CHOI-FM - Dispute With The CRTC

Dispute With The CRTC

On July 13, 2004, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission ruled that the radio station would be shut down because it kept airing offensive and insulting remarks even after being put on probation in 2002. This meant that the station would be forced to stop transmitting on the night of August 31, 2004, when its licence expired. This prompted a huge march in the streets of Quebec City on July 22 when 50,000 people walked through the streets of the city to support the station, claiming the right of freedom of speech and opinion. It was the largest march in the capital city of Quebec since the 1960s.

On August 10, 2004, the station staged a protest against the CRTC's decision on Parliament Hill in Ottawa where 5,000 Quebec fans of the station went to the country's capital to demonstrate their support for the station. CHOI aired their regular afternoon show live from Ottawa.

On August 11, 2004, the station filed an appeal in federal court to extend its licence and to reverse the CRTC's decision.

On August 25, 2004, the CRTC and the federal government did not object to the station's request to continue its normal operations during the court proceedings. This meant that even though the station's licence expired on August 31, 2004, it was permitted to continue transmitting after that date and as long as the court procedures are in progress.

On May 24, 2005, the court started to hear the case. For four days, the station's lawyers pleaded to the three judges of the court that the CRTC overstepped its authority in ordering the shutdown of the station. They claimed that it should not be possible for the CRTC to shut down a station based only on the contents of the station's shows. The lawyers also pleaded that the CRTC could have used more moderate methods to punish the station, such as imposing a fine. Both the station and the CRTC have said that should they lose, they will appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of Canada.

On September 1, 2005, the court ruled against the station, stating in its decision that "freedom of expression, freedom of opinion and freedom of speech do not mean freedom of defamation, freedom of oppression and freedom of opprobrium." This meant that the station would be required shut down within 20 days unless it tried to contest the decision in the Supreme Court. On June 14, 2007, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case. Had the sale to RNC Media not gone through, the decision would have effectively forced CHOI-FM to stop broadcasting at 23:59 the same day. However, RNC Media had already received CRTC approval for its "new" licence for 98.1, making the court decision moot.

The dispute has also had major political implications, as it was the primary reason that Sylvain Légaré was elected in Vanier in a by-election in 2004 for the ADQ. In addition, radio personality André Arthur was elected as an independent in the 2006 federal election in Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, and most of the other seats in the area went to the Conservative Party of Canada, which had previously been extremely weak in Quebec.

After RNC Media acquired the station, CHOI-FM shifted to alternative rock, becoming the first French-language alternative rock station in Canada, but continued to report as an active rock station on Mediabase. As of 2010, the station was delisted from Mediabase, and moved to its current talk radio format.