[5] The Board's censorship authority included newsreels, for example footage from a 1937 General Motors strike was banned "to avoid propaganda by either side.
In 1978, it demanded a 38-second cut from a love scene in In Praise of Older Women; director Robert Lantos agreed but at the last minute substituted the uncut version of the film.
The screening was introduced by federal Secretary of State for Canada John Roberts who publicly denounced the board, telling the audience at the Elgin Theatre that “because of the actions of the Ontario censor it is time for an active affirmation that censors shouldn’t tell people what they should or should not see.” In 1982, the board refused to approve Pierre Rissient’s Cinq et la peau; instead of substituting another film, festival organizers protested the ban by posting a sign outside the theatre explaining why the screen was being kept dark.
According to former festival director Helga Stephenson, “Silly old [Ontario Censor Board chairman] Mary Brown filled some theatres with some pretty tame stuff.
And it filled the theatre with the wrong people, because they came looking for nothing but blow jobs, and they found themselves in the middle of a long, hard, boring film waiting for a few seconds of a grainy image showing something that looked vaguely like a male sex organ.”[12] In 1985, the name of the board was changed to the Ontario Film Review Board after the provincial government amended the Theatres Act.
[16] This restructuring of administrative oversight in 2015 was "part of a larger provincial initiative to streamline more than 200 boards and commissions", according to The Toronto Star.
The Board refused to view or rate Not a Love Story on the grounds that OFVAS did not own the film or have any distribution rights.
Approval with time and place restrictions in the case of The Art of Worldly Wisdom and Rameau's Nephew was considered a "valid exercise of the Board's power."
[34][citation needed] Adult movies were given a sticker which denotes: Janet Robinson was the board's most recent Chair.