By RICHARD BLACKWELL,TU THANH HA and SIMON TUCK

The federal broadcast regulator's decision to cancel the licence of Quebec City radio station CHOI-FM unleashed a heated debate yesterday, as politicians, journalists and broadcasters weighed in on the ruling's impact on free expression.

Critics including Conservative Leader Stephen Harper slammed the decision, which would take the French-language station off the air, as heavy-handed. Others applauded it as a hopeful sign the regulator is ready to get tough on abusive talk on the airwaves.

CHOI lost its licence because of a pattern of offensive comments by its morning-show hosts and because it did not clean up its act after several warnings.

Charles Dalfen, chairman of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, defended the CRTC's actions by saying that the right to freedom of expression is not absolute.

“It's a matter of balancing it against equal and opposite rights,” he said in an interview. “This is not about controversial comments. It is about abusive comments.”

Although debate about what constitutes censorship may be legitimate, he said, in this case there is no question that the station breached the rules. “Wherever the line is, this licensee is way over it.”

The reaction to the ruling was most intense in Quebec City, where CHOI began a campaign to rally public support.

Employees fanned out into shopping-mall parking lots, handing out bumper stickers emblazoned with CHOI's logo and the word “Freedom.”

The station plans to seek an injunction to suspend the decision, to take effect when its licence expires on Aug. 31. At that point, CHOI plans to ask the Federal Court to overturn the CRTC ruling.

Parent company Genex Communications Inc. has retained National, one of Quebec's most prominent public-relations firms, to lobby on its behalf. And Genex CEO Patrice Demers said he would petition the federal cabinet.

In Ottawa, Mr. Harper issued a news release saying he is concerned about the CRTC decision.

The release points to the freedom-of-speech provisions in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and says that Mr. Harper's concern echoes that of groups such as the Quebec Press Council, the Quebec Federation of Professional Journalists and the Action Démocratique du Québec.

Christiane Gagnon, heritage critic for the Bloc Québécois, said there is enough blame for both sides.

The CRTC's punishment is very severe, the Quebec City MP said, though the radio station left the commission little choice; closing the station will hurt a young business and cause job losses.

Karl Belanger, press secretary for NDP Leader Jack Layton, said many Quebec City residents wonder whether an unelected body such as the CRTC should have the power to close a radio station.There's heavy pressure on the CRTC to find a way to keep the station on the air, Ms. Gagnon said. “The people who are the addicts of CHOI-FM are very upset.”

Many commentators in Quebec said the decision is too harsh, no matter how crude the behaviour of the station's hosts. There was, however, little sympathy for the radio hosts who often skewered those same opinion-makers.

“So that the majority can express itself, we have to give freedom of speech to the imbeciles,” the daily La Presse said in an editorial, adding that “it's not up to the CRTC to tell Canadians what they have the right to watch or listen to.”

Franco Nuovo, a columnist at Le Journal de Montréal who had been threatened on air by Mr. Fillion, wrote that he could not help feeling satisfaction at his foe's misfortune. However, he argued for Mr. Fillion's rights. “He is the guilty one that we have to let go to save the life of a thousand innocents.”

Broadcast-industry players said the CRTC had no choice but to yank the CHOI licence because its owners ignored warnings repeatedly and flouted commission rulings.

“If the CRTC didn't act on this case, which was so blatant, it would have set a very poor precedent for the future,” said John Hayes, president of the radio division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Mr. Dalfen said that in seven years, the CRTC received 97 complaints about CHOI.

With a report from Patrick Brethour