Censorship was a prominent issue in the 1960s and was the focus of intense opposition by civil liberties groups in the sixties and seventies. Although human rights activists would be bitterly divided on the issue of pornography, with feminists favouring censorship whereas free speech civil libertarians opposed all censorship, in most cases censorship was stridently opposed by human rights activists. State-imposed censorship manifested itself in a myriad of ways in Canada by the 1960s. Limits on speech were incorporated in the criminal code in relation to treason, sedition, blasphemous and defamatory libel, disruption of religious worship, hate propaganda, spreading false news, public mischief, obscenity, indecency and other forums. In its more extreme form, censorship could be imposed through the War Measures Act and the Official Secrets Act to protect the integrity of the state. Provincial and municipal bodies also had the power to restrict gatherings, performances, exhibitions, demonstrations, public speaking, displays of texts and pictures on billboards. Defamation laws limited a person’s ability to speak against another, and copyright laws regulated publications. In each case, the imposition of censorship represented a subjective evaluation by the state of the right to expression of its citizens and, as one author has suggested, acted as a highly value-laden form of social control.

When imposed by the state, agents of censorship could include police, customs officers, post office workers, censor boards and public prosecutors. Police banned demonstrations, dispersed public gatherings and arrested people on picket lines; customs officials seized films, books and magazines at the border; the Post Office refused to forward obscene material; censor boards banned obscene films and regulated content; and, prosecutors indicted people for speech offences. Censorship generally fell into two categories: depictions of behaviours with the effect of undermining public morals (ie sexual material), and expression of unpatriotic themes. During both world wars the state imposed severe limits on the publication of materials which could undermine the war effort, and in the early years of the Cold War such institutions as the National Film Board were censored against pro Soviet depictions or Left wing interpretations of Balkan conflicts.

In the 1960s the most common form of censorship in Canada was on literature and film. A 1962 case before the Supreme Court of Canada challenged the federal government’s obscenity laws under the criminal code following a decision by a Montreal court to ban D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterly’s Lover. It was a confusing decision with seven separate judgements, but it resulted in a partial liberalization of the contentious obscenity laws by allowing experts to testify on the merits of impugned literature. While the provinces administered censorship under the criminal code, the federal government’s main agent for censorship was Customs. However, since no lists were ever made publicly available on which titles were banned by Customs, it is impossible to know how extensive the state’s censorship program had expanded during the 1960s.

A clearer picture is available on the censorship of literature at the provincial level. In Alberta, a group composed of the Catholic Women’s League, women’s farm unions, and the University Women’s Club in conjunction with the provincial government establish an Advisory Board on Objectionable Publications in 1954. The Board, which operated throughout the 1960s, convinced the four main wholesalers of magazines in the province to submit to the board’s decisions regarding the publication of unacceptable material. By 1964 the board had censored 168 magazines. In Ontario, a similar arrangement was reached between the provincial government and civic and religious organizations to form an Obscene Literature Committee in 1960 to censor published materials in the province. Distributors, who feared prosecution for carrying obscene materials, welcomed the board as a way of avoiding expensive legal proceedings and submitted to its decisions; by 1964 the board had recommended the banning of 112 periodicals and 97 pocketbooks. Quebec was the only other province in Canada to possess a censor board for literature and, as with its cousins in Alberta and Ontario, it was operated by private citizens advising dealers with the support of the provincial government. [ Although other provinces had no censor boards, there were still informal mechanisms for censorship in the early 1960s. The Attorney Generals of Saskatchewan and New Brunswick had managed to ban 28 books based on those materials having been banned elsewhere. In Nova Scotia, a magazine publisher removed 80 publications following a threat by a popular gospel preacher, Perry Rockwood, to drag the publisher to court. Newfoundland banned 23 girlie magazines seized from a drugstore in the same period and Prince Edward Island removed 8 magazines following a threat from home and school associations to take court action. Only British Columbia at the time had no plans for banning obscene books].

Provincial films censors were far more prolific during the 1960s than their literature counterparts. The degree of censorship varied considerably by province. By 1963, “the average serious film circulating in Canada would be classified Restricted with a few minor incisions in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia. In Alberta, it would be ‘chopped to pieces’ or banned. Saskatchewan would badly cut the film. Manitoba would merely cut it. And the Maritimes would condemn it outright.” Every province sported its own censorship board for film in the 1960s, although most changed the name to ‘classification’ board. In theory, these new boards focused on rating and not banning films, but in practice films were just as easily kept out to the marketplace. “Classification simply means that films deemed unacceptable must be re-submitted with further cuts until they can be approved by a provincial board. The difference between ‘classification’ and ‘censorship’ is simply that boards which classify films do not provide their own editing services for distributors." (Source: Dean, Censorsed!) Since most of their work was done in secret, films censors could ban pieces without having to explain their actions.

Censorship has long been an issue for human rights activists, even today. During the Second World War, civil liberties groups in Toronto and Vancouver fought against unnecessary restrictions on literature and the press. Since the fifties, human rights groups have fought against censorship in various forms, from films to gay literature and radical newspapers. Among the leading opponents of censorship today include the B.C. Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

Further Reading

• Dominique Clément, “An Exercise in Futility? Regionalism, State Funding and Ideology as Obstacles to the Formation of a National Social Movement Organization in Canada," BC Studies (Summer 2005, No. 146): 63-91. 
• Malcolm Dean, Censored! Only in Canada: The History of Film Censorship- the Scandal Off the Screen (Toronto: Virgo Press, 1981).
• Klaus Petersen and Allan C. Hutchinson, eds., Interpreting Censorship in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999).
• L .A. Powe, “The Georgia Straight and Freedom of Expression in Canada,” Canadian Bar Review (Vol. 48, No.2, 1970): 410-438.