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From: chapman@fornax.uucp (John Chapman)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Free trade, Canadian culture, $$
Message-ID: <183@fornax.uucp>
Date: Tue, 17-Feb-87 23:35:55 EST
Article-I.D.: fornax.183
Posted: Tue Feb 17 23:35:55 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Feb-87 02:49:34 EST
Distribution: can
Organization: Computing Science Dept, SFU,  Burnaby, B.C. Canada
Lines: 28

Here is some info for those discussing culture & free trade (taken
from today's vancouver sun editorial section).

"There is such a thing as too much free trade with the United States.
A fine example of it is to be found in the Canadian film industry,
which is completely dominated by U.S. entertainment conglomerates.

Trade is so free in the film business that the American companies treat
Canada not as a foreign market but as part of the U.S. market.  And what
a market it is - for American made films.

According to a federal task force report, Canadians spend $1.2Billion
a year on movies, but 90% of it flows out of the country and into the
U.S.  There it is used to finance the production of American films,
which in turn shut Cnaadian films out of Canadian movie theatres,
most of which are integrated with American distribution companies.
Was a circle ever more vicious?

.....<goes on to describe a plan proposed by Flora MacDonald which
might reduce the American market share of distribution to %65> "

You could sure make a lot of high quality, feature length, commercially
successful films in Canada with part of that $1.2Billion.

john


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