Egale Canada’s Application Seeking to Remove Fox News from Distribution in Canada

Just ahead of the two-year anniversary since the CRTC informed Egale Canada that it intends to hold a public consultation in the “coming months”, Egale issues an open letter calling on the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to immediately resume its promised public consultation on non-Canadian broadcasting regulations and the continued distribution of Fox News in Canada. 

Read the Open Letter to the CRTC  

On August 20, 2025 – 23 months after the CRTC first committed to holding a public consultation “in the coming months” – Egale Canada’s Executive Director wrote to CRTC, urging the Commission to begin consultations and provide a clear timeline for next steps.

On August 21, 2025, the CRTC replied, confirming that the Commission intends to launch a consultation on non-Canadian channels but declined to provide a timeline. The response noted that the CRTC “cannot comment further on the timing” of this consultation while the matter remains open before the Commission.

One year after the CRTC informed Egale Canada that it intends to hold a public consultation on its regulatory approach in overseeing non-Canadian television services, no public consultations have occurred.

On September 19, 2023 the CRTC informed Egale Canada that it intends to hold a public consultation on its regulatory approach in overseeing non-Canadian television services, which is to begin in the coming months. We ask the CRTC to proceed with urgency, as the lack of an effective framework to address violations of Canadian broadcasting law by non-Canadian programming services means that these violations can continue indefinitely.

Read the Secretary General’s Letter to Egale Canada | Read Egale’s response to the CRTC

Egale Canada submitted our formal response to the CRTC’s Part One Application interventions in the public proceeding and to Fox’s June 2, 2023 submission.

Read Egale’s full legal submission and summary brief for more information.

The Fox News Network issued their response to the Part One Application with the CRTC. Their response was essentially that Egale’s application to have Fox News removed from the list of non-Canadian stations that are allowed to be broadcast in Canada is now moot because Tucker Carlson Tonight is no longer a program on Fox News.

Obviously, as many interventions made clear, Tucker Carlson was one of many hateful voices on Fox, but the dangerous transphobia exemplified in his show is very much still present on Fox News. Egale’s application was never limited to Tucker Carlson.

Read Fox News’ Response Submission

On May 4, 2023, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) opened a Part 1 Application (2023-0210-8 – Egale Canada) for the removal of Fox News from the list of non-Canadian programming services authorized for distribution. During the four-week public consultation period, over 7,000 individuals as well as some civil society organizations made written submissions, called interventions, to the CRTC. All these interventions are public.

Many reputable organizations representing equity-denied groups in Canada provided the CRTC with additional evidence of abusive comments that violate Canadian broadcasting law.

Read Egale’s full legal submission and summary brief for more information.

On April 4, 2023, Egale Canada wrote an open letter calling on the CRTC to begin public consultations on the removal of Fox News from the list of non-Canadian programming authorized for distribution in Canada. 

Read Egale’s Open Letter to the CRTC

The day after the Covenant School shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, Egale Canada published an unrelated open letter calling on all levels of government in Canada to combat the rise in anti-2SLGBTQI hate. That same day (March 28), Fox News host, Tucker Carlson airs a segment attacking Egale’s open letter, isolating the issue as “trans vs. Christians” and calling Egale’s claims “a provable lie.”

Egale Canada begins to analyze Fox News’ coverage of 2SLGBTQI communities and assess the risk for Canadian audiences and society.