The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) approved a license last week that will allow Alberta_based Real Productions to develop a digital channel called Northern Peaks, 50 percent of whose adult content will be produced in Canada.
According to CFAC president Charles McVety, the 50 percent requirement by the producer means that young Canadians will inevitably find themselves work on and in some cases appear in adult films.
"It is to the public detriment to fuel an industry where women are degraded and treated as sex objects," he said. ""If private companies want to engage in such activity, it's not criminal in this nation and they're free to do so. But for the government to use public resource to promote such degradation shows how detached the bureaucracy is from the Canadian people."
According to Canadian law, CRTC decisions can be appealed, but such an appeal would saddle prime minister Stephen Harper's government with the decision to decide on the morality of legal pornography, something government observers say is highly unlikely. The government has 45 days in which to act on a request to review the license issued to Northern Peaks.
"We would be happy if they [reversed], but we understand the parameters in which they operate and we don't anticipate they will make such a move," McVety said.
