Americanization and Canadian Culture

Americanization and Canadian Culture

Gaëtan Tremblay is a professor at the University in Quebec in Montreal. As a concerned Quebecois, He wrote an article which discusses the Americanization of Canada, in particular Quebec. Tremblay seems to have a strong stand point about the future of Quebec. Using statistical and literary evidence, primary and secondary sources, he attempts to support his argument that Quebec is a victim of American cultural colonization. Tremblay fears that Canadian culture is going to disappear as a result of the Canadian-American Free Trade Agreement.

Tremblay started his article with what broadcasting is considered to be in Canada which is “an instrument of production and diffusion that must contribute to the maintenance and development of Canadian culture and its various components”. By this approach and use of words, he planted the idea that broadcasting is a fundamental tool for Canadian culture in his readers’ minds. This is effective because it insures how his readers will perceive broadcasting while reading the rest of his article. He supported this with an extract from the Broadcasting Act which focused on that point. His article started off strong but then weakened with his excessive use of quotations from the Canadian Broadcasting Act and his minimum effort in evaluating the quotes themselves.

After discussing the importance of culture to Canadians he went on to mention how culture is not as important to Americans with his statement “For Americans, in contrast, cultural products are commodities like any other..”. Although this may strengthen his argument, it is also a biased statement since he is not American himself and he stated it like it was a known fact. Following that accusation, he attempted to support his idea of America’s dissolving culture by an exert from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration report which focuseed on the deregulation of their radio broadcasting system. The exert does not directly imply that the United States cares less

about its culture because they are considering deregulation of radio broadcasting. The American Culture may not be threatened by deregulation the same way as the Canadian culture. But since he started his essay by mentioning how broadcasting “must” contribute to the development of Canadian culture, he is implying that the American culture has the same concept. The American culture may not be severely effected by deregulation just as the Canadian culture, so Tremblay’s argument may not be valid. To some readers who did not notice the bias, this argument may be considered very strong and convincing.