The Pros And Cons Of Protecting Canadian Media Interests

According to the Levin Institute (n.d.), the Canadian government has a long and established history of putting measures in place to protect the interests of Canadian print media; as far back as the 1920s, for instance, tariffs were imposed on foreign publications coming into the country. Therefore it is reasonable to expect that the measures taken in the 1990s were done so in the spirit of tradition; that is, continuing to put Canadian media interests first, even if it is at the expense of harming relations with Canada's much stronger Southern neighbour. It would appear from reading the source material, and from the Canadian government's previous documented activities, that the Canadian government does indeed wish to protect its own print industry's interests; indeed, the Canadian Heritage Minister welcomed the tariffs and sanctions as a necessary step to protect Canadian heritage and curb the flow of American expansion (Urquhart, 1999.) Further proof that this was driven by a wish to protect Canadian heritage, rather than allow an unfair advantage to Canadian publishers over the competition, is the fact that only

It could also be argued that the actions taken further harmed Canadian interests in other areas. According to Urquhart (1999), Canadian industrial leaders were urging the government to back down in its stance against foreign magazine publishers for fear of sanctions against Canadian imports that were directly threatened by the USA; however, despite these pleas, the Canadian government refused to acquiesce, only doing so when forced to by a court. So in summary, it appears that this was a short sighted attempt to simply protect domestic interests by blocking competition rather than fostering domestic talent, and posed a serious risk of further damage as a