Us Canadian Magazine Dispute

1. To what extent do you think the U.S.-Canadian magazine dispute was motivated by genuine desires to protect Canadian culture?

I think that these protectionisms often are risen not based on a genuine desire to protect anyone’s culture per se, but to serve those who have power: local or global rich people with their interests. I don’t think that by creating impediments on magazines going into a country would do much on “protecting the local culture”.

There are some questions I would like to raise about this issue here: How about the music industry? Isn’t music also a mean that can transform one’s culture? The simple answer to that question is, of course! How about movies? Aren’t movies means that help change culture and the way people

We cannot ignore the fact that any different thought, doctrine, philosophy, political view, etc. has the potential to change, to some extent, someone’s culture and way to view things. But I don’t think that magazines by themselves will have the potential to change a countries way how to think, or the culture itself, in a substantial manner. There are a lot of other factors involved that needs to be put into consideration so a massive change could occur in a countries culture. I mention some other factors that could affect way more on a scale than

When a government gets inside of individual’s lives and try to dictate what one should and what one should not do, citizens can be aware that they are in front of a potential tyrannical authority. Any citizen of any country has the right to buy from anywhere they want. If a government is really interested in preserving its own culture, I think the way to do is to promote the local culture and not impeding its citizens from buy outside of the country’s border. It is to recognize the true value of its own people and not getting in their way dictation what they must do.

5. Is it fair to levy extra taxes against foreign magazines—which have the effect of forcing Canadian purchasers of foreign magazines to subsidize local publications?

It is fair to tax a little more any product from another country. The problem happens when some governments, motivated by political partisanship, pressure from big corporations and big businesses, and for the desire to take advantage of these products, raise these taxes to an exorbitant measure. Politics, big businesses, and the desire to take advantage of others seems to be main factors that drive governments, and that could have a tremendous disadvantage impact to local people’s lives.

6. If you were the Canadian government, trying to protect the domestic magazine market, what kind of criteria would you establish to distinguish between a split-run