43. Trade Law and Canadian Magazines

Published
Sept 17th 1996

Two editorials on Canadian magazines and trade law and the pre-recorded voice of the large media corporation decrees that “more foreign competition for Canadian-content magazines might do what it has done in other sectors: make the Canadian product distinctly better.” (Trade Law and Canada’s magazines - Editorials, September 16-17th).
Officially the foreign magazine penetration of our newsstands outside of Québec is 85%. Unofficially - particularly at the local corner store, bus station or subway kiosk - the presence of Canadian-content magazines on display is more like two or three per cent. Though we don’t often see them, there are at least 300 Canadian magazines more than capable of generating their own competition and consumer choice. In Québec, magazines from all sources have a larger ratio of visibility.
Historically in English Canada there has been lacklustre industrial support for cultural sovereignty in magazine (or film) distribution. In (Howard) Galganovian terms, current Canadian magazine content exists as disallowable signs in English Canadian retail outlets while non-Canadian products are available across all genres of magazine. Might we expect organized citizen-consumers to picket such stores demanding a more equitable presence for Canadian magazines?
To date there has been insufficient political courage available to offset secondary market ‘dumping’ of foreign cultural products with a mix of subsidies and quotas. Why then are we choosing not to abrogate self-injurious trade agreements if, as your editorial claims, our present choices are limited to categories of concessions?
Your editorialists conclude by asking why in the face of other job losses should we protect (domestic) culture? It certainly is hard to protect something that can be so effortlessly invalidated by selective market logic. Will your cumulative disavowal of cultural criteria and local identities only be fully satiated when the Toronto edition of the New York Times or the Daily Telegraph puts the metallic, editorial voice of the Globe and Mail out of business?