>>>>>>>>Montreal's "The Box", e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a-nG4QLdFs&NR=1
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>With Canadian content rules they got a lot of play up here - probably bring back a lot of memories for most Canucks < g >
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Don't you love it when the government decides that you're too stupid to know what you like so they pick it for you?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I hope that your reply is not only against "The Box".
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Without those laws How long do you think it would take for american music to invade the radio stations?
>>>>>
>>>>>Oho! A shot across the bow! Let me just say we are deeply sorry for any American music you have been forced to listen to (LOL).
>>>>>
>>>>>More seriously, can you name a popular style of music in which the best of it has not been American? OK, classical. That's it.
>>>>
>>>>Oops sorry Mike. My reply was not meant as an anti-American but as pro-Canadian.
>>>>
>>>>Those are needed to protect our culture. Anyways for Quebec culture at least. Not sure for the rest of Canada. I mean because of our french heritage and because we're a small group of frenchies surrounded in a sea of english aliens <s> if we didn't have those laws then I'm afraid that we'd become an english province rather fast.
>>>
>>>I disagree with the whole concept. I'm not just talking about Quebec vs the rest of Canada either. I'm talking about the whole thing. Any culture that has to build walls around itself and can't survive just based on it's relevance to it's people, maybe doesn't deserve to survive.
>>>
>>>>You guys (USA) don't have to worry about that yet. I mean yet because eventually Wall-Mart could only carry chinese magazines. It'll be a part of the deal. Chinese will say if you still want our crap you'll have to take our Magazines and cds ... Oh and by the way we don't want to see english magazines in Wall-Mart. How do you feel about being forced to learn Mandarin in the coming year because if you don't you'll find it very hard to get basic informations.
>>>
>>>Now you're really reaching into the area of reductio ad absurdum.
>>
>>One example in another area. Communications. TV, newspapers, radios. At one time there were many alternatives. Now they're all controlled by a handfull of major corporations. Do you think that you really have better variety of informations that you had 10 years ago. At least there's the CRTC that controls (or tries to control) concentration. Do you think that they also should let it go in that department?
>
>The CRTC's original mandate was simply to make sure that communication bands didn't overlap. They had licensing power so that two stations couldn't try to use the same frequencies. Then they discovered that, having licensing power meant they could start dictating our tastes. Personally, I'd say get them back to their original mandate and leave the rest alone.
>
>Unfortunately, what these people would really love is to have our culture completely stagnate and never change. Sorry, won't happen. - even with a fence. They seem to feel that Canadian culture consists of whatever their grandparents parents remember.
>
>Yes! Let us please have more CBC documentaries on the life of the otter.
>
>They are trying to regulate culture and it just won't work. Are they seriously going to kid themselves into believing that American culture hasn't influence Canadian culture just because they insist that there must be x number of Canadians in a movie for it to count? It's ridiculous. I find it unfortunate that culture itself seems to try so desperately to flow to the lowest level, but that's life. These kinds of choices should be left to the people themselves, and not to a bunch of bureaucrats who have no idea what my tastes are and couldn't care less.

I agree with many things you said. But I still think that there should be some kind of protection. This is a complex topic. I don't think that we really have much impact on the choice of what's playing on the radio for instance. If there are no laws regulating what's playing on the radio I'm afraid we'll only hear "Madonna, Beyonce..." in short what the big corporations decide what we should listen to.

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