Canadian Cultural Protectionism - Broadcasting Standards

Broadcasting Standards

In 1955, with this fear in mind, the government appointed Robert Fowler to chair a Royal Commission that is known as the Fowler Commission. The Fowler Commission reported that the majority of Canadian stations, including the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, used not Canadian material, but American. It was the Commission's belief that a quota system should be enacted to protect Canadian content on the airwaves.

This recommendation, passed in 1956, shaped Canadian media significantly. It affirmed the CBC as Canada's official broadcasting station and, more importantly, it initiated the quota system. In its inception, the quota system said that 45% of all content broadcast on the airwaves must be Canadian in origin. While this number has fluctuated over the years, it has generally required that approximately half of all programming on Canadian airwaves be Canadian in origin. However, Canadian content includes not only arts and drama, but news and sports, and most private broadcast networks skew towards the latter rather than the former, to allow for large quantities of foreign dramas. To the dismay of many Canadians, this leaves more "culturally" oriented Canadian programming off the major-network airwaves.

This reformation of the Canadian airwaves, according to some, did not have the desired impact on Canadians. T. B. Symons, shortly after the Fowler report's installation in Canadian law, released a report entitled "To Know Ourselves". The report looked at Canadian high-school history books and found that while the Winnipeg General Strike went without mention, the books contained two chapters on Abraham Lincoln. The report also looked at Canadian children's general knowledge of their government and most could not identify the Canadian head of state (Queen Elizabeth II) and the basis for Canada's law and founding (the British North America Act 1867).

This cultural protectionism by the Canadian government has raised the hackles of certain companies, specifically Reader's Digest and Time magazines. In 1998, American magazines like Sports Illustrated and Time Magazine successfully pressured the Canadian government under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and threatened a NAFTA lawsuit to stop the outlaw of "split run" magazines; in other words, to allow "Canadian editions" of American magazines, rather than mandating the creation of uniquely Canadian magazines.