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

how to produce a documentary. It was also through this do-it-yourself
process — and my passionate determination to present a comprehensive
account of the subversive aspects of the musicians I featured in my
documentaries — that I made a conscious decision to abandon my perceived
need to produce something “more professional” that might be
considered acceptable to CBC. Rather than compromise my principles
in order to conform to CBC, standards, which, among other things,
severely limited the length of a song that could be played, I decided
instead to enjoy the freedom I had at community radio to spontaneously
flow with my artistic juices, which was, in itself, liberating.
Back then, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Toronto was considered
to be one of the most multicultural cities in the world and CIUT
became a microcosm of that diversity — a vortex where people of
various subcultures could gather together to support one another in
their pursuits. Whether individually, through cross-cultural collaborations
or as a catalyst for marginalized communities’ participation,
we seized the opportunity to acknowledge and validate a wide variety
of voices, political concerns and cultural events. Together, the volunteers
at CIUT were like a multicultural swarm of bees buzzing in and
around the station’s hive; an urban island of rebellious yet celebratory
countercultural ideas, music, arts and investigative journalism. And
most of the time the honey was sweet.
As the current CIUT website declares, from its inception in 1987,
“The next two decades read at times like a weather chart, with highs
(mostly programming) and lows (mostly administrative) reflecting
both the vibrancy and chaos of a growing organization.” 4 Some of the
administrative lows alluded to in this somewhat simplified declaration
were instrumental in motivating the eventual implementation of
drastic measures at the station. However, before those final gusts of
wind in the fateful storms descended upon the station in full force, I
left CIUT — and Canada — to live temporarily in the United States,
where I traversed a new trajectory on the radio spectrum.
The Crossroads
Freedom Soundz • 59
While in the States, I was introduced to, and researched in-depth, what
had grown into a free radio movement of direct action, with hundreds
of low-power stations defying the dictates of unjust laws that denied
them access to the public airwaves. Consequently, in 1997 when I