Cases 7 & 8 : Canada & Canadians
Government Censorship of Print in Canada : 1918-2005
Since Confederation, laws have from time to time been enacted to control vice and combat sedition. Under this latter rubric, publications that encouraged workers to strike, for example, were routinely charged and their files or presses seized. For the most part, however, it has been Canada Customs, a department of what is today called the “Canada Revenue Agency”, which has most effectively exercised control of literature since 1867. A “Customs Tariff” from the early 1930s, for example, prohibited “books, printed matter, drawings, painting, prints, photographs or any representations of any kind of a treasonable or seditious nature, or of any immoral or indecent character”. Until 1968, customs officials could even refer to a handy list of proscribed publications to supplement the exercise of their own personal discretion when refusing to admit a book into the country. In spite of the fact that no such guide exists any longer, officers still operate largely in accord with the spirit of those earlier tariff laws, to which bookstores like Little Sister’s in Vancouver, Glad Day and Wonderworks in Toronto, and Androgyne in Montreal can well attest. Of course Customs has no control over materials that are actually published in Canada. As a result, it is perfectly possible to print a book legally inside the country which it would be otherwise illegal to import. It is left to the Criminal Code to regulate domestic publications, but their censorship often ultimately depends on what are vaguely described as “community standards”.
As in Britain and the United States, in the last one hundred years obscenity has become the principal focus for Canadian censorship. In 1949, for example, of the one hundred and twenty-six titles excluded from Canada, only twenty-nine were considered seditious, the remainder being obscene. In 1954, the Canadian government formally defined “obscenity” in the Criminal Code, and amended that definition five years later to state that “for the purpose of this Act, any publication a dominant characteristic of which is the undue exploitation of sex, or of sex and any one or more of the following subjects, namely, crime, horror, cruelty and violence, shall be deemed to be obscene.” This definition of obscenity still stands fifty years later and is enforced by the current Code which also states that:
Every one commits an offence who
(a) makes, prints, publishes, distributes, circulates, or has in his possession for the purpose of publication, distribution or circulation any obscene written matter, picture, model, phonograph record or other thing whatever; or
ADVANCE \d 4 (b) makes, prints, publishes, distributes, sells or has in his possession for the purpose of publication, distribution or circulation a crime comic.
It could be argued that the problem with Canadian law is not so much with the definition of obscenity, as it is with its interpretation. Thus any number of bookstore owners continue to lock horns with the enforcers of this imprecise law down to the present day. While it is true that the actual banning of literature became increasingly rare as the twentieth century progressed, there had never been so many challenges made to individual books, the technical distinction being that a challenge occurs when an attempt is made to block access to the material in question, (usually in a school or public library) without actually seizing a work thereby making it inaccessible to the public in that particular locale.
It cannot be denied that Canada Customs has acted within its legal rights, but several questions remain. Does the definition of obscenity remain valid for all time? Should its interpretation effectively remain in the hands of individual representatives of a given ministry who may or may not have even read the offending piece of literature? Is there any objective way of definitively determining whether a book, in and of itself, is an agent of corruption? Perhaps Blair Fraser’s conclusions for a 1949 Macleans’ magazine article entitled “Our hush hush censorship” remain essentially valid today. “No one is qualified to be a censor”, he wrote, “for censorship is itself an outrage and a contradiction of freedom. The essence of free speech and a free Press is that a man may say what he likes, print what he likes, and then stand responsible for it after it has been uttered.”
Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850). Droll Stories. London : Privately printed, [1874?].
This literary classic, originally published as Contes drolatiques in 1832, often depicts the bawdier side of life and manners in sixteenth century France. In 1841, “omnes fabulae amatoriae” written by Balzac, including this title, were added to the Roman Index and remained there until the suspension of its use in 1966. It was similarly purged from libraries and bookstores in Russia in 1870 and the United States in 1885, with Ireland and Spain following in 1953. It was also banned by Canada Customs beginning in 1914 and was subject to confiscation as late as 1970.
Morley Callaghan (1903-1990). Such is my beloved. Toronto : Macmillan Co. of Canada, 1934.
With its realistic depiction of life on Toronto’s streets this book was a success in Canada from its first printing. For many years, however, it was housed in the “Art Room” at the University of Toronto, in the company of other suspect authors, such as the Marquis de Sade, Havelock Ellis, and James Joyce. To gain access to the material in the room students had to affirm that they were free of “mental problems”. As late as 1972, two ministers in Muskoka sought to have the title removed from Huntsville High School because of its depiction of prostitution and the use of strong language.
Alice Munro (1931- ). Lives of Girls and Women. Toronto : McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1971.
Described as “autobiographical in form, though not in fact”, Munro here tells the story of a girl as she learns about life, sex, and mortality from the other women in her life – her mother, their boarder, and her best friend. In 1976, the principal of a Peterborough high school removed the title from the senior English reading list, despite protests from staff and students. Two years later parents in Clinton, Ontario demanded its removal from the school curriculum because of its alleged vulgarity and negative philosophy. It was in the wake of attacks upon this book, however, that the Freedom of Expression Committee of the Book and Periodical Council was established.
Timothy Findley (1930-2002). The Wars. Toronto : Clarke, Irwin, 1977.
Opposition to this World War I story has focused exclusively on the depiction of a single incident of homosexual rape, which Findley maintained was as much metaphorical as it was literal. Even before publication, writers such as Margaret Laurence had questioned him on the necessity of its inclusion. Challenges to the book have generally come from the secondary school population, some of whom have argued that the work promoted acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle – precisely because of the rape scene, as one Sarnia student charged in 1994. Though challenged, to date the book has not been successfully banned in any Canadian school jurisdiction.
Margaret Atwood (1939- ). The Handmaid’s Tale. Toronto : McClelland & Stewart, 1985; “Porn speech made to librarians’ rally” : MSS 200, Box 145, [1987].
As this speech to librarians clearly illustrates, Margaret Atwood actively opposed Bill C-54 when it came before the Canadian Parliament in 1987 and 1988. Had it been successful this piece of legislation would have censored a wide range of words and images (including “lactation” and “menstruation”) as well as depictions of sex between consenting adults. The Handmaid’s Tale, which has censorship among its principal themes, has itself been challenged and banned, especially at the high school level, and particularly in the United States. Challenged in the Richland, Washington school district because the narrative “stressed suicide, illicit sex, violence and hopelessness”, similar campaigns have been mounted in Florida, California, Iowa, and Pennsylvania. To date the title has only been removed from the Chicopee, Massachusetts English curriculum because of that Board’s objections to its use of profanity and depictions of sex.
Joyce Carol Oates (1938- ). Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang. New York : Dutton, 1993.
Touching on the conspiracies, crimes, and passions of a group of young women, this book was first challenged in 1995 by “Parents Against Corrupt Teaching”, which tried to force the Halton (Ontario) Public School Board to remove it from the curriculum by disseminating a brochure to parents containing excerpts from the dialogue taken out of context. John Snobelen, then Minister of Education, and the local M.P.P. both admitted to not having read the work, but encouraged the Board to comply with parental wishes. The students of the Milton District High School, however, organized a petition to save the book and in April 1997 the Board sided with them.
The Body Politic. Toronto : Pink Triangle Press, 1971-1987.
Between 1971 and 1987 the Body Politic Editorial Collective published articles that reflected the varied aspects of life in Canada’s gay community. In 1973, the Toronto Star refused to print advertisements for the paper; in the same year Newsweb Enterprises, a subsidiary of the Star, refused to print the paper at all. Two years later the police raided TBP offices on Carlton Street, threatening to remove the May issue from newsstands because of a sexually explicit cartoon. It was Gerald Hannon’s 1977 article, “Men loving boys loving men”, however, that incurred the wrath of the police and courts more than any other. The newspaper was charged with using the mail to distribute indecent material but was acquitted in 1979 and again in 1982. As recently as 2003 Hannon found himself in court defending his quarter-century old words again.