On Thursday, June 8, 2006, at noon, over one hundred members of the Taiwanese, Tibetan, Uyghur, Chinese, Falun Gong and democracy movements gathered in front of Rogers Communications corporate head office at 333 Bloor Street East to protest Rogers offering nine cable television channels from Communist China for viewing in Canada. The issue is still before the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).
Rogers states that only "a small group of people" are opposed to these channels. The Canadians Against Propaganda (CAP) claim membership of thousands of individuals and 29 organisations. The issue, however, is one of hate and lies being allowed into the country and not of mere numbers. A person who is not politically astute would accept the lies and hate fed to him on the regulated airwaves of a free country.
Rogers does not deny the twenty pieces of evidence submitted before the CRTC last week showed clear direct and obvious hate incitement by the Communist Chinese television channels.
Rogers is afraid of being forced to monitor those 9 channels saying it would cost them $ 5,400,000 a year. The Canadians Against Propaganda group suggests that if Rogers can't uphold this responsibility, they should not be offering the channels in the first place.
The organizers of the demonstration were especially hurt by the defence of Roger's Cable Vice President of Television David Purdy, " If people are angered by these stations then people don't have to watch them." They equate the response to those to that of child pornographers,"if you don't want to see it, don't look at it."
At the beginning of June, 2005 Purdy, Phil Lind and Programming Manager Nitasha Kalra went to China on a business meeting.
"New Tang Dynasty Television Canada has had CRTC approval since November 24, 2005, yet Canadian cable networks have not given carried us," said Danielle Zhu, Senior Producer at NTD TV Canada. She adds, "We are liable to all the laws of CRTC and Canada when it comes to truth and libel regulations."
CAP maintain this action is not about censorship."Hate is hate and we as Canadians have a responsibility to stop all threats of hate on Canadian airwaves."
CAP reminds us, "the Chinese communist party has killed 80 million Chinese in the past 50 years —from students, to intellectuals, to Falun Gong, to Tibetans — and propaganda is a very essential part of these campaigns. They never stop killing. It continues today and it will happen again. Canada cannot afford to let these stations in."
