TV Volume Regulation? How Lazy Are We?

The state may have no place in the bedrooms of the nation, but with Canadians calling for the CRTC to regulate the volume of commercials, apparently it has a place in our living rooms.

Canadians have got to be the laziest bunch of people on this planet. How lazy are we? We’re so shiftless, we can’t even manage a task as simple as using our television remote controls without assistance from the federal government. How else to explain the recent call for the CRTC to regulate the volume of the nation’s TV sets?

I had always thought Canadians were an independent-minded group. I was mistaken. We’re so enamoured of federal intervention, so helpless, we’re demanding that Ottawa lower the volume for us whenever commercials come on the tube.

I’m not denying there’s a problem. As anyone with ears can tell, the cable companies and satellite providers blast the sound each time they air commercials. It’s annoying. You got me there. But is it really the government’s job to deal with every little annoyance in our lives?

Answer me this: between your family and the federal government, who’s better equipped to lower or raise the volume of TV programs in your home?

To me, the answer to that question is self-evident. But hey, maybe I don’t recognize the scope of this problem.

Conservative MP Nina Grewal does, though. She’s the one who threatened to write up a private member’s bill that would compel the broadcast regulator to take action. That’s right – this problem is so grave, Grewal thinks it requires legislation.

“You are listening to a nice program and all of a sudden the noise goes up and boom, and that’s not good for your ears,” Grewal was quoted as saying. “I feel bad for the old people; they have hearing aids and they look for the remote control — and everyone is affected by it. We need peace in the house.”

I must be an odd duck. You see, I’ve always believed it’s a family’s own responsibility to ensure the noise level in their home is under control. It never occurred to me that Ottawa bureaucrats should take on that role.

And the saddest part of all? Grewal is what passes for a Conservative politician in Canada these days. You remember Conservatives, don’t you? They’re the ones who preached individual responsibility and government restraint. It’s enough to make me start suspecting that the Conservatives aren’t even all that conservative.

It was a Liberal prime minister, Pierre Trudeau, who famously said the state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation. Under the Conservatives, the state is inviting itself into the nation’s living rooms, kitchens, basements and anywhere else a TV is plugged in.

So what’s the solution, if not government intervention? How about using your own thumb to hit the mute button? And if you want the big providers to do something, why don’t we all get together to start a boycott? We can tell the telecommunications companies we’ll stop watching until they do something about noisy commercials.

Oh wait, I forgot. That would require Canadians to actually follow through on their threat. We’d have to stop watching TV, which would require resolve, and a small measure of sacrifice in return for a long-term gain.

Sacrifice? Self-denial? We don’t do that stuff in this country anymore.

This article was originally published in the London Free Press.