ARTS =. ao ae % 42 7 a r= a belong to the or do they? jee LY = aoe In the face of the Mulroney’s government attack on the Canadian Broad- casting Corporation (CBC), cultural workers banned together to form the Alliance for Canadian Broadcasting. They have put together a kit entitled “The Airwaves belong to the people . .. but our television is now 75 per cent American’’. The package examines the crisis of our airwaves and dispenses with the myths surrounding the CBC. For our reader’s interest the Tribune is reprinting an abridged version of _ just one of the papers contained in the kit. With the Task Force on Canadian Broadcasting currently on its road show, now is indeed the time to separate the ree from the myths. Television has become the principal theatre, the principal disseminator of news, the principal vehicle for enter- tainment in this country. How we decide what we put on television will determine the shape of our culture, will massively influence the values we pass on to our children, and will determine a large part of our social and political life. However we feel about television, we cannot ignore it, we cannot fail to debate its future. Canadians spend over half their lei- sure time watching television. At 23 _ hours a week, we will spend more time in front of our television sets than we will reading, going to movies, bal- let, sporting events, concerts or play- ing with a home computer — com- bined. By the time children reach age 12, they will have spent 12,000 hours watching TV — more time than they will have spent in school. Whether we should be spending this much time watching TV is another debate. The point is we are. And our children, in those 12,000 hours will have watched 10,000 hours of U.S. programming. Far out- Ss stripping the time they will have spent in Canadian schools. If we, as a nation, do not occupy our airwaves to tell our stories to our children, and hand down our values to them, then we will abdicate our re- sponsibility to them, deny them their birthright and docilely succomb to another culture. By our passivity, we are becoming citizens of video America. We cannot afford to find solace in contempt for TV any more than a wri- ter — or reader — can afford con- tempt for the paperback. Television like any other medium, carries some pretty contemptible products. But it also carries some of the finest works of our information and artisitc cul- ture. We can assure the quality of Canadian television by insisting that there is a strong Canadian television production sector. One of the most enduring myths, for which there is absolutely no statis- tical evidence, is that Canadians do not want to watch programs produced in their own country. Canadians have access to viewing the most expensively produced pro- PU Toronto urged to tackle apartheid Toronto should take a stand against apartheid in South Africa, the city’s executive committee decided yesterday. The committee, headed by Mayor Arthur Eggleton, is recommending that the city should stop buying South African goods and request Mediacom Inc., the company that handles bus shelter advertising, not to advertise South African products. But the committee wants to hear members of the city’s fire department and civic employees pension committee before deciding whether pension funds should be invested in South African bonds. It is expected that the issue will be hotly debated at - council since some aldermen feel imposing sanctions against South Africa should be left to the higher levels of government. The sole action taken at the provincial legislature has been to not re-order South African liquor. 10 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 11, 1985 grams in the world — American tele- vision, a cut throat competitive mar- ket which produces hundreds of diffe- rent television programs a year, and measures their popularity so closely that they wire up entire screening theatres with electronic devices to monitor the audience’s reaction. Against this competition, the fier- cest in the world, Canadian-produced programs fare as well and better than their best. Five million Canadians a week watch CBC’s The National while four million stay tuned for The Journal. One and a half million watch the pre- stigious documentary program, The Fifth Estate. Fraggle Rock draws 1.6-million children; Seeing Things at- tracts 1.25-million viewers and is watched in 40 other countries, includ- ing the U.S.; 1.5-million enjoy Tommy Hunter’s variety program; the long-running Beachcombers still has a following of 1.25 million while 3- millioncatch Hockey Nightin Canada. These programs are scheduled against the fiercest American prime time entertainment, yet win these large audiences. When good Canadian drama is on, _ it is watched in vast numbers. The Chautaugua Girl, a nostalgic drama set in rural Alberta during the De- pression, on the backdrop of the United Farmers of Alberta organizing the voters, competed with the popular smash-em-up American A-Team, yet 2.6-million people tuned in. The Grey Fox drew 2.1-million. Last De- cember, Hockey Night, the drama about a girl booted off a boy’s hockey team, drew 2.2 million viewers. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that our people want to see their country, their backdrops, their history, their problems on screen. When its avail- able to them, they watch it by mil- lions. The problem is we don’t pro- duce it for them. CBC Television produces 90 per cent of Canadian television drama. Yet it only has an output of 60-70 hours a year. That’s one-twenty- fourth of the amount of American drama on our screens. But that’s all the CBC has the funds to produce. Shouldn’t we even things up a bit? Silent Scream: experts refute the anti-choice propaganda film When does a vicious piece of distortion become a joke? When it gets sent to top church leaders, politicians and medical professionals by anti- abortionist Joe Borowski. The laugh comes by picturing these sage officials settling down for a private showing of “The Silent Scream” only to have their “education” interrupted by X-rated porno scenes. Someone had taken the liberty of splicing the unsolicited material into Joe’s freebees. Unfortunately that is the extent of the humor accompanying “The Silent Scream.” A chilling, U.S.-made propaganda effort, it has been widely distributed both there and in Canada as an “‘edu- cational tool.” Depicting the abortion of a 12-week old fetus (a clinical act in itself), its emotional impact is deli- vered through the misleading narrative of U.S. anti-choice lobbyist Dr. Bernard Nathanson. In Nathanson we have an “expért’s” descrip- tion of what transpires with the fetus during an abortion. His mild reassuring narrative tells us we are witnessing the destruction of a “child”. He describes the method in the most grisly of terms. Through the use of ultra-sound, Nathsanson relates the struggle of the fetus to move away from the instruments. “Now we discern the chilling silent scream on the face of this child who is now facing imminent extinction,” he claims. ‘ Not all of Nathanson’s colleagues share his views on fetal response to abortion. According to Dr. Martin Gillieson, director of gynecological ultrasound at Ottawa General Hospital, rather than seeing a “‘silent scream”, Nathanson is actu- ally pointing to the space between the fetus head and chest, not the mouth. The film’s critics also agree that a fetus at that stage of development could not experience pain or be capable of crying or screaming. The fetus in the film is exhibiting a reflex action to being touched, in keeping with any primitive organism. Poke an amoeba and you'll get the same response. A panel of internationally recognized medical experts called together by Planned Parenthood to comment on the film conclude that “‘a fetus of 12 weeks cannot in any way be compared to a fully formed functioning person. At this stage of gesta- tion, only rudiments of the organ systems are present. The fetus is incapable of conscious thought; it is incapable of essential breathing. It is instead an in utero fetus with the potential of becoming a child.” The panel also charged that in addition to glaring medical inaccuracies the film avoids many issues in the abortion debate including what pres- sures women to seek an abortion and the role of sex education and accessible contraception in reducing abortion rates. Like “Rambo”, the film is becoming a hit. Among the first to laud its efforts was U.S. presi- dent Ronald Reagan who insisted the transcript be read into the Congressional record. It has been distributed widely to schools and has been aired on.TV in both the U.S. and Canada. The Canadian Abortion Rights Action League has material available for those wishing to coun- ter “The Silent Scream” distortion. This includes literature presenting the opinions of many experts who have denounced it. The organization also has copies of a video cassette entitled “Response to the Silent Scream,” prepared by the Planned Par- enthood of Seattle. CRTC regulations demand balanced pro- gramming. If “The Silent Scream” is shown on TY, viewers have a legitimate right to protest or Insist on equal time for pro-choice airing. — Kerry McCuaig— a resin a