Canada Magazine Case Study

The trade dispute between the United States and Canada over split run magazines is the focus of my assignment for this unit. I chose this particular case because it seems to showcase the will of the government of Canada to protect what it believes to be a culturally significant domestic industry up against the profits of a foreign company. Rather than repeating the original question, I will simply start each answer with the number corresponding to the question asked in the instructions.

1. The Canadian government was already involved in the protection of the magazine industry by tarrifs on foreign magazines since the 1920 's ("canadian magazine dispute", n.d.). This predates the General Agreement on Tarrifs and Trade (GATT) in 1947 and the

After reading the case, it seems more logical that the Canadian government was pressured to stop protecting it 's market because of the financial interests of the foreign magazine industry. Looking at the complaint filed with the WTO by the United States in 1996, they complained that canada violated GATT Article XI and GATT Article III. ("Summary of the dispute to date", n.d.). This was 3 years after Time Warner attempted to bypass Canada 's import tarrif by electronically transmitting their magazine content from America to a Canadian printer. ("canadian magazine dispute", n.d.)

3. If Canadian magazines constitute only 11% of Canadian magazine sales, that means 89% of magazine sales in Canada are foreign. Statistics for employment in the Canadian magazine indutsry are hard to find, but in 2010, there were 8,500 employees. ("Industry size and economic impact", n.d.) Canada has a proven track record of attempting to protect it 's culture, I feel that 11% is testament to their efforts given the flooding of their market by the United States magazines. Protecting domestic employment could be equally as motivating as protecting

I don 't see what their purchasing habits would be "voting" for or against. It 's simple math, if foreign magazines comprise 89% of what is on the shelf, then they would naturally have a higher percentage of sales. Foreign imports also have a domestic market of their own in which to generate sales, and when you take into consideration that there are over 9 times more people in the United States than Canada ("Comparisons between Canada and the United States", 2013), it isn 't a risky proposition to export a multitude of magazines to Canada.

5. I don 't agree with the premise that Canadian consumers of foreign magazines are subsidizing local publications because of import tarrifs. In this case, I believe an import tarrif on foreign magazines makes it less attractive for the publisher of the import magazine from cutting their prices because they can count on revenue from their own domestic market. I feel the 80% levied against split run magazines is excessive ("canadian magazine dispute", n.d.), but I don 't see why import tarrifs are a bad