respect to the legal limits of the treatment of children. We would have in mind, for example, the kind of legislation passed in Great Britain with such effect with respect to the whole question of the production of films involving children, namely, a children's protection act which in its strictness had the effect of changing dramatically, almost overnight, the media involvement of children in the production of pornographic films.
In addition to that, I am sure all of us in this Legislature would want to see a very active program of public education in this field. That does not enter into our considerations with respect to the Theatres Act either tonight or on following nights.
With a rigorous option in mind, it takes a quite different and judicial course as against an arbitrary and bureaucratic one. This party believes this bill must be rejected. It simply does not meet the test of the two concerns that lie at the heart of the matter, namely, the flood of the new pornography and the new spirit of the charter, which equally have to be taken into account.
Mr. J. M. Johnson: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in support of Bill 82. I do so with a great deal of concern for many of the things that have been said in the House tonight. I represent Wellington-Dufferin-Peel, a riding that is basically a rural, small-town riding, and we have some very strict moral standards, which I am afraid have been eroded in some of the communities across this province.
Just to refresh the memories of the members, we had an extremely tragic incident just a week ago when two young children, a boy of 11 and a young girl of nine, were killed. It is my understanding that there has been a solution to the crime, but that is not the issue tonight.
I am concerned that possibly some of the concerns we are expressing tonight could relate to the very crime that happened in Orangeville, and this is what bothers me. We in this Legislature are perceived to be the leaders in setting the moral standards in our society. Maybe some of the members do not think this is what we should be doing or that this is indeed what we are doing, but people look to legislators in both the federal and provincial governments, they look to teachers, they look to ministers and they look to people who lead in society to set the tone, to set the pace of what we are doing.
It bothers me greatly when we get caught up in the human rights issue that we are depriving someone of his right to look at some material that, in his viewpoint, he might feel he should have a right to look at. I am not totally against it; I find it hard to say that we should have censorship to a degree that controls it.
At the same time, I find it extremely hard to defend the idea that someone somewhere in our society does not say there is a limit, that we can go so far and that is far enough. It bothers me that we who are supposed to be leaders are not the ones to say, "That is enough." Mary Brown, in her wisdom, has tried on numerous occasions to say this is what she and her board feel is, in essence, a limit to what society should accept. Some of us judge this and ask, "Why should she make the decision?" Someone has to, otherwise we simply throw it open and say: "It is a wild society. Let anything happen. It does not matter."
We are the ones who would reap the price, and it is our children who pay the price. I happen to be a grandfather and I have five little grandchildren. I am not sure I really care what happens to me any more. As far as our society is concerned I think I am beyond changing, and some members will agree that it happened long ago. But I do think, for the sake of my grandchildren, surely we have a right, surely we have a sense of obligation that we should set some moral standards in our society so our children and our grandchildren will not have to put up with whatever goes.
I am not the one to decide on what can or cannot happen, but I do think somewhere there has to be a mechanism, whether it is a censor board or whatever, to control the type of publications that are displayed in this province. If we fail to do that, then who in society is going to pick it up and do anything about it? We have many people who have no standards. It is unfortunate that some of them are influenced by some of the material they read and some of the scenes they see on television and in the movies.
9:20 p.m.
Here in Toronto we can well recall a few months ago when one young man went out of his mind, killed a policeman and created all kinds of havoc because apparently he was relating to a movie he had watched on numerous occasions. I am not sure there is anything we can ever do to stop that, but surely we have to have some sense of proportion that some things are okay to accept and others are not. If we do not do this, then we are not being responsible in our positions as leaders in society.
I am caught up in this Orangeville situation because I am so close to it. I apologize to the House if I am emotional about it, but it does bother me because I have a daughter with two little children who lives in Orangeville. For a week the people in Orangeville were really concerned about whether a neighbour was the individual responsible.
In addressing Bill 82 that is before us, if there is anything we can do tonight that will help alleviate such a problem ever happening again, surely we have the sense that we have to do something about it. I am not sure if I am on the track of the bill and if I am not I apologize. I am simply saying there is a sense of moral decency that has to pervade our chamber and the churches and schools in this province.
If we do not set that standard, where is it going to come from? The member for Hamilton West (Mr. Allen) mentioned the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and I fully appreciate what he said about preserving the rights of the people under the charter. The problem is that we have to define what is fair for the one and not for the other. If to preserve the one is at the expense of the other, especially innocent children, then if we err, it has to be in the direction of the young people of this province. If we fail in that, I think we fail in our obligation to the people we are elected to represent.
I for one fully support Bill 82 and I support the presentation of the member for Kitchener-Wilmot (Mr. Sweeney). It seems to me it was only a few years ago that the former leader of that party was not totally in support of the position taken by the member tonight. I am not saying that in a negative way. I am simply saying that times have changed and I congratulate the Liberal Party and the member for Kitchener-Wilmot in supporting the minister on Bill 82. I hope other members of the House will consider giving the same support.
Mr. Reed: Mr. Speaker, the Ontario Board of Censors by any other name is a fraud and any attempt to expand its powers is an attempt to expand that fraud.
I speak tonight after a great deal of personal deliberation on this subject. I speak as a member of the Association of Canadian Television and Radio Artists, as the father of children who have all acted in film and as the husband of one who has acted in film and appeared in the print media.
I share the concerns about what has been loosely expressed as the new pornography. I share the concerns expressed by every member of this House about the exploitation of children and the sexual violence that appears in some films. One that has not been mentioned tonight is the obvious abuse of animals which takes place in the production of films.
However, I fear all the comments that are being made on this subject are being made from the third person once removed. Any suggestion that a censor board in the province can accomplish anything in the control of this kind of material is a total delusion. To pull the blinds down around this province and then pride ourselves on how good and decent we are in Ontario only aids and abets the production of this kind of material.
As I am sure the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Elgie) will agree, the answer lies with the Criminal Code of Canada and only with the Criminal Code of Canada. People much wiser than I, have said recently that what is needed to control this kind of material are laws common to all of the countries that are producing film, where the Criminal Code gets rid of the old taboos, that old sexual stimulation article we have to relate to whenever there is an obscenity charge under the Criminal Code, and includes in it specific acts and specific depictions. Only in that way will we begin to come to terms with this problem.
The censor board will never, ever do it. As a matter of fact, I would go on record as suggesting that the censor board serves only to publicize some of those films of a controversial nature and sell more tickets. That is really what the censor board does in the last analysis.
Is it not clear to the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations that when a film is produced abusing children or depicting sexual violence against women, the damage has already been done before that material is submitted to the censor board? How hypocritical it is for the censor board then to make cuts and say, "Okay, we will release it." What kind of hypocrisy is the minister supporting by expanding those powers? Now he wants to take it one step further.
If I thought the censor board could come to terms with this problem, I would say "Hurray" and we would all stand up and be totally supportive, but I looked into it tonight and I got a copy of the cuts that were made in 1983. One third of the cuts involved violence and two thirds of the cuts involved sex. The censor board spent more time clipping out erect penises than it did coming to terms with the problem.
If we want to get into the subject of violence, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre went through uncut. Apocalypse Now went through uncut. I think there is the killing of a cow there with a machete or something. I have never seen the film and I would not pay five cents to go across the road and see it.
If we are going to talk about violence, let us talk about violence. Way back in 1964, the Ontario censor board allowed a film called Mondo Cane to go through uncut. I think the backs of some horses were soaked in gasoline and set on fire to get the proper effect.
On July 7, 1983, the subject took on some new significance in my own riding when I wrote to my local press my views on the subject. With the indulgence of the members, I would like to read them into the record.
"As most readers will know, my viewpoint is shaped through my own experience as a performer and the fact that all of my family at one time or another have participated in film making. One's concept tends to slant perhaps towards the production and performing end and perhaps the fairly clear recognition of the protections that have to be built in.
9:30 p.m.
"I said in 1979" -- before it was politically popular, incidentally -- "that the Criminal Code should become specific about those elements in production which society as a whole does not want. I said the words 'undue exploitation' only hinder what must be a clear view of what may or may not be considered unacceptable. I am not calling for a clearer definition of the word 'pornography.' The word itself defies definition. Therefore, the Criminal Code should simply state the specific offending elements.
"In my view, there are three. The first involves the exploitation of children or those depicted as children; the second involves violence, especially in a sexual context; the third involves the abuse of animals. The first and third elements are out of a concern for those living things that do not have their own ability to choose or to make a personal judgement about their participation. The second, of course, concerns the apparent acceptability of violence and mutilation in a sexual context. Recognizing these are the basic concerns which are universal, I have found it hypocritical in the extreme that we still have a censor board in Ontario that condones extreme acts of violence, either person-to-person, or through the abuse of animals, and at the same time would remove any graphic elements of sexual activity participated in by consenting adults. Surely, as a mature society, we can all agree that graphic eroticism by itself should not be considered obscene" -- nor illegal.
"I would be far more concerned about the connotations contained in a film like Pretty Baby or the violence in Apocalypse Now than a movie involving graphic sexual activity engaged in by willing adult participants.
"In a pluralistic society we cannot nor should we attempt to legislate our neighbour's concept of morality. We can, however, build in protection for those who cannot protect themselves. That is the basis upon which I make these proposals in this letter.
"Along with these specific changes in the Criminal Code, the Ontario censor board should have its mandate changed to become a classifier of film in order to rate visual material. That way, there would be no surprises at the box office and, instead of having 14 or 15 censors dealing with this material, we would have then the whole adult population of Ontario, including distributors and exhibitors, who would, for the first time, have a clear view of the rules of the game.
"Such a move would restore an element of 'freedom of choice' which we do not enjoy at the present time. We would also get rid, once and for all, of the hypocrisy employed by the Ontario censor board, that sexual contact does not involve male and female genitals and that the torture and mutilation of animals for the purpose of sensationalism is okay."
The hypocrisy that is inherent in this bill and this activity is totally unacceptable to me. If any of us here are deeply concerned about this issue and about these kinds of violations of human decency, the place to tackle them is where they can be dealt with. We should not simply put up some wall of erasure, run some of these films underground in Ontario, sell more tickets and perpetuate the nonsense we have been living with for so many years now.
Let me tell members what Norman Jewison has to say about censorship. I do not take nearly as cerebral a view of censorship as he does. I will read a part of the speech he made to the Empire Club:
"Therefore, you can appreciate, I'm sure, my position in regard to controls, restrictions, restraints, boards and codes -- and censorship, that malevolent Big Brother that watches over us here in Ontario. Imagine the uproar that would be caused if the police were granted the right to prior approval of newspapers and magazines. This basic right of free expression is the very issue at stake in film censorship. The freedom to convey the truth as he or she sees it is no less the province, the basic right and duty of a serious film maker, as it is for the newspaper reporter or novelist.
"Film censors refuse to accept the truth that films, movies, the cinema, have become the primary vehicle of creative expression for an entire generation 30 and under. Not literature, not the theatre, but film. A language even more visual than verbal, a new cinematic language. And the Ontario provincial government wants to protect your morals and manners. Just like they control my consumption of wines and spirits, they also want to censor the films I might see. I sure hope they don't set up the Ontario Birth Control Board -- then all business will be closed on Sunday. Government prejudice can be dangerous. In the thirties, in the US, a man by the name of Martin Quigley and the Legion of Decency established the 'production code,' a mechanism for the censorship of movies.
"The movies obediently began to do their share to foster prudery, complacency, jingoism, sexism, racism and so on. What was the result? Unquestionably, much of the power of fantasy in America today -- the expectation of instant gratification, the commitment to selfhood over all, the waning concern for reason, discipline, achievement is related to the cheap fantasy life so sedulously manufactured in Hollywood over the years. Movies were often dismissive of defenseless minorities, especially women and blacks.
"Why are young artists attracted to the hazardous, expensive process of film making to relate their ideas instead of the more traditional, more accessible modes of communication? Because for them, film is the medium which attracts and stimulates the public they want to reach -- their peers. It is through the power and the force of film that they are affected and, in turn, affect others. Films speak directly to the young, whether it is fashion trends established by Flashdance or the nuclear protests encouraged by If You Love This Planet -- a Canadian film that had the rare honour of being banned in the US by the Reagan administration."
The issue is much more than the minister makes out in his statement in the Legislature. He says the issue is not one of the film and video pornographers' right to exploit the market by producing and selling anything he likes, but rather the right of the community to protect itself from the effects of his work.
Let me tell the minister something. The challenge here goes well beyond this little, narrow bit of tunnel vision he has concocted. Let us understand that. Any kind of legislation the minister brings in Ontario to legislate our morality or to protect us from ourselves will not come to terms with the problem he decries so vociferously and that everyone in this House, including me, decries so vociferously.
I want to come to terms with this problem. I do not want the blinds pulled down around Ontario. I do not want us insulated and then be able to look in the mirror and say, "Oh, how good and righteous we are here." We are not at all. We are aiding and abetting those people who would continue to exploit. I do not know if the minister understands that.
I realize that this is a very political move because the minister will be seen to have tried to do something. That is the sum total of its effect. The sum positive total will be some political reaction on the part of the few. If we are going to decide that this kind of approach to this problem is going to solve it, we are in big trouble indeed.
I think the minister will agree, and I agree and everyone in this Legislature agrees, that the only solution lies with the Criminal Code and with serious amendments to the Criminal Code, the abandonment of some elements and the incorporation of others. That is the only way we will ever come to terms with this problem.
9:40 p.m.
Until we do, the new Ontario Board of Censors, which will be called the Ontario Film Review Board, to talk about compounding a felony, will go along making the kinds of cuts that were made in 1983; it will go along taking what are sometimes very horrible kinds of obscene material and making cuts but then allow the balance to be shown in a public movie theatre or wherever. Is that what the minister wants for his children? It is not what I want for mine. I want this matter dealt with and looked after once and for all.
I can never support this legislation. I realize I am at odds with members of my party on this. I am going to be the odd man out, but I am going to oppose this legislation with all my heart because I believe the government is perpetuating a fraud.
Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the member for Halton-Burlington for his very courageous remarks.
Hon. Mr. Norton: No, it is just that he likes hobnailed boots.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Robinson): Order.
Mr. Rae: The Minister of Health made a remark that I will not dignify by responding to it and getting it on the record. Frankly, it typifies the very real double standard that is at work in society and, if I may say so, in the ranks of the governing party at the moment with respect to this problem.
I want to outline some arguments that I have gone through personally and that I know many other members have gone through in dealing with this very difficult question. I start from a gut attitude and a gut response that I suppose I would characterize as anticensorship, in the sense of and out of the tradition that has been spoken to very eloquently by the member for Halton-Burlington.
He speaks as somebody who has been in show business. I guess I can say I was nurtured in a show business family and I know something about the very strong feelings about censorship on the part of the people who have worked on the stage, in the film industry and in the entertainment field for many years. They feel the way in which censorship has worked has been hypocritical, to describe it in the politest term; it has been one where allegedly moral standards have been forced on other people and where double standards have been at work all the time.
I also come from another tradition, and I suppose it is the classically liberal one, which simply says government does not have the right to use, and in fact should not use, a clumsy weapon of any kind to legislate morality that is essentially private, whether or not it is a morality we share. That tradition also says freedom of expression, the right to speak out, the right to express oneself in the world, not only is something that is now constitutionally protected by the Charter of Rights but also reflects perhaps one of the most profound values in liberal society as it has been defined in many different countries in the western world in the past 200 or 300 years.
That is my gut reaction. I think, as we all do, of the classic arguments, one of which was quoted by my colleague the member for Hamilton West (Mr. Allen), the argument put forward by Milton in Areopagitica and the argument put forward by Mill in On Liberty, an argument that I think has a lot of merit to it. That argument has a very substantive philosophical and practical value to it and it is one I want to put forward.
I put it forward not because I now endorse it 100 per cent -- I think there are some problems with it, and I am going to deal with those in closing my remarks -- but because I think it is important for us to remember the value of that tradition and why it is that when we interfere with people's freedom, we should do it in a way that is careful, focused and very clear.
Frankly, I do not think this legislation meets those tests. This is why our party opposes this legislation, why we will be voting against this bill and why I urge other members to think twice before they pass this legislation in its current form.
Mill puts forward the argument for not interfering, and I suppose it finds its classic expression in his famous essay On Liberty. Basically, there are two or three reasons he puts forward, but a couple of the most important ones, as they affect this question of law and morality, have to do with the simple reason that there are many avenues to the truth, and that if you restrict someone's right to express an opinion you may make the finding of the truth more difficult.
The second, and it seems to me this is dead on in this argument, is that one's private morality, and indeed sexual morality, is essentially a private matter. While we may object, as people have objected morally for many years to homosexuality -- our civilization has been opposed to and rejected homosexuality -- the basic thrust of law reform in the past 20 years, and certainly one I agree with, is that essentially what goes on between consenting adults is nobody else's business. As long as people are people, that is a reality we should respect.
We pay an enormous price in terms of human suffering, the twisting of the human spirit and the repression of people as they are in all their diversity by attempting to impose a sexual morality of a particular kind on society by means of the law, the police, the Criminal Code or whatever it may be.
Earlier on I referred to the fact that this is a very important tradition in law. For example, if one reads the Wolfenden report in England, which I know has had an influence on the minister with respect to the Ontario Human Rights Code and the impact on sexual morality, it makes a very profound statement. It says one has to recognize that what is an area of private morality is not something that should be interfered with.
I suppose the classic expression was put forward by Mr. Trudeau in 1967 when he said the law has no place in the bedrooms of the nation. He was expressing a very important value and one we lose sight of in our quest of attempting to impose, however well intentioned, a morality of a sexual kind on the whole of society.
I want to suggest that as a civilization and a culture we are now faced with a very different, new and difficult situation that I do not think was ever imagined by John Milton in his darkest, most wild moments, and was certainly never imagined by John Stuart Mill, I suspect, in any of his.
The growth of the film medium has changed our culture dramatically, as has the growth of television. People now spend hours on end watching television. I think the average viewing time is about 24 or 25 hours a week and is growing all the time. If one looks at the kind of programming that is going on, it is clearly not intended to arouse tremendous intellectual debate amongst the population; that does not appear to be what people want or what the market out there is all about. It is one which is essentially designed to entertain and to titillate.
I want to mention -- and it has been referred to by many other speakers, including the minister, the member for Kitchener-Wilmot (Mr. Sweeney), the member for Wellington-Dufferin-Peel (Mr. J. M. Johnson) and my colleague the member for Hamilton West -- the growth of a new kind of film. I do not know that it is uniquely new. I understand there have been underground movies of this kind for some time, but it has certainly now become commercially more respectable.
9:50 p.m.
The films I refer to have as their function not simply the explicit portrayal of sex, which I am going to come to in a moment, which I do not object to personally on the screen and about which I do not think the censor board should be spending as much time as they are worrying; these films systematically degrade sexual relations between people, exploit children and their sexuality and their sense of who they are, exploit violence and very frequently can be portrayed as linking violence with sex.
For example, there are films that portray rape as something that is a normal occurrence and simply an expression of aggressive behaviour on the part of men; films that portray rape essentially as something women enjoy; films that systematically portray women in a degrading position in a sexual sense and graphically take advantage of what can only be described as a dramatic loosening of our sensitivity towards what is being shown on the screen.
I come back to the classic position I have always held, which is that as long as something does not do harm to anybody, basically the heavy hand of the law should not be used to try to stamp it out. I am now confronted with a new situation in which I am no longer sure the classic liberal argument that this material is not harmful is true.
When I was a kid, we grew up reading Playboy magazine. I am sure every older male in this audience will identify with that. We read the philosophy put forward by Hugh Hefner: that it was very healthy and normal; a portrayal of sexuality that was great. Anybody who was opposed to the portrayal of sexuality was some kind of prude.
It is only as one gets a little older that one begins to reflect on that stuff and to wonder about the view of sex as portrayed in that magazine, which has become such an important part of our culture and which sets such an important tone for other magazines that have now followed and are much more brutal and much tougher in their view of sex and in what they show and are allowed to show. Frankly, I think the view that violent pornography or pornography of some kind does not cause harm is a view that cannot be realistically sustained.
I happen to believe our culture is desensitized and we have the creation of what I would call a commercially pornographic culture that is growing in size. The number of pornographic magazines and the market for them have exploded in the past 10 years. As a society, we have to respond to that problem. We cannot ignore it. We cannot say this is an area of private morality and anybody who is concerned about it is some kind of prude. I do not believe that.
However -- it seems to me this is what the member for Hamilton West was saying, and it is an important truth -- in our desire and our urge to do something about it, let us not repeat the mistakes of previous generations; let us not make the same old-fashioned mistakes that have been made in the past.
If we are going to deal with the problem of the new pornography, or whatever one wants to call it, let us not pretend -- and the member for Halton-Burlington (Mr. J. A. Reed) said it very well -- that this legislation is going to do anything to affect it in the slightest.
I see Mary Brown is here. One of the first phone calls I got after I became leader was from the chairman of the Ontario Board of Censors. I am always going to call it the censor board. The name can be changed, but the reality of what it is doing cannot be changed. This is 1984. We call something a film review board and pretend it is not censoring films. It is still censoring films. Why do we not still call it the censor board? That is what it is doing.
I went to the censor board and talked to Mrs. Brown. She showed me some of the films they were concerned about. She showed me the out-takes that were illegal under the Criminal Code and we had a discussion. I was as baffled by it as I am sure everybody is who is faced with this material in deciding where to draw the line. What is shown and what is not shown? What is fair to show and what is not fair to show? What does one take out and what does one leave in?
My concern, and it has been expressed well by the member for Halton-Burlington, is first of all that the Criminal Code has to be reformed. The current standard does not make any sense. The current standard is based on sexual relations between people, on anything that excites sexual arousement, on the idea of sexual stimulation. It focuses almost exclusively on that. It does not focus on the problem of violence, on the problem of degradation, on what it is that is being shown that is offensive and wrong. I think that is a carryover from another age.
The first point we are making, and I think it is an important point, is that if the government is going to deal with this stuff, it is going to have to do several things. Several countries have to get together. The government has to deal with the trade in this material. It has to deal with it coming across the border and going through the mail from British Columbia to Ontario. It has to deal with a whole bunch of problems this legislation does not touch.
This bill solves a political problem for the government, but that is another question. It solves the political problem of society being offended by this amount of material and saying the government has to do something. The government says: "Okay, we will do something. We will broaden the power of the censor board to include video, and we will deal with some of the legal problems we have had because of the Court of Appeal and so on. We are going to change the name from the censor board to the film review board." That is not an adequate response.
The second thing we have argued needs to be done, and my colleague the member for Hamilton West has described it, is a change in the Human Rights Code. For example, the women of this province should have the right to take Penthouse magazine to court as hate literature. Mr. Fauteux of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association sent me the latest issue, and it is hate literature. If the person in bondage were a Jew or a black man, that literature would not have been tolerated in this province for five seconds. But because it is a woman, it is accepted by a certain number of people.
One talks about freedom of expression. I come back to this basic point. We have to ask ourselves this question: would this literature be acceptable? This is the test we have to apply when looking at this violently pornographic material. It is the same test we would apply if we were thinking of any minority group in this province. Perhaps it is the only way men are going to become sensitive to this issue.
If we asked ourselves whether in a matriarchal society we would like ourselves to be portrayed in that way without having any recourse in the courts, a tribunal or anywhere else, I suspect we would not stand for that for 15 seconds. I think that is something we have to deal with. I say, with all due respect to the minister, I do not think this legislation does that. We must respond as a society, not in a prurient or prudish way, by expressing our revulsion for this expression of violence.
I go back to the analogy I made to hate literature. When we in this province, along with the federal government, expressed an opinion on the question of hate literature, we were limiting freedom of expression. Let us be under no illusions about that. We were saying something about freedom of expression; but I wonder whether we were saying anything different from what the common law of England has said since medieval times. That is, one cannot go running around telling lies about people; one cannot go around defaming people. We gave a protection to the ordinary citizen. If somebody says something about someone that is false, that person can be sued. That is the law of defamation, the law of libel and slander.
10 p.m.
For me, the analogy is clear. One cannot go around portraying people in situations that are completely untrue. The suggestion, for example, that women enjoy being put in that kind of position, that it is something people enjoy having done to them, is a lie. That is the argument we are going to have to use in responding to those people. I think they are well-intentioned people, but I think they are fundamentally misguided.
I do not want to attribute views to anybody, but I suppose we can describe it as the classic liberal view, the view of Mr. Borovoy and others with whom I have had this argument who say: "No. You cannot get into the business of censoring of any kind. There can be no limits at all, either in the Criminal Code or in the board of censors or a law of defamation or libel or slander. Everything has to go because once you interfere with anything, you are starting yourself down the rocky road that has no end."
I do not agree with that view. That is a view that may have influenced many of us a little while ago, but certainly it is not my view today. It is not my view today because I think the amount and volume of material and the way in which it portrays men and women is untrue and it represents in the most profound sense the corruption of our culture.
The member for Wellington-Dufferin-Peel spoke very eloquently. I do not happen to agree with him that this legislation deals with the problem, but I agree with him in the sense of what he is saying and in the sense that there are some moral values that we want to pass on to our children. We could laugh about it perhaps in some moment, but we would all be really horrified if our children forever lost the sense of innocence or if our children grew up being afraid by constantly being bombarded with this pornographic message which, in a soft or hard form, is coming across at us in many of our different media.
Just on this subject for a moment, I am fascinated that if one watches television for a whole evening how much of that evening is based on soft porn. I predict, and I say this with all respect to everybody here, that porn is going to become a little harder year after year. If we watch what is on the screen, it is going to become harder year after year and slowly we will become inured to this. This will be just something we accept coming into our homes for 24, 26 or 28 hours a week.
Frankly, to me it is a baffling thing. I do not think there are any easy answers to it, but I do not think the answer is a censor board such as has been established by this legislation which, in my judgement, in a sense almost licenses the pornographer. What baffles me is that the board of censors today makes a distinction. They say: "We are going to cut out that beheading scene for 10 seconds. There is a picture of an erect penis there, so we will cut that out. There is a picture of penetration there, we will cut that out. There is a scene of bestiality here, we will cut out the last two screens of that because it is offensive." The rest of the film stands and one can see it in a restricted film theatre in Toronto.
What have we accomplished? Have we dealt with the problem? Have we morally improved ourselves? Who are we trying to kid? Frankly, what kind of hypocrisy is this, when we say, "That much blood is acceptable, but we are not going to allow that next drop of blood, it is unacceptable"?
I cannot make those fine distinctions, and I frankly have profound difficulty even trying to make them. I would much rather have us say: "It is going to cost you $20 or $25 to go to a pornographic movie in Ontario and we are going to use that money to pay for the kind of education that we are all going to have to go through in order to deal with the stuff that is becoming much more pervasive."
Frankly, I would much rather, as I said, see us strengthen the Criminal Code and strengthen the Human Rights Code than be hypocritical about it. This is the last thing we are suggesting and I think it is good advice, I think it has to be done. I guess this is where I part company with the member for Halton-Burlington. I think there is a role for the board of censors and I think it should be called a censor board, I do not think we should be playing any games. As long as it is censoring, that is what it should be called. When it gets to the business of classification we will call it the classification board, but as long as it is censoring let us call it the censor board.
What we are suggesting in our alternative proposal is that the due process provisions of the Charter of Rights and the requirement of due process which has caused so much concern to the courts with the current Ontario Board of Censors, that argument has to be met. I know the government of Ontario would like to pretend there is not a Supreme Court of Ontario out there, there is not a Court of Appeal and there is not a Supreme Court of Canada, but they are there.
The record of the government of Ontario in the Supreme Court has not been great so far. The record of the minister with respect to this legislation has not been very good.
We can have a look at what Judge Bernstein said when he was talking about the government's actions in the seizure of the two British videotapes from Toronto's A Space art gallery. The A Space decision is a very strong criticism of the board and a very strong criticism of the actions of the government of this province.
It would be a very real mistake if this government did not listen carefully to what these judges are saying. The member for Kitchener-Wilmot mentioned the decision of Judge Borins. Judge Borins's sense of the difference between violent pornography and material that is sexually robust and sexually explicit but acceptable under community standards is a very different differentiation, or drawing of lines, than has been drawn by the Ontario Board of Censors. Judge Borins allowed material that the censor board would have cut, it would not have allowed it. I think it is important for us to know that.
We are suggesting -- it has been outlined very effectively by the member for Hamilton West, but I want to go through it one more time -- there should be standards laid out in the legislation. The community standards should parallel the new definition in the Criminal Code with respect to what is unacceptable about violent pornography.
I tried to outline to the minister some of the criteria we would establish. It is material that is akin to hate literature. It is material that continually relates sexuality with violence and that degrades men, women and children who are involved in these films.
We are suggesting a process which makes a lot of sense. The censor board would say to the film maker: "Look, we think this film is unacceptable and we think these are things that need to be done to this film before it can ever be shown. We think if you show this film, you will be charged under the Theatres Act."
Then the film maker can say: "To hell with you, I think it is a great film. It is my quest for the truth and I am going to go for it." If that film maker goes for it, there is then a case heard by the courts. The minister may ask, "What is the difference between having something heard by a court and something heard by a censor board?"
All I would say is I would rather have these things decided in a place where we know there is a degree of due process, where we know there is going to be a balancing act performed by the judge, which admittedly is difficult. It is always going to be invidious, hard, questionable, and there are always going to be challenges to it, but at least it is a process that has a genuine appeal mechanism and due process built in. It has a sense of having to find a balance.
I think the amendments the minister has made to the current censor board are more cosmetic than real. Saying we are going to have a new panel of the same board really belies what we all know about the way in which the socialization of human beings works. The censor board gets together all the time; the members are sharing standards and views all the time. They are going through stuff all the time, the way the Ontario Labour Relations Board does -- we all know that is what the labour board does, just as any administrative board does.
If I was a film maker with a message, trying to say something a little different, and the censor board did not like it and then I went before another panel, I would not feel that was a genuine appeal or a genuine reconsideration. I would far rather the person had a right to go to court and a right to appeal that court decision.
I want to be quite blunt about it. I do not think I would feel this way and I do not think our party would be as determined as it is to oppose this legislation were it not for the fact the censor board has failed -- it was put very graphically by the member for Halton-Burlington; I will not try to imitate his language -- has failed to make this distinction between sexual explicitness and the new pornography.
10:10 p.m.
I must confess what I find bewildering is we are constantly reading of decisions with respect to the recent film festival that was held here. There were dissident films from all over the world, and so on. There were several films that were being held up and there was a description of them in the entertainment section of the Toronto Star. The objection to every one of the movies was not that they were violent or excessive in terms of children, but that they were too explicit sexually.
I see Mrs. Brown shaking her head. If I am wrong, we can deal with this in committee and I will be glad to talk about it with her.
It seems to me that is the problem; it is certainly the image of the board in my mind because of some recent decisions it has taken. That is the problem I have in continuing to give carte blanche to the censor board. I am no longer prepared to do that.
At the same time I want to make it very clear, and I have spoken tonight as leader of the party because I want to make it very clear, that I do not think those who have taken the classic liberal position, in the small-l sense, on censorship and the importance of protecting individual freedoms have come to terms with the new pornography. I think either they are unaware of what it is or they are putting their heads in the sand and pretending it is not there.
I also think if they are really concerned about it they should not use a fly swatter to deal with a problem that is simply enormous in its impact. I think we have to deal with it through the Criminal Code and through the Human Rights Code. I think we have to deal with it through a genuinely reformed film classification board and a Theatres Act that is genuinely reformed.
Finally, and this is my last point, we have to deal with it through education. This is an area in which I am basically addressing, with one exception here tonight, an audience of men in the assembly itself. I think a lot of us are going to have to go back to school in terms of what is offensive. What is upsetting so many women active in the women's movement and women in general, that many of us have not found offensive?
When I say "back to school," we are simply going to have to rethink and deal with it. I think government has to be much tougher. Government is starting to do some useful work in terms of child abuse and is trying to do some useful work in terms of educating people about family violence and so on. I think we are going to have to do the same thing about violent pornography.
I think we are going to have to get much more aggressive about showing the material that is there and saying, "This is why showing somebody in a concentration camp enjoying being raped by four SS officers is offensive." We also have to show why we are in a process of genuine dehumanization if kids think it is funny or acceptable, or if our society becomes totally insensitive to this.
I guess I am wrestling as all the members of our caucus are wrestling. What do we do about it? I say this as someone who has a sense we all have to be sensitive to the point of view of artistic freedom. Let me be quite blunt about it. I do not think when John Stuart Mill was writing On Liberty he ever imagined snuff movies. I do not think that when John Milton was writing Areopagitica, he could have ever imagined the kind of hateful crap about people that is sold in magazines, across counters and underneath counters, all across North America.
It is a problem we cannot ignore. To be quite blunt about it, it would be very convenient if all of us got on the bandwagon and said: "This is the wave of the future. Let us all jump on board, give three cheers for the censor board and get tough and so on." I suppose in a sense that is the direction in which the polls are going.
I think the polls also show we all have to have a healthy respect for diversity, for pluralism, for moral diversity, moral pluralism and for a recognition that learning to express one's sexuality in the world is not an evil thing. We as a society are going to have to wrestle with this problem of finding a new balance between private morality that does no one harm, that harms nobody, and this emergence of a violent subculture that we have to deal with, reckon with and find a way of opposing it -- I will say it as strongly as that -- opposing it with the democratic, lawful, legal sense of outrage I think all of us feel when faced with this kind of material.
In closing, I have enjoyed listening to this debate. I think it shows a sense of attention that all of us, if we are honest about it, feel when dealing with this subject. It is not an easy subject to deal with. We will be opposing the legislation, not in the sense of any great moral outrage or moral certainty, because I do not feel as much moral certainty on this issue as I did when I was 18 and knew all the answers. But I certainly do feel now that it is still worth opposing this bill for the reasons we have expressed. We welcome the member for Halton-Burlington joining us in this opposition. If he wants to move his chair down over here, he is more than welcome any time.
We are opposed to this bill. We will be asking some questions about it. I know we are going to have some more speakers tonight, and I know we are going to have some questions about this legislation for the minister in committee.
Mr. McGuigan: Mr. Speaker, I rise to take part in this very important debate. I want to congratulate all members who have spoken on it, regardless of their points of view, for the many views they have brought forth. Each one of them is valid and each one of them was put forth with a great depth of feeling. I speak especially of my colleague who has had the experience of being in the business of acting and who speaks from the viewpoint of a participant, not from that of a viewer. I guess I have to speak as a viewer.
I agree with a great many of the things said by way of the criticism that this is not the total answer; that we need changes to the Criminal Code; that we need changes, perhaps, in international agreements; that we need agreements with the United States, since that is the country where most of this material comes from, as well as Hong Kong. Those are the great sources of this material.
I want to pause to interject something that other members have not brought up while talking about the sensitivity of all these matters, the matter of freedom of speech and so on. No one has mentioned that most of this is made for one purpose: to make money. It is not meant to express a great depth of human feeling, great new ideas that we are testing on society, new heights of expression. It is not done for those reasons; it is done just to make money.
In the United States it is done largely by the Mafia organizations. It is done by the controllers of organized crime, by people who make billions of dollars and for no other reason.
If they were doing it to express some new heights of human thought, to test the parameters of our vision or our intellect and to stimulate us to new ideas, even to challenge our concept of God or religion or our concepts of literature and art, I think I could agree with some of the comments that have been made. But they are doing it for just one reason: to make barrels and barrels of money in one of the most profitable businesses in this world. A little bit of junk, unknown actresses, animals and whatever and they have billions and billions of dollars at hand.
10:20 p.m.
I recall one of the people who tested the Criminal Code back in 1980. I brought to the attention of the Attorney General a particular movie I had seen. It was called Prime Cut. It was made quite a long time ago, back about 1971. Lee Marvin was the actor. I was quite intrigued by that movie. Perhaps some of the members remember that it started out in a stockyard. As a farmer, I had thought, "This is going to be interesting because they are going to show the public where the food supply comes from and how a stockyard works."
It started out showing men walking through a stockyard with various pens where one would expect to find hogs, cattle, sheep, goats or some other animals, and they had women in them. Drugged women were being auctioned off in this cattle stockyard.
Mr. Wiseman: Was Jack the auctioneer? Did he do that?
Mr. McGuigan: My friend the auctioneer here would never stoop to selling that kind of goods, or selling out a farmer or doing anything that was in any respect against humanity.
That movie was against humanity. The theme of it was gang warfare, prostitution and selling women. As obscene as selling those women was, the most obscene thing was they got rid of the victims in their crime war by shoving them in the sausage machine. This was not a grade X, Y or Z movie; it was made by one of the stars of the day, Lee Marvin. They put the sausages on the market and people ate them. That was back in 1971. What we see today has no resemblance to what we saw in 1971.
As a farmer, one of the interesting things was that it ended with a grain combine, a machine we harvest grain with, chasing a man in a car around a field. Finally, the man in the car was cornered and he took his revolver and shot the driver of the combine right between the eyes and killed him, but the combine kept running. I do not know whether it was a Massey-Ferguson or what sort of combine it was, but it ingested the car and it threw it out the back end all baled up. They had a machine that was not only a combine but also a baler. So much for the funny part of it.
I asked the Attorney General to have the police view that film because it was, to my mind, an obscene film. I will say to the credit of the Attorney General that he did not make a joke of it. He took it seriously. He sent his police officers to London, Ontario. They saw the film and came back and said, "We cannot do anything because it is not explicit enough."
Many members have mentioned this matter of what is explicit. Is it penetration? What is explicit? When they were selling the women, one saw the women in the shadow when they picked them up naked out of the cattle pens. If one did not get a clear, frontal view of those women, it meant it was not explicit. The thing that was explicit in my mind was the idea. The idea that one would be selling women was the explicit thing, not whether one saw every private part of their bodies. The explicit thing to my mind was the action that was going on.
The members have talked about the question of what we are talking about here. Are we talking about sexuality? I guess in the past we have been talking about sexuality. We are sort of coming from the springboard of the Victorian age. I remember reading about one of the excesses of Victorian times. They had big, massive legs on their pianos and lest someone be excited by looking at those wooden legs, they put pantaloons on them. That is a fact. Members can read it in the books about those times. Pantaloons on the legs of the piano. Can one imagine anything less erotic?
Mr. Martel: Is the member not turned on by a piano leg?
Mr. McGuigan: Not by a wooden one.
Coming off the springboard of Victorian times, we have been obsessed with sexual openness. I think most of us in this chamber tonight agree we are better off today with a lot more open view of our sexuality and our humanity, the things that make us tick. I think we all agree on that. I do not think there is any argument on those matters.
But when we use that sexuality to dehumanize people, to destroy them as the image of God -- and I use "God" regardless of what religion one belongs to, whether it is the Judaeo-Christian religious base or any other recognized feeling we have for our spirituality, as something higher and more noble than just our human flesh -- we are flying in the face of those ideas of spirituality that a person is more than just a few molecules of various chemicals from the earth and water. We have an inner value and worth.
I was looking around the galleries this evening to draw a bit of inspiration. Unfortunately, there are not many people in them now. But as I looked, I saw a group of black faces, white faces, young faces, old faces and intermediate faces. On every face, there is a picture of humanity, an expression of worth. There is a great deal more there than just a lump of meat, which these pornographers try to treat us as. I say that advisedly; they treat men, women, children and animals as pieces of meat.
I do not want to spend a lot of time on that aspect of it. Some of us here have seen some of these violent movies. We have seen the cutouts. We have seen the National Film Board's Not a Love Story. At least, I hope we have seen it. I sense many of us here are talking about the things we saw when we were teenagers. So many of us think of the pornography, or art or lack of art, of a few years back. But as the member for Kitchener-Wilmot expressed so well, today we are talking about a new pornography.
I wish to go on further with this and I am sure other members would too, so at this time I will move to adjourn the debate.
On motion by Mr. McGuigan, the debate was adjourned.
The House adjourned at 10:30 p.m.