Censorship in Canada - Movies

Movies

In the early 1910s, motion pictures were rising in popularity. It was decided nationally that censorship of them was necessary in order to be suitable for a wide, general audience of varying ages, mental, and educational levels. However, since national censorship for such a large and diverse country was unworkable, each province would censor according to their own provincial community standards. However, Ontario would be the "main" censor in that theatrical prints would be censored/edited by the Ontario censors then distributed throughout Ontario, and the other provinces. The other provinces would provide additional censorship/editing if it was necessary for their own province. The Ontario board was formed in 1911, other provinces followed shortly thereafter. Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland never formed any boards but instead took their advice from the New Brunswick and Nova Scotia boards.

The censors had no strict rules however, they often took advice from the British Board of Film Censors in the early years. In the 1920s, the Ontario censor board objected to content such as:

• actors pointing guns directly at the camera, or at other actors due to the possible negative effects on children and mentally weaker individuals
• machine guns
• scenes with women smoking
• profanity, vulgarity, and obscenity
• disrespect for officers of the law
• depiction and patriotic waving of the American flag, this was so the boards could promote a sense of Canadian nationalism
• illicit sexual relations
• nudity
• cruelty to animals
• drinking
• drug use

In the 1920s, the Canadian film boards removed American patriotism from imported films, citing their damage to a pro-British sentiment.

Eventually, six of the provincial censor boards adopted classification in 1953 though films were still censored for certain categories. The idea of classification was first proposed by Charlotte Whitten in Ottawa in 1920 however, at the time it was criticized with one newspaper editor claiming "A film that's not suitable for a ten-year-old should not be seen at all."

In the 1960s, Manitoba became the first province to fully adopt classification and abandon censorship.

Most Canadian provinces still have ratings boards that have the power to order cuts to movies and may even ban the showing of films if they violate Canada's Criminal Code sanctions against depicting sexualized violence and sex acts involving people under the age of 18. Movies formerly banned in some Canadian provinces include Deep Throat and Pretty Baby.

One particularly famous censorship controversy involved the award-winning German film The Tin Drum, which was banned as pornographic by Ontario's film review board in 1980.

The romantic comedy Young People Fucking prompted the Government of Canada to introduce Bill C-10, to allow revoking government funds from films the government deemed offensive. Strong public backlash led to the bill dying on the order paper.