As of June 12, 2023, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’s (CRTC) public consultation on the removal of Fox News from Canadian airwaves has ended.
Egale Canada published an open letter to the CRTC requesting the public consultation on April 4, after our organization was featured on a horrifically transphobic Fox News broadcast. After that episode was broadcast, we received a wave of threatening, violent, and obscene messages across our communication channels.
The CRTC opened a public consultation into the removal of Fox News from Canadian television on May 4, with our open letter being the basis of the application. During the four-week public consultation period, over 7000 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.
The Fox News Network also had the opportunity to respond, which they did on June 2. 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.
Below you can read Egale’s formal response to the interventions in the public proceeding and to Fox’s submission as well as a summary brief.
CRTC Public Process Number 2023-0210-8 – reply submission of Egale Canada