Cash strapped teen

Pining for cash

In May 2001, Prime Minis ter Jean Chretien and Heritage Minister Sheila Copps held a press conference to announce that Canada's cultural community was getting a $560 million boost from the government. The cultural community cheered the move, saying it was long overdue, given that federal funding for the arts had been dropping for almost a decade. The head of the Canadian Conference of the Arts in Ottawa said the areas that suffered most as a result were the not-for-profit sections of the arts, museums, galleries, visual arts, and crafts. During the 1990s, federal spending focussed more on culture industries, including broadcasting, film and video production, book and periodical publishing, and sound recording.

But to many, the actual dollar amount of the cash injection, while welcome, was less important than the symbolism: that culture is not a luxury but an integral part of civil society. This came as a refreshing change after a decade of major cuts in funding to the CBC and further budget slashing that forced ballets and symphonies to lay off artists.

Globe and Mail columnist Rick Salutin goes back to the 1980s, pointing out that the Conservative government of Brian Mulroney learned through polling that "the main obstacle to support for [Canada's first freetrade deal [FTA] with the United States] was fear over loss of Canadian sovereignty; and culture, through its connection to a sense of identity, had become a symbol of sovereignty." So, cultural industries were exempted from the FTA, even though a retaliation clause made the exemption worthless. The point was, Mr. Salutin says, that art and culture are resistant to being seen as commodities that can be bought and sold. He adds that, "There is a new generation of people who don't want their lives reduced to shopping; and a skepticism about the reduction of all things to market and profit - which brings us back to culture, the epitome of non-reducibility."

So, as far as arts funding is concerned now, Canada has taken what Ray Conlogue, senior arts writer at The Globe and Mail, describes as "a middle path between Europe's high level of public support and the United States' mix of private patronage and free market." Mr. Conlogue uses France as an example of a country that has successfully protected its cultural identity. The French view too is that culture is not a commodity, and they refuse to place it in any trade agreement. When the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) was negotiated in the early 1990s, the French fought to exclude film, TV, and software: it was agreed that signatory countries can opt out of the audiovisual clause and France did. All movie tickets in France include a surcharge, which goes into domestic French film production. So, while U.S. films account for 70% of French box office receipts, they actually subsidize French productions. In television, a $100 annual licence fee on TV sets finances three public TV networks and thwarts U.S. broadcasters trying to enlarge their 55% share of Europe's market.

The publishing business has its own set of problems. While public support programs have built a national literature to be proud of, Canada's domestic publishing industry is in poor shape. One of its big drawbacks is what some describe as the peculiar tradition of allowing booksellers to send back unsold books for a credit a year or longer after taking delivery. Few retailers have the luxury of returning unsold goods. The practice goes back to the 1930s when publishers were struggling during the Depression, so they agreed to take back unsold goods in order to encourage cautious retailers to stock more books in their stores. It's part of the reason the book trade is often financially strapped, particularly when a huge retailer such as Chapters sends back mountains of unsold inventory. Such unpredictable returns, along with delayed payments, have caused major cuts in profit for the book publishing industry. Industry associations and publishers estimate that Chapters returned more than $80 million worth of books in 2000, based on their wholesale price twice the typical annual rate.

Clearly the book trade is changing dramatically. There's little room for small publishers headed by gracious, eloquent, literary executives. Five media conglomerates now control 80% of American book sales, and they look for big profits in a business that has never been known as one that creates huge riches. It's expected the result will be more mergers and acquisitions and a tendency to publish only best sellers.

Some believe that Canada, thanks to a complex system of regulations and economic support, has managed to preserve its own literary culture to the point that it's become a model for other countries wishing to do the same. Sandra Martin explains in an article in The Globe and Mail in November 2000 that many of the rules governing the Canadian publishing industry came about in the seventies and eighties "to thwart the territorial aggression of American publishing companies which had established branch-plant operations in Canada. Generally speaking, Canadian-owned [publishing] houses cannot sell more than a 25% interest in their companies to foreign investors."

And yes, the federal government supports writers, literary festivals, small magazines, and publishers, with about $18 million annually through the Canada Council. In addition, it offers more than $30 million a year in industrial and marketing support to publishers through the Department of Canadian Heritage.

(In June 2001, Heritage Canada pulled together a $28 million assistance package for the industry, spread over three years, to help bookstores set up a book tracking system, which would limit returns and keep booksellers in business.)

Advocates of government support argue that this money is offset by the tax revenues the government receives from the GST on books.

But, even with the support the industry is struggling financially and is concerned about competing for authors against vast global publishing empires, which can offer huge money advances.

Canada's once-thriving children's book publishing industry is falling on hard times too, and is having to "de-Canadianize" its titles to appeal to the American market. Many publishers in this field say domestic sales have fallen by as much as 35% over the last few years as superstore sales soften and cash-strapped libraries and schools cut back on their spending.

To make up for their losses, publishers have to export more, with the result that the Canadian flavour of kids' literature is being lost. For instance, according to a recent newspaper report, an upcoming collection of essays, called Nerves Out Loud Critical Moments in the lives of Seven Teen Girls, edited by Susan Musgrave, will leave out Vancouver as one of the settings to help give it more universal appeal. Another publisher changed the title Kids Cottage Games Book to Kids Summer Games Book because Americans don't refer to vacation properties as cottages. With as much as 60% or 70% of sales going to the U.S., the pressure is on even to switch to American spelling, from colour to color, for example.

Significantly, American publishers selling their titles in Canada do not make location or spelling changes to accommodate Canadian taste.

And, remember Joe Canadian?

"I'm not a lumberjack or a fur trader. I speak English and French, not American. And I pronounce it `about,' not 'aboot!' Canada is the second largest land mass, the first nation of hockey, and the best part of North America! My name is Joe, and I...am...CANADIAN!"

It was hard to escape the famous beer commercial rant for a while. It struck a chord in Canadians who were fed up with Americans' lack of knowledge or interest in their neighbour.

In January 2001, Jeff Douglas, the actor who played Joe Canadian, moved to Hollywood.

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES:

1. One writer suggested that `most Canadians believe that reading is for nerds, and wouldn't be caught dead in a museum, unless it's the Hockey Hall of Fame." Discuss this comment.

2. In December 2000, the World Summit on the Arts and Culture was held at the Chateau Laurier Hotel in Ottawa. Arts administrators from more than 50 countries attended the conference. Report on the issues that were discussed

Websites

Canadian Publishers' Council - http://www. pubcouncil.ca/

Canadian Conference of the Arts -,http://www.ccarts.ca/ eng/home-e.htm

Heritage Canada - http:// www.pch.gc.ca/