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As Canadian as Apple PieAuthor(s): Douglas McGraySource: Foreign Policy, No. 121 (Nov. - Dec., 2000), pp. 102-103Published by: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLCStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1149630 .
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Global Newsstand
icans believed (erroneously) was car- rying precursors for chemical weapons to Iran.
Fewsmith contends that contin- ued pressure against China could backfire, with consequences for the entire world. He believes the Unit- ed States need not "compromise its principles," but rather should be smarter about the tools it employs to nudge China toward democracy
and open markets. For him, Chi- nese entry into the WTO is precise- ly such a tool, an example of how "the United States can exert leverage to move China in directions that are compatible both with its own long-term interests and with inte- grating China into the global order as a normal nation."
Perhaps. But during the 1990s, U.S. trade relations have often been
painful, acrimonious affairs, and already, spats over China's place in the WTO have probably contributed to the burgeoning anti-Americanism in China that Fewsmith cites. Per- haps it is time for Washington to go one step further-to accept compro- mise on some principles in the short- term and expect that China will change for the better in the long- term as a result. [H'
As Canadian
as Apple Pie By Douglas McGray
0 The International Journal of Communications Law and Policy, www.ijclp.org, Summer 2000
f you hold Canada to your ear, you can hear the ocean," quipped the Canadian play-
wright John Gray. But bureaucrats in Ottawa hear something else. They hear a few thousand Holly- wood blockbusters, Orlando boy bands, and U.S. television shows.
What to do? Canada could act like France and find national pride in weird cultural minutiae-like Toronto's recent world Monopoly championship, which featured an all new Canadian version of the game, including game pieces such as a moose, a sled, and a hockey player. It could ditch the gimpy Canadian dollar and elect repre- sentatives to Washington, as more than half of the Canadians polled in a recent survey expect. Or it could try to find new ways to help its cultural industries compete.
Glenn A. Gottselig, a legal consultant with the Organization of American States, surveys Canada's cul- tural-protection tac- tics in the Interna- tional Journal of
Communications Law and Policy, a joint online project of the Universi- ty of Munich, the University of War- wick, Oxford University, and Yale University. After sorting out the dif- ferences between cultural industries and the arts (the former, exportable
cn 0
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0
Turning their backs on U.S. culture
products like books and movies, are subject to most free-trade agree- ments, while the latter, high-culture money losers such as theater or dance troupes, are exempt), Gottselig profiles Canadian policy toward three industries: television, films and videos, and magazines.
Ottawa sets a quota on the min- imum number of hours that Cana- dian networks must broadcast Canadian programs. But Gottselig cites a Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) study claiming that network television still "does
not provide enough of the programming that defines Canadian culture and values," particularly during prime time. The CBC argues that the gov- ernment should decrease quo- tas and shift its efforts to sub- sidizing a few marquee programs, while encouraging networks to establish U.S.- style "constellations" of chan- nels and multimedia services to capitalize on economies of scale in distribution and promotion-an approach Gottselig finds sensible.
Canada's film industry is worse off. Canadian films flop at the box office, Gottselig writes, "despite decades of subsidization." Canada's Feature Film Advi- sory Committee cites only 18
Douglas McGray is an associate editor of FOREIGN POLICY magazine.
102 FOREIGN POLICY
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films in Canada's history that have "earned international acclaim and box office success." (And to give you an idea of what counts as box office success, Thirty-Two Short Films about Glenn Gould and Crash both make the list.) In response, last year the Ministry of Canadian Heritage proposed the creation of a $150-million fund for movie studios, which would make the federal government Canada's largest film producer.
Efforts to protect the Canadian magazine business have been the most controversial, with the United States going before the World Trade Organizati6n (WTO) to protest Canada's discretionary postal rates and high taxation on advertising revenue for foreign titles. Acrimony still lingers over so-called split runs, Canadian editions of big-budget American magazines-almost iden- tical to the American editions except for their Canadian ads-that com- pete with domestic magazines for corporate love.
Gottselig predicts, however, that Canada's defensive efforts will not survive. The General Agreement on Trade in Services bars Canadian tele- vision's quota system; Ottawa has simply stalled on negotiating a schedule for bringing the industry in line. Furthermore, although domestic subsidies tend to be "the least offensive forms of interference that countries take in order to pro- tect domestic industries," there is a "definite trend" among wTo nations toward cracking down on all kinds of government favoritism. And as Gottselig notes, "With many of
[Canada's] cultural industries intent on exporting their products, their industrial significance may be taking precedence over their cultural nature." If the Canadian government manages to buy international com- petitiveness, other WTO members will almost certainly object. WI
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