W5 On Bended Kness [For Telling The Truth]

W5 came under controversy during the 1970s when it aired a feature called "Campus Giveaways" that used incorrect statistics to conclude that foreign students were eroding white Canadians' opportunities for a secondary education and benefitting from public universities funded by Canadian taxpayers, without exploring the statement's backgrounds. The host of the program stated:

... there are so many oriental foreign students that they rarely mix with their Canadian classmates. It's as if there are two campuses at Canadian universities—foreign and domestic. Certainly this Chinese theatre attracts a full house, but not one Canadian student attended.¹

It has been alleged that the feature was specifically directed to form a negative view towards Chinese and Chinese Canadians. As well, it did not determine if the people filmed in that particular episode were actually Chinese or Chinese Canadian. After protests by Chinese Canadians, including Dr. Joseph Wong (later founder of the Yee Hong Centre for Geriatric Care), W5 retracted this statement and apologised. The president of CTV of the time, Murray Chercover, issued the following statement on April 16, 1980:

... our critics—particularly Chinese Canadians and the universities—criticized the program as racist; they were right.... We share the dismay of our critics that this occurred. We sincerely apologize for the fact that Chinese Canadians were depicted as foreigners and for whatever distress this stereotyping may have caused them in the context of our multicultural society.²

This event also led to the formation of the Chinese Canadian National Council in order to form a stronger voice representing Chinese Canadians nationwide.