Canada’s broadcast regulator is rewriting the rules that protect Canadian television programs, hoping it can nurture better, more popular shows by reducing the quantity that has to go to air.
To steer producers and broadcasters in that direction, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is drastically reducing the number of hours each day when Canadian programs must be broadcast. And it is scrapping a policy that has protected some niche channels from direct competition.
Instead, the CRTC chose to maintain substantial Canadian-made content in prime-time evening hours, while giving broadcasters new freedom to program the rest of their schedules and concentrate production dollars on fewer, high-quality shows – even if it puts some producers and channels out of business.
That noise in the background is the snap of the buggy whip. I did love the line about "puts some producers and channels out of business." Perhaps including a network that showed far more Canadian content than the CBC. A network for which the sun no longer shines. For those imagining that the CRTC is little more than the bodyguard of Canada's rent seeking broadcasting clique, here's your proof.
Defenders of our Trudeaupian era broadcasting regulations, however, will point to widespread popular support:
A majority of Canadians say the country needs government policies to protect Canadian culture from being subsumed by American and other foreign influences, although 24 per cent of people say there’s no such thing as a unique Canadian culture to begin with, according to a new Angus Reid Institute report published Wednesday.
Alright put it another way: Do you believe the government of Canada should protect warm happy puppies from evil snarling German shepherds? Note the presumption. It is not asked whether it is the responsibility of the government to protect warm happy puppies or whether that is the responsibility of their respective owners. The question really means: Do you want puppies killed by German shepherds?
This isn't to say that millions of Canadians don't sincerely believe that Ottawa must defend our culture against the scourge of American cop shows. They believe it, like they believe in multiculturalism and socialized health care, because it's taught in the schools. Guess who sets the curriculum? The Canadian Great & Good has been convinced since Simcoe waded ashore that Canada is one generation away from becoming an American state.
The thinking is an old fashioned Tory paternalism that gets reinterpreted every generation. The underlying logic has remained unchanged for more than two centuries: Canada is an artificial construct that ordinary Canadians are too stupid to appreciate. They must be coddled and cajoled into maintaining their loyalty to the Canadian nation state.
Go back to that last quote. 24% of Canadians don't believe there is a unique Canadian culture. If you look at the regional numbers there are significant variations. In Atlantic Canada 88% of residents believe there is a unique Canadian culture but in, wait for it, Quebec it's only 63%. So the most loyal part of the country, and the region with the most homogenous Anglophone population, people think Canada is something special. In the most disloyal part of the country, the one threatening to leave, their perception is that Canada is a money dispensing machine paid for by crass Red Necks in Ontario and Alberta.
In these types of surveys we should, as a matter of course, exclude the opinions of Quebec based Francophones. Yes there are some loyal Quebecois and they should always be encouraged but they're a tiny minority in a sea of greed and apathy. For most in La Belle Province their Quebec includes Canada simply because it's a cozy billet in a bankrupt world.
Another group whose views should be taken skeptically is immigrants. If you showed up yesterday what properly formed opinion can you possibly have on Canada beyond that it's cold and rich? Possibly that many of its old stock natives are an amazing pack of well intentioned suckers. The typical immigrant to Toronto doesn't see a distinctive Canadian culture because it doesn't exist in the Imperial Capital. Much of the older parts of the city, at least those areas not yet converted into condos, are ethnic enclaves. Growing up in one of these ethnic enclaves I can well recall spending many a Saturday morning going from store to store with my mother and not hearing a word of English. Even in the chain stores.
Yes there is such a thing as Canadian culture. It's not radically different from American culture. But then again so what? Do you imagine that the cultures of Portugal, Spain and Italy are radically different from one another? Or that the various cultures of Central Europe, language aside, are vast worlds apart in their manner of life and political views? Think of the countries of Latin America. Fiercely patriotic everyone yet, from an outsiders perspective, what is the difference between Chile and Peru?
We do not need the CRTC or the CBC or any successor organizations to save Canada from the fickleness of ordinary Canadians. Nations exist as acts of popular will. If this country was on the verge of surrender to the American colossus there would already be a political faction, as there was in the Newfoundland of the mid-1940s, calling for annexation. There is no Canadian Joey Smallwood. Nothing even close. A quick drive through Detroit, Buffalo or Newark, to say nothing of a few minutes of American news, is enough to reaffirm the loyalty of any Canadians whose faith is wavering.
Canadians can spend their time from dawn to dusk watching American programming, much of it created by ex-pat Canadians, and still feel no less attached to our fair Dominion. Canada is a tougher place than its leaders imagine it to be.
And yet the same mindset that insists on the CRTC for cultural protection also touts the official nullity of multiculturalism, that all cultures are equal and therefore interchangeable.
Posted by: John Chittick | Tuesday, March 17, 2015 at 11:38 AM
This is the beginning of the end, and we can thank technology for it. The vast establishment complex that CanCon was built to nurture is dying. These changes are a partial capitulation to that reality. They are a vain sacrifice to avoid total regulatory irrelevance. I have to commend to CRTC head for having some pragmatism, but it won't save him or the paradigm he champions.
Posted by: Cytotoxic | Tuesday, March 17, 2015 at 09:24 PM