ABSTRACT
August 10, 2004. On Ottawa’s Parliament Hill, thousands are protesting against the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. The CRTC has just denied licence renewal to CHOI-FM, a commercially successful Quebec City radio station, on the grounds of ‘abusive comment … personal attacks and harassment’ – such as a ‘schlock jock’s’ on-air suggestion that mental patients be killed. His views, and the day’s mood, were described as a nihilistic, Darwinian ‘look after yourself anti-politics’ (Aubin 2005). The station’s defenders sport black T-shirts proclaiming ‘Liberté’, and a placard reading ‘Death penalty for being different … If that’s democracy, I want no part of it!’.
