From: bo774@FreeNet.Carleton.CA   
      
   The CRTC requires cable companies to carry Vision TV as a basic   
   service channel (Must Carry) and requires cablecos to collect a   
   mandatory tithe (pass thru fee).   
      
   Don't we have freedom from religion? Why is this allowed in BC and   
   the Yukon, where more than 1 person in 3 responds "no religion".   
      
   The Pew Global Attitudes survey showed that less than 1 Canaidan   
   in 3 considers religion important in their daily lives.   
      
   If the CRTC allowed cablecos to offer Vision TV as part of an optional   
   tier nobody would have much ground for objecting to this multi-million   
   dollar annual government enforced tithe.   
      
   Who objects to paying for Vision TV? The CRTC's own polls have reatedly   
   confirmed that over 90% of people surveyed respond that they have no   
   interest in viewing a religious channel, even if it were free.   
      
   The polling company stated quite clearly that the concept of a religious   
   channel enjoys very limited support in Canada, even back in the 1980s.   
   Religion has been declining at 10% per year in Canada and the USA, for   
   decades.   
      
   The pro-religious bias of the CRTC is proven by the fact that they   
   decided to let the Financial News Network die without a Pass Thru fee,   
   despite it polling several points higher than Vision TV.   
      
   The CRTC comments regarding their approval of Vision TV containing fawning   
   comments reflecting a bias in favor of the applications, describing the   
   clerics as "dedicated" and so on, for their stubborness in pushing a   
   concept which a 90% majority of Canadians have no interest in watching,   
   even if it were free.   
      
   Since Vision TV began wasting bandwith and ripping off cable customers we   
   have seen Statistics Canada report a sharp rise in "no religion", on a   
   survey which records people's names, addresses and other identifying data   
   for publication in the future. The knowledge that responses to the Census   
   Religion Question were not anonymous and would be published created a   
   pro-religious skew in the results. Being asked about religious anonymously   
   is a very different matter than the government compelling a response   
   under the force of law, recording identifying data for the response, and   
   publishing the response, possibly within the lifetime of family members   
   associated with the response.   
      
   By now "no religion" has overtaken Catholic as the most common reponse in   
   the Yukon and BC. Alberta is a bit farther behind, as the secular tide   
   sweeps south and east across Canada, growing at 10% of the population per   
   decade.   
      
   We also saw voters in Newfounland and Labrador decide to toss out their   
   archaic system of government funded parochial schools in favor of a   
   modern secular school system. Then we had the spectacle of clerics asking   
   the Supreme Court of Canada to overturn that clear, democratic, freely   
   made, voter choice.   
      
   Some churches and clerics believe that they should have a special status in   
   Canada, with entrenched legal authority to overcome the will of the majority   
   of the population in patters such as birth control and what the government'   
   forces us to pay for as a conditon of getting basic cable service.   
      
   Are we that far removed from the days when churches argued about which of   
   them would get the "Church Lands" held back from development in Colonial   
   days, or how to divide abducted aboriginal children to divide the money paid   
   them to run Native Residential Schools?   
      
   At Mt Cashel the corrupt brothers and the Catholic Church felt that they   
   were beyond the reach of Canadian Law.   
      
   Any statute or regulation which gives religion authority to compel citizens   
   to pay a fee, or otherwise restrict or compel their actions should be   
   eliminated.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)