


Since last month, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has been considering banning Fox News from Canadian television. This move was prompted by a formal complaint issued by Eagle Canada, a group that advocates on behalf of “Two Spirit, trans, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming (2STNBGN)” people, which cited a March 28 episode of Tucker Carlson Tonight as justification for censoring the network. When Fox fired Tucker in late April, it argued that the bid to remove its channel from cable TV packages is “moot.” But Eagle Canada isn’t satisfied.
In a recent interview, Eagle Canada executive director Helen Kennedy stated that the group’s issues with Fox News extend beyond just the segment of Tucker’s show mentioned in its complaint. “We know from the research that we’ve done on Fox around some of the other issues that anti-LGBTI sentiment runs deep within that organization, and so it’s a cultural issue within the organization and it certainly goes beyond one particular host.”
Regardless of how one feels about Fox’s content, a government deciding what media its citizens can access is more characteristic of a despotic regime than a vibrant democracy. The fact that the CRTC is still entertaining this proposition is a testament to the alarming erosion of democratic norms north of the border under the reign of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The proposed Fox News ban is just his administration’s latest move undermining Canada’s liberal character.