The "foreign" part is key -- this one has a lot more to do with appealing to ethnic minorties, such as Italians, who desperately want more native language programming. I know 'cause I'm married in to a bunch of them.

IMHO. I'm not privy to what the Conservatives are thinking, of course.

My "foreign" includes <i>forrrrrrreign</i>. I want BBC Scotland TV direct and unfiltered. Why isn't that possible?

Because the Feds don't want you to get SNP propaganda and get ideas about independence like Quebec. It's simply keeping hte masses under control.

The bastarrrrrrrrrrrrrds.

I demand unfettered access to Brazilian soap operas.

This is a platform I can get behind.

Who is the shadow Minister of Culture in the party of the Flea?

Guaranteed: if this is implemented, Canadian television production will cease to exist, except as a cheaper alternative for American production companies who know that Winnipeg can double as Chicago, Toronto as New York, and Vancouver as Seattle. So, sure ... Canadian productions ... telling American stories.

Canadian content on radio and TV will disappear, but for established stars.

American culture will dominate more and more, until within a generation or two the border between the two countries becomes a meaningless cartographer's line.

Why can't these people realize that since the 1950s the real defense of Canada has never been in the hands of the military, but rather in the hands of the CBC and the CRTC? The real threat isn't invasion ... it's absorption ...

Why hasn't the ten years of the internet not caused this absorption? What is Canadian content that I need? Another documentary about Trudeau or a second Beachcombers reunion? What percentage of the populations follows this rule of culture? Am I less Canadian because I no longer listen to CBC radio because it is simply awful?

Alan -- your blue side is showing...

Not blue - this is quite in line with autonomy as opposed to libertarianism. I want the right to maximize information coming to me and control information about me. Privacy is much more important to me than property and I fear the blue nannies as much if not more than the red ones.

The Flea is a Canadian blog published in the United States. Soon the blog will have sucked up American pop culture like so much blue fluid in a tampon ad and the process of reverse cultural absorption will be complete! !!

I like to thing of these my computer-based organs, as the globalization of me as well as the me-ification of the globe.

I'm more than happy to see folks maximize the information flooding into their homes - from whatever sources. Support and exposure for Canadian artists and Canadian culture is not antethetical to that goal.

You don't seem to see much worth saving in Canadian Culture. I can understand that. I understand how a generation bombarded with American information from the earliest age can adopt the thought that what is produced there is "good" and what is produced here is "crap" - it's essentially the absorption I referred to earlier, and it's farther along than anyone would care to admit.

I'm pretty sure it's moot anyway. Sooner or later Harper and his Alliance pals will have a go at dismantling the programs and institutions safeguarding our culture. Old codgers like me, who define culture broadly and feel it's worth protecting, are badly outnumbered now. And, as some well-known American singer said, "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know that you got till it's gone?"

I'm with Richler.

I don't know what "Canadian Culture" is if the CRTC is the thing which without it is not.

That is interesting to see the Babs, Mordy and Rick show. Odd to think three of the four shown are dead.

Cultures do disappear (look at Louisiana). But it's possible that they do so gradually, so it's like what are known as sorites in philosophy: A person loses one or two hair. Losing those hairs doesn't make them bald, and maybe they've been losing hairs for some time without becoming bald. On the other hand, if they continue to lose hairs, then eventually they will in fact become bald. But it's very hard to say where the line is between the bald person and the not bald person. This does not mean hair loss won't lead to baldness. I think this is true of cultural assimilation too. Incremental change in a particular direction is not the same as no change or irrelevant change.

I think you would find that after 203 years under US rule, the French language is spoken in Louisiana, a version of the French civil code applies in the courts and the different cultures there are alive and kicking - not assimilated at all. It may not be the majority but what is anymore? I have a Louisiana Acadian flag in the house having made some contact with them in 2002 when I was involved with the Acadian festival in Rustico PEI.

If the only thing maintaining Canadian Culture are the hacks and bureaucrats who are the CTRC the culture is a great deal stronger than I thought.

In actual fact we tell our stories, sing our songs, drink our beer without the CRTC's leave. What it really comes down to is that the Liberal orthodoxy - held in all three anglo parties - cannot imagine a citizenry allowed to watch and listen to shatever it wants.

As for the internet, it sort of snuck up on the Great and the Good. Plus there did not seem to be any money in it.

I think there are more people who speak French in Hungary than in Louisiana. Ninety percent of people in Louisiana speak English only at home (http://www.infoplease.com/us/census/data/louisiana/social.html). Of those who speak other languages at home almost all speak English very well (meaning the other language is for home only). French is not mentioned at all as a second language. So I would say that Louisiana has a French history and that history has marked its institutions and its culture, but it is no longer French in any real way. When my father went to New Orleans he tried very hard to find someone who could speak French. He eventually did find someone, an old guy who dutifully trotted out his very old very rusty French. But he was the last of a long line.

Would he have had better luck in the Cajun area or Lafayette? And is Scotland less Scots given the state of the Gaelic?

And when did the final form of these cultures crystalize in their perfect form? When did Canada's - at the formation of the CRTC?

"Louisiana" is also a great answer/statement to any Quebecois who muse about how things would have been different if the French side won at the Plains of Abraham.

Of course, my point has nothing to do with achieving perfection. It has to do with assimilation vs difference or diversity. Is Louisiana "French?" Has there been no perceptible assimilation? I would say there as been a fairly thorough assimilation. One measure is how much French is spoken because, as it turns out very little French is spoken. So Louisiana may be somewhat different, but people probably watch the same TV shows as in Dallas. It’s true there are little French touches to the culture. But isn’t this just a McDifference? Isn’t this a little like McCulture? You know, like those little Lebanese or Mexican touches that McDonald’s adds to its menu. Isn’t this like a McFajita? Do people in Louisiana identify as Americans? Do they hold most of the same values as other Americans? I would assume most people probably frequent the same chains or work at the same chains as exist in the rest of the US etc. etc. How much more diverse was it fifty years ago?

How is Louisiana different from the parts of Acadian in NS and especially PEI, then?

Which parts? The parts that speak French, or the parts that don't?

The thing is, without looking for Acadians, I have run into them in Canada on PEI (coincidentally) and they speak French. It seems to me that Louisiana, by contrast, is a classic case of assimilation, where even if you're looking for them Acadians are hard to find. In any case, the story of French as a whole in Canada is a lot different.

It's interesting that this is about the only spot on the internet I could find that is discussing this issue: "Give Canadians increased access to international and foreign-language television and radio programming." In the 2004 campaign, the Conservatives promised to relax the "Canadian content" rule for TV & radio. That's a big political "no-no" to talk about, since it gets all the arts community up against the wall. I think the required Canadian content programming has exposed a high percentage of Canadian artists and consisently done so for a number of years. In my limited knowledge, I credit these rules for giving musicians the radio airplay they need to create a long list of solo & band acts (Blue Rodeo, Trag'y Hip, Sam Roberts, Celine Dion and a lot more). For some, the recognition ends in Canada, for others it grows to international fame. Anyone aware of the exact Conservative's plans to get rid of (or alter) "Canadian content" rules?