Canada's team MIA from "Hockey Night in Canada"

Poor Len Canayen here. It's the eve of Canadian Thanksgiving and I'm NOT giving thanks to Canada's sports media for discriminating against Canada's team in the National [sic] Hockey League, the Montréal Canadiens.

For over sixty years, Hockey Night in Canada, has been a must-watch programme on CBC. Indeed, it's probably the only programme that over a million Canadians watch with any regularity. Last night was the first Saturday of the NHL's 2015-16 season, with all seven Canadian teams in action. Le Canadien -- the only team with fans right across Canada, from Squamish to Dildo, were playing at Boston. But which two games did HNIC treat viewers to? Ottawa at Toronto, and... wait for it... Edmonton at Nashville!

The Ottawa v Toronto game wasn't bad, featuring a remarkable comeback by the Leafs to force a shoot-out, which they lost. But the Edmonton v Nashville match-up was by all accounts a total snorefest. The game at Boston, however, was more of a slugfest -- traditional when the Habs meet the Bruins -- with 20 minutes in penalties and two goals in the final minute. Les Glorieux emerged triumphant, 4-2.

So how come Canadian viewers didn't get to see that? I will explain... and condemn! Back in 2014, the NHL (G. Bettman, Prop.) sold the Canadian TV rights to Canada's biggest cable company, Robbers [Rogers, surely! Ed.], which thus acquired HNIC. The CBC, faced with the loss of its top revenue generator, grovelled abjectly enough to be given a "lease" on the Saturday night staple, but Rogers retained control of the property, which it also distributes on its own City-TV channels.

We're not just talking English TV here. Robbers also got the rights to all French programmes, which it divided between TVA and RDS, with Société Radio-Canada left out of the picture. That didn't really matter, since SRC had ceded the estimable Soirée du Hockey to RDS years ago. However, with Robbers controlling distribution, the French channels, which had previously been available right across the Great Not-so-white North, have been blacked out everywhere west of Québec and a small chunk of eastern Ontario.

It gets worse. Rogers -- greedy bastards that they are -- forced Bell, which distributes TV signals by satellite and fibre-optic cable, to go along with its national/regional lineup, all designed to force subscribers to pay an extra over C$200 per season for an "all hockey all the time" package called NHL Centre Ice.

1000s of Canadiens fans west of Québec (most of whom can understand at least some French) refused, and were belatedly offered what Bell/Rogers call the "NHL French package" for only C$60. For that, you're supposed to be able to get all... all... of the Habs games on TVA and RDS, on two channels featuring "Le forfait LNH en français". Was the Montréal game on either of those channels last night? Err, no. Was any game shown? Err, no. The "LNH gratuit" appeared to be a CCTV video of the inside of a coal bin at midnight.

Having complained to Bell and got no satisfaction, I am now going to fire a rocket in the direction of the CRTC. And to Robbers, which has put all its HNIC eggs in the Maple Laffs basket, I say: I hope you lose your blue shirts!

VIDEO: The anti-Harper ad Canucks aren't being allowed to see

According to "The Nation's Report Card" -- the results of standardized tests given to US students -- 33% of Grade 8 students believe that Canada is a dictatorship.. Some may think that shows how poorly educated American kids are, but to Walt, it shows something positive -- that they have learned the truth about Canada's Dear Leader, Prime Minister Steve "Stephen" Harper.

Mr. Harpoon, often accused of being a control freak, has done many things to prove his many detractors right. Among them is the effective muzzling of the Canadian Broadcorping Castration [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, surely! Ed.], aka the CBC. Although funded by Canuck taxpayers and nominally controlled by the government, the Corpse was able for about seven decades to maintain a reasonable semblance of journalistic independence and integrity. Then, along came Steve.

The Dear Leader hates the CBC, and its news and public affairs producers in particular, for daring to call attention to the list of scandals, oversights, muzzlings, and mysterious cash losses that are fast becoming the hallmarks of his tenure as prime minister. He is plainly intent on killing it by steadily reducing the subsidies it receives -- a death of 1000 spending cuts.

In protest, a non-profit group called Friends of Canadian Broadcasting (headed by an old classmate of Agent 3!) has produced a TV ad that pokes fun at Mr. Harpoon's "hostile agenda" for the CBC. So far the ad hasn't been seen by denizens of the Great Not-so-white North because the CBC has refused to air it. So have all the major Canadian TV networks and station owners -- Bell, Corus, Québécor, Rogers, and Shaw. Why? Certainly not because they're all subject to regulation by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, which is controlled by... wait for it... the government of Steve Harper.

So, as a service to our Canadian readers (and because WWW is beyond the reach of the CRTC!), we present "The Man Behind The Desk" -- the ad Harper doesn't want you to see. Many thanks to Agent 34 for sending us the URL.

Canuck porn channels must improve, sez federal regulator

Out of the Great Not-so-white North comes news of shocking Canadian depravity, and not-so-shocking government interference in freedom of speech.

Apparently there are porn channels on Canuck cable TV. Who knew??!! Like all emissions -- nocturnal and otherwise -- the programming on such channels is subject to regulation by the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). [We'll skip the French version. Ed.] And the CRTC is concerned that "AOV XXX Action Clips" and "AOV Maleflixxx" may not be airing enough Canadian content. Even worse, they don't have closed captioning! The CRTC X-rated specialty channels are supposed to air 35% Canadian programming over the broadcast year, and 90% of the content should have captioning.

No closed captioning on the gentlemen's flickers. Makes you think, doesn't it. How would those captions read?
"Mmmmmmmmmmmmm... ooooooooooooooohhhhhhhh... aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh.... more, more, more!"
[That's enough closed captioning. Ed.]

As for the CanCon, Walt wonders how the CRTC distinguishes between blue movies ["yellow movies" in China. Ed.] made in Canada and those made in, say, the Excited States of America. Would there be erotic rubbing of noses? Would the Canadian actors have little maple leaves tattooed on their naughty bits? Would [That's enough examples. Ed.]

As part of proposed licence renewals, the commission plans to hear evidence on the apparent non-compliance. Meetings will be held behind closed doors, in darkened rooms with sticky floors, and are expected to last an entire Arctic night.