The Russian media Russia Today (RT) retains its right to broadcast in Canada for the time being, but the Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) hinted on Friday that it will keep an eye on pro news channels -Kremlin in the next few weeks.
The federal body openly calls on viewers to file a complaint if they are concerned about RT’s coverage of events in Ukraine.
The 24-hour news channel has no office in the country, but it was licensed to air on Canadian airwaves in 2009 and has been offered by most major cable companies ever since. Over the past two years, however, the CRTC reports having received “a dozen complaints” about the Russian media, regularly accused of misinformation on a host of subjects.
“RT is currently on the list of non-Canadian services approved for distribution in Canada. It is a privilege and not a right to be broadcast in Canada, and the channels can be removed from this list, ”recalled by email Friday the institution which regulates the audiovisual industry in the country. The CRTC says it expects foreign channels to meet certain standards, including the obligation to “present news accurately and impartially”.
Non-grata media
RT’s coverage of the Ukrainian conflict differs widely from that of Western media. On RT France, the group’s news service broadcast from Paris in French, much emphasis is placed, for example, on the alleged desire of the Russian government to reach a peace agreement, but the consequences of the war on the ground are largely evacuated. .
On the other side of the Channel, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson, has already announced that the license of the British channel RT will be reviewed. Germany, for its part, has been preventing the broadcasting of the German-speaking channel of the Russian media since February.
In an open letter published Friday by the Coops de l’information, the former premier of Quebec and potential candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party, Jean Charest, called for the same to be done, urging the CRTC to suspend the license broadcast of Russia Today.
Russia Today has no office in the country, but the media group obtained authorization to be present on the Canadian airwaves in 2009.
“It may be very difficult to prove that Russia Today is disinformation. Having a pro-Russian bias should not be enough to be punished. The plurality of the media is precisely intended to reflect all points of view, whether they are disturbing or not”, nuance Aimé-Jules Bizimana, professor at the University of Quebec in Outaouais and researcher in journalism.
Although he acknowledges that Russia Today is to say the least biased in its approach to the Ukrainian conflict, Mr. Bizimana believes that his banishment from the airwaves would undoubtedly be an excessive gesture given his very limited audience.
He also points out that channels like Fox News or Al Jazeera, which are regularly accused of propaganda, still have the right to broadcast in Canada.