Canada

Overall notes; being anxious to be overtaken by American culture, the inferiority complex has warn off and to define what being “Canadian” is beyond it being “not American/British”.


Free Trade Agreement 1988 between Canada (Brian Mulroney) and USA (Reagan). Attempt to establish for about two years, Canadians went from supporting it to disliking it. Still don’t know if this worked, have to wait for a century to see results of the Agreement.


Sovereignty /ˈsɒvr(ɪ)nti/ and USA;

  • country is “culturally sovereign” if it can make its own decisions about creating, distributing and preserving its culture

  • Technology makes culture spread instantly and hard to control, so protecting culture is now a global issue

  • Canadian culture has matured, the old inferiority complex has faded, and there is new respect for earlier generations of artists

Trade Agreement (Culture became part of trade politics in the 1980s, when free trade with the US raised fears that subsidies, content rules and tax credits would be treated as unfair trade practices)

  • The Free Trade Agreement (1988) and NAFTA included cultural exemptions, but also a clause letting the US retaliate against new Canadian cultural measures

  • In 1995, the government named culture the third pillar of foreign policy. After the MAI talks collapsed in 1998, Canada helped create the International Network on Cultural Policy

  • culture is not a commodity like wheat or cars and needs its own international rules. A 1999 policy paper favoured new international agreements on cultural diversity

Nationalism v. Internationalism

  • Some artists have always distrusted cultural nationalism. The Painters Eleven and Jack Bush wanted to be judged by world standards, not as “Canadian” artists. Wanting to be “just artists”

  • Irony - Canadians who left for foreign cities were criticized for it, but many shared that same drive to compete with the best

Canadians abroad

  • Today Canada claims anyone born there who finds fame abroad, such as Jim Carrey, Shania Twain, Mike Myers and architect Frank Gehry.

  • Unlike earlier émigrés, these artists can succeed worldwide without being treated as outsiders.

Television

  • Regulation (CRTC content rules, cable and satellite funding requirements) combined with domestic talent produced many successful shows.

  • many shows found international audiences (This Hour has 22 minutes)

Culture as business (money and success, how to measure success etc)

  • Canadians spent $22.8 billion on cultural goods in 2003, far more than governments spent on the arts, and government support dropped slightly

  • Business-minded arts leaders like Duncan Low clash with artists like Angus Ferguson, who say success cannot be measured in money

  • Contradiction; abroad, the government says culture is not a commodity, but at home it increasingly treats culture as a business

  • Canada imports nearly twice as much culture as it exports. Domestic content in cinemas is tiny, at 0.7% for English-language films in 2003

Funding inequalities

  • Funding is uneven across regions. Ontario and Quebec get the most Canada Council money, and Quebec gets $297 per capita against Alberta’s $160.

  • Funding for culture is still contentious, as shown by the 2006 Ontario budget controversy over arts versus farmers.

Revival of Aboriginal art and culture

  • Renewed interest in Indigenous art

  • The film Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner) (2001), the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) and Nunavut’s arts programs support Indigenous creators.

  • Bill Reid revived northwest coast art. The Inuit Canadian Arctic Producers and the Simon Charlie Society link art to economic opportunity.

  • Challenges remain. Indigenous artists earn about 30% less than non-Indigenous artists.

  • There is growing recognition that “collecting” Indigenous art was often theft, and many pieces are now being returned. The National Gallery only held its first solo show by an Aboriginal artist in 2006.

Revivals of old culture

  • Folk songs are being rediscovered

  • Old books are being republished, such as Wacousta, and Lescarbot’s 1606 play Le Théâtre de Neptune is being restaged

Controversies over canonization and taste

  • The New Canadian Library, meant to build a canon, chose titles largely for sales and low rights costs, not literary merit.

  • Critics like Philip Marchand have attacked the reverence for writers like Atwood, Davies and Laurence, echoing a 1889 warning against indiscriminate praise of Canadian work.


Class notes 19.10.2026; Colonial mentality (inferiority complex), imperial culture,

Canadian society; Aboriginal Canadians (First nations, Inuit, Metis (mixed Indigenous people and French Catholic settlers)), Founding Nations (French, English, Irish…), Hyphenated Canadians (immigrants) - - - Thus, colonial mentalities differ.


The Bay of Meadows - Viking (Norse settlers, a village) came in first, then French, then Brits.


Defensive humour strategy, get away with saying something without actually saying it. Passive aggressive culture, politely telling people off.

National culture, connections to British culture.

Having to give out grants to make artists stay in Canada instead of leaving for USA since it provides more profit. Than there is nothing left in Canada. However, also immigrant artists that immigrate to Canada are claimed as “Canadian” artists.