Canada Debates U.S. Cultural ‘Invasion’ : Some Fear American TV, Publications May Obscure National Identity

Once it was fear of an American military invasion, then political and economic domination. Now, for many Canadians, the great American threat comes in the forms of “Dallas,” “Dynasty” and Time magazine.

This perceived danger of a country watching only American soap operas on television and reading nothing but slick U.S. publications is an old controversy here, but it has been revived by current efforts to negotiate a new and more liberal U.S.-Canadian trade agreement.

That a trade pact is usually a strictly economic matter seems obvious only to American negotiators, for Canada is undergoing a loud and growing argument over whether a free trade arrangement with the giant to the south means the smothering of a distinct Canadian culture, even an end to a separate national identity.

In fact, in the midst of the public debate that has developed in Parliament and in the press around the country, the economic consequences of the negotiations have almost been lost sight of, and almost every argument is cast in terms of culture and related industries.

Few Facts Used

Also, with nearly everyone operating essentially on emotion, the debate has taken on the character of two children in a classic “ ‘tis-’tain’t” argument.

Neither side has marshaled many facts to bolster its position, so the opponents of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney just say repeatedly that freer trade will damage Canada’s culture. Mulroney and his government ministers maintain that it will not. And there is no shortage of sneering, pompous posing or arm-waving.

Besides the often-barren nature of the debate, the controversy also has drawn to the surface some particularly Canadian characteristics and perceptions often overlooked by Americans, who frequently see their neighbors as northern extensions of themselves with like values and outlooks.

Those who assume that Canada is simply Michigan North would be shocked to hear Canadian labor leader Dennis McDermott say that the United States is a dirty, violence-prone society with inferior health and welfare systems.

Nor would they like it when Mel Hurtig, a prominent Edmonton publisher, says, “We don’t want the violence of your society; we don’t want the pornography of your society, and we don’t want the American type of nationalism” with its aggressive economic and foreign policies.

Even John Turner, the former prime minister and current leader of the main opposition Liberal Party, who once had a decidely pro-U.S. view, has frequently adopted an anti-American stance and has implied that Mulroney is prepared to betray Canada to a system with inferior cultural values.

-------------------------------------------------------------------Critics say nearly 80% of Canada’s book sales go to foreign publishers, firms that they complain have neglected Canadian writers.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

The debate also reveals a lack of confidence in the ability of Canadian negotiators to stand up to their American counterparts as well as the power of Canada’s culture to resist American influences, let alone compete well enough to penetrate the U.S. cultural market.

For instance, a cartoon published last June with a Toronto Star series on the effects of free trade showed a wimpish-looking Canadian playing poker with an American card shark. The Canadian is holding a bad hand and all the chips are in front of the American.

At the same time and somewhat ironically, the arguing has disclosed what could be perceived as a double standard: a demand by opponents of free trade that Canada protect its culture by restricting American penetration while expecting that Canadians artists, entertainers, writers and their products be allowed free access across the border.

Even External Affairs Minister Joe Clark, the government’s primary spokesman for reaching a trade agreement, showed signs of this attitude recently. He matched one of his constant assurances that Canada’s cultural integrity will not be negotiated away by saying he wants a new agreement that would open American movie theaters to more Canadian films--even though there are no legal limitations to their distribution in the United States.

He even argued that the United States should ease immigration rules on access by Canadian artists at a time when the U.S. movie, television and music industries are brimming with such Canadian performers as William Shatner, Lorne Greene, Rich Little, Michael J. Fox, John Candy, David Steinberg, Kate Nelligan, Norman Jewison, most of the new cast of “Saturday Night Live,” Paul Shaffer, Martin Short, Anne Murray, Joni Mitchell and a host of rock singers.

And even when Canadian critics and nationalists complain that trashy American productions threaten to drown the nation’s indigenous culture, they speak with pride about the American acceptance of “Night Heat,” a Canadian television crime show that has as high a quotient of gun battles as any U.S. cops-and-robbers show.

‘Dallas’ Ratings High

They also neglect to point out that the Canadian Broadcasting Co.’s television network paid millions of dollars this season to carry the television series “Dallas” and dozens of other American shows, many of which command as high ratings here as they do south of the border.

The most recent focus for the concern has been on publishing, and that debate illustrates yet another irony as well as a definite economic self-interest by the critics of a new trade agreement.

Last month, reports surfaced that Time magazine was planning to establish a Canadian edition by forming a joint publishing agreement with a Canadian firm, which would have 75% ownership of the company, as required by Canadian law.

Immediate roars of dissent surfaced, recalling a bitter debate of the 1970s when Time was forced to close its Canadian operation. At that time, the Canadian plan was to transform a general-interest publication called Maclean’s into a Canadian weekly news magazine that, presumably, would give the nation the full Canadian coverage it was supposedly not getting from the U.S.-dominated Time.

Fear Competition

This time, even though the prospective new edition of Time would have met the legal demands that once drove the magazine out of the country, the opponents, led by Maclean’s, objected, saying that the Canadian magazine could not survive with competition, even if Canadian-owned.

Lost in the argument was the view of many press critics that Maclean’s is little more than a pale imitation of American news magazines, with only six domestic bureaus, a tiny staff and an over-reliance on part-time stringers.

In any event, Time has withdrawn from the arrangement, leaving Maclean’s with its monopoly intact.

Another flap concerns the sale of the U.S.-owned publisher Prentice Hall to Gulf & Western Industries Inc., another American firm, because it would mean the transfer of Prentice Hall of Canada Ltd. to Gulf & Western.

Even though it is the sale of one American company to another, critics here complained that the sale would continue the overwhelming dominance of Canadian book publishing by foreign firms, particularly American companies, a situation they have been working to change for years. They pointed out that nearly 80% of Canada’s $1.1 billion in yearly book sales goes to foreign firms, firms that they say have neglected Canadian writers, publishing only 15% of the works of local authors.

Despite its plans for free trade and a policy to encourage new American investment, the Mulroney government gave in to the complaints and issued new, retroactive regulations requiring Gulf & Western to sell its controlling interest in Prentice Hall Canada to Canadian owners, not at market value but at “a fair price.”

Gulf & Western has threatened to close down its Prentice Hall Canadian subsidiary rather than submit to the new regulations, and publishing sources in Toronto acknowledge that Canadian firms are unlikely to fill the resulting vacuum, leaving Canadians with fewer book titles.

The Mulroney policy regarding publishing indicates the political sensitivity of Canada’s cultural identity, a sensitivity that has forced the government to roll back on other related matters, particularly in light of the overall free-trade controversy.

Although government experts had recommended that cultural matters be included in the talks with the United States, and Clark himself had told Parliament that publishing, films and some other aspects of the “culture industry” would be on the table, the external affairs minister recently reversed that plan.

He told an audience in New York and repeated later to reporters that the Canadian government’s subsidies of its arts and cultural industries, a particular target of U.S. trade officials, would not be negotiated and neither would the regulations dealing with publishing. The first issue he said, is a strictly internal matter and the second is unrelated to trade talks.