Andrea Langlois et al - Islands of Resistance - Pirate Radio in Canada

ment in raids when they closed down six radio transmitters that were
operating illegally in Montréal after receiving complaints about interference
with police radio and the broadcasting of obscene programming.
30 For regulators, the overall goal was to shut down any such
pirate or unlicensed stations. One of the primary reasons for the regulation
of these stations was the assumption by regulators that there
was a finite number of North American frequencies to be allocated.
Using the logic of inevitable scarcity, the existence of interference was
treated as being the result of rogue broadcasts rather than the unequal
distribution of access to the airwaves and the relatively large size of
corporate stations, both private and public, in comparison to lowpower
radio, and especially low-watt pirate stations.
Conclusion
Resistance to Regulation • 45
Resistance to regulation by early broadcasters was tolerated by the
Radio Department of the Minister of Marine unless listeners or larger
stations complained about the content of programming or interference.
Prior to the formation of a national network, many deviations
from the expected course were ignored or accepted. The stations that
did not conform to the rules were generally small, low-powered stations
serving their local communities. Even when taken as a whole,
early Canadian radio was characterized by a constant stretching and
testing of the developing regulation, making piracy or transgression
common. Radio practitioners, including pirates as well as many listeners,
challenged what they contended were the artificial limitations
on access afforded by the Canadian regulatory regime and ignored or
resisted their control. In doing so, they rejected the regulator’s idea
that Canadian radio broadcasters and listeners should gratefully
embrace the Canadian hybrid — a public broadcasting system similar
to the BBC that simultaneously reaped the benefits of an advertisersupported
commercial system like that in the United States. Because
of the historical collision of viewpoints on how radio might be used in
a Canadian context, it was only regulated once practice was already
established, which guaranteed that breaking the rules would continue
indefinitely as a feature of Canadian radio.