The Canada Border Services Agency must walk a fine line between enforcing the nation’s “customs tariff” that prohibits the importation of any materials “deemed to be obscene” and running afoul of constitutionally protected freedom of expression set out in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As such, the agency released new guidelines Feb. 14. For material to be truly “obscene,” it is not enough that a magazine or DVD offer an “exploitation of sex” as its “dominant characteristic.” Such exploitation must also be “undue.” Canada’s guiding principles for identifying hate propaganda were also updated last week. It is impermissible, for example, to hold an “identifiable group” to blame “for serious economic or social problems” or accuse them of manipulating “media, trade, finance, government or world politics to the detriment of society.”
While the agency gets used to the new rules, the prohibited importations unit has recently updated its “Quarterly List of Admissible and Prohibited Titles.” At first glance, the 17-page compendium of books and DVDs that may or may not “constitute obscenity or hate propaganda” (excerpts below and on the following three pages) is full of contradictions. Copies of Shameless–Please Fill up My Holes (Page 4) and Blow It Out Your Ass Vol. 2 are fine, but visitors should leave their DVDs of Bondage Bordello (Page 3) at home.
Thanks to Hot Document reader Martin Holock for the tip.
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