From: gld@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gary L Dare)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.mexican,soc.culture.usa,soc.culture.canada
Subject: Re: NorthAmerican Free Speech and Trade Agreement.
Date: 20 Aug 92 20:13:38 GMT
Reply-To: gld@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gary L Dare)
Organization: Curious Goods (formerly Louis Vendredi Antiques)

gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>| >Canada, also, does not have free speech in the sense that the
>| >United States does, but I suppose special provisions have been
>| >made to allow the authorities there to shut out what they
>| >don't like.
>
>anne@cs.UAlberta.CA (Anne J.R. Nield) writes:
>| Would you mind elaborating on this?  Especially the first part of the
>| sentence.  I suspect the second part is true no matter where one is
>| living!

Okay, let's interject a few facts that can be easily dug up from a
look at past issues of newspapers and newsmagazines ...

>(4)  In Quebec, last I heard, one may not display a public sign in a 
>language other than French. 

Legally, the prohibition of other-language signs was found to be
illegal by the Supreme Court of Canada, upholding a Cour Supreme
du Quebec ruling earlier, that:

i) it is not illegal to have a sign in any language,

ii) nor is it illegal to insist that a sign be posted in any official
language.

In a western democracy, the first point is in line with the rights of
free expression at all level of government.  The latter was a golden
egg, since that gave Quebec clear right to insist on having French on
signs (NOTE that once, many signs in Quebec were only in English).

I thought the ruling was great!  I believe that signs should at least
have the majority language on it; having the second language is nice
too (and acceptable in a smaller font, even) and an ethnic language
(e.g., Chinese restaurants, Portuguese green groceries) adds spice.
In Quebec, a sign SHOULD have French as much as a sign SHOULD have
English in, say, British Columbia.

The egg was dropped when Bourassa invoked a CONSTITUTIONAL EXEMPTION
to the ruling, kept the French-ONLY outdoor sign law, and offered a
This was meant to appease French bigots and look tough for the Quebec
nationalist element, but it pleased nobody and brought on a misplaced
English backlash against French minorities in their provinces.  So,
this law is not a direct result of laws written upon wording of the
Canadian Constitution but a loophole through that document.  Massive
social sentiment in Quebec turns against any criticism of this law
from outside.  Don't bother. )-;

[IMHO, this disrupted a smooth process of natural sign francization
that was already proceeding in the mid-to-late 1980's when I lived
and worked in Montreal, as the Francophone majority came to grips
with their post-referendum majority-in-Quebec status with enjoyment
of an entrepreneurial boom at the time ... then came Meech Lake.]

>It's not entirely a matter of free speech, but it's related:
>during the Cross (I think) kidnapping affair in 1970, Trudeau
>had hundreds of people picked up and jailed based on nothing
>more than their support (which may have been only speech) for
>Quebecois independence.  This, too, would have been impossible
>in the United States, as then Attorney-General John Mitchell
>sorrowfully noted at the time.

[Quoted out of sequence from the original article.]

The carrying out of those actions were made by provincial Quebec and
civic Montreal powers and their police cronies, merely taking advantage
of the federal War Measures Act against their own enemies (the Quebec
independantistes were quite anti-establishment at the time).  The WMA
was used before, including the internment of Canadians (mostly British-
Columbians) of Japanese ancestry much like on the American west coast.
Things were a little worse, because the firesale riddance of their
property was not reimbursed even at pennies to the dollar like what
happened in the U.S. (e.g., Orange County, CA) -- the latter was due
more to the credit of the Americans in charge of the disposal, so it
is a cultural thing.  Because Canada had fewer laws, there was no way
to stop forced patriation of those Canadians to other parts of Canada
or expulsion to Japan and loss of citizenship (even to Canadian-born)
to a small group of people, whose last living members were monetarily
compensated about 18 months ago by the Canadian government.  This was
all during a time before an explicit Canadian Bill of Rights was put
down by the Diefenbaker and Pearson governments.

>(5) Canadian-content laws for the media certainly limited free speech, 
>although they didn't exactly prohibit any particular utterance.

In this area, the free market for all types of music is reduced to 70%
from 100%, with 30% reserved for Canadian domestic artists.  I would
rather not have this except that music market and immigration dynamics
do not allow for a true free market in the performing arts (where such
freedom would be otherwise ideal).

A similiar philosophy is behind European domestic content initiatives,
upon which the Canadian ones are based.  (And from what I gather, the
Eurocon is not an issue over there ... is it just us Canadians again?)

So why can't Canadian artists just play and get notice like their U.S.
counterparts?  I would prefer it that way, too, but consider that few
if any A&R (Artist and Repertoire) folks even think about going up to
check out the very active scene in Toronto.  There's an open but very
scrutinized border to cross and it is easier to convince someone to go
to Athens, Georgia and check out their scene since you're likely to
find somebody that'll take advantage of stopping off at home, in
Georgia, with a cheaper domestic flight and spending real money. (-;

Another poster pointed out that Canadian acts who approach record
companies in New York or L.A. are referred back to their Canadian
offices, which are often merely distribution warehouses without any
sort of A&R capacity whatsoever.

Any Canadian musician can tell you that if you try to cross that
border with anything more than an acoustic guitar, ostensibly for
personal entertainment, you're stopped dead cold by INS.  Crossing the
border from Ontario to audition for bar gigs in Michigan is not in the
sphere of reality.  Our domestic gigging potential is quite limited,
especially trying to cover an Atlantic-Pacific distance to try and hit
a population just 75% of California's.  The best thing I've seen from
CanCon is that it keeps the best artists around long enough to just
increase their chances of international notice; k.d. lang would have
disappeared into history, and Tom Cochrane would not be taking his
third crack at the U.S. with his domestic hit album (if it weren't a
hit, nobody here would have noticed).  When you think of how many good
artists enjoyed long domestic careers without getting American notice
(Chilliwack, Parachute Club -- there were political content problems
there vis a vis America, and Caribbean-influenced rhythms were still
"foreign" to Americans then), it becomes apparent how CanCon is
necessary to sustain the Canadian voice because things just take
longer up there sometimes.

gld "Free movement for Art!"
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Je me souviens ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gary L. Dare				Elections 1992-93:
> gld@cunixB.cc.columbia.EDU		* Jean Chretien (Canada)
> gld@cunixc.BITNET			* Perot^H^H^H^H^H Elvis! (USA)