Psychiatrist's Racist Comments gets Talk Show in Trouble.

The Canadian Radio-television and telecommunications Commission has reprimanded Quebec's top-rated Sunday night talk show Tout le Monde en Parle (All the World in Talk, i.e., Everyone's Talking About It) over racist comments by one of its guests, Psychiatrist Pierre Mailloux. As seen in this report:

Quebec's top-rated Sunday night talk show was reprimanded by the Canadian Radio-television and telecommunications Commission last week over racist comments by one of its guests.

Canada's broadcast regulator found that Pierre (Doc) Mailloux made comments about blacks on the Radio-Canada program Tout le monde en parle that were "denigrating, insulting and offensive."

On the Sept. 25, 2005 program, psychiatrist Mailloux claimed to have studies that "demonstrate that the average intelligence quotient of blacks and American Indians is clearly lower than 100."

The CRTC's reprimand came as Quebec National Assembly committee conducted hearings last week on racism and discrimination affecting the seven per cent or close to 500,000 Quebec citizens who are classified as visible minorities.

Senegal-born professor-turned-humourist Boucar Diouf, who provides a look "at Quebec culture through African eyes" on Radio-Canada's morning radio show in Quebec City, said Mailloux's extreme statements are not an isolated case.

"There are lots of Doc Mailloux in the media," he said. "I don't call them racists. They are I-don't-give-a-damns (je-m'en-fou'istes). Because they do it to increase their ratings."

Diouf appears on Radio-Canada television's La fosse aux Lionnes and does humorous folk-wisdom capsules on the morning radio show.

"My role is to get up on stage to knock down these images," he said.

Racism and discrimination have no place in a responsible society, said Diouf, who has been following the National Assembly hearings.

"Otherwise we will get to the point where they are in France today with people who were born in the country, who grew up in the country and who absolutely do not feel French."

Documents prepared for the hearings suggest overt statements such as Mailloux's are only one of the types of discrimination facing visible minorities.

They note that while unemployment among Quebec blacks, Arabs, Asians and other visible minorities can be as high as 20 per cent, well above the eight-per-cent provincial average, 22 per cent of visible minorities have university degrees, above the 14-per-cent provincial average.

Among black Quebecers, 15 per cent have university degrees, while 32 per cent of Arab Quebecers, the province's fastest-growing visible minority, have university degrees.

But Alexandre Boulerice, of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, said repeated public commitments by ministers in favour of minority hiring do not always translate into jobs.

"There is an old-boys club," he said.

While the Quebec Treasury Board has a goal of 25 per cent visible minorities, aboriginals, anglophones and handicapped, and 14 per cent of recent hirings are from these groups, the average remains near four per cent.