Canadian Culture In A Globalized World

Since the first trade deal with the US in 1987, Canada has insisted on a "cultural exemption" to ensure that governments were free to protect Canadian culture and to restrict foreign ownership and limit foreign content in the media. Negotiators and government ministers considered the cultural exemption key to reassuring Canadians that the deal did not undermine our cultural sovereignty. In every trade deal since, culture has been a contentious issue. Media giants and foreign governments have pushed for unlimited access to Canada. Ottawa has worked with cultural industries to maintain the cultural exemption. Garry Neil has been close to every one of these negotiations, and has been a key advisor to cultural groups on trade deals. He has been part of the international initiative to assert the importance of cultural diversity in the world, and to create effective measures to guarantee it. This book reflects his experience trying to ensure that the reality matches the rhetoric when it comes to culture. As he sees it, in spite of the claims, Canadian cultural policies and programs have been steadily restricted by successive trade deals. He explains how this has happened, and what needs to be done for Canada to maintain our cultural sovereignty and creative life in the face of multinational corporations and their government supporters who are promoting a world monoculture.

Since the first trade deal with the US in 1984, Canada has insisted on a "cultural exemption" to ensure that governments were free to protect Canadian culture and to restrict foreign ownership and limit foreign content in the media. Negotiators and government ministers considered the cultural exemption key to reassuring Canadians that the deal did not undermine our cultural sovereignty. In every trade deal since, culture has been a contentious issue. Media giants and foreign governments have pushed for unlimited access to Canada. Ottawa has worked with cultural industries to maintain the cultural exemption. Garry Neil has been close to every one of these negotiations, and has been a key advisor to cultural groups on trade deals. He has been part of the international initiative to assert the importance of cultural diversity in the world, and to create effective measures to guarantee it. This book reflects his experience trying to ensure that the reality matches the rhetoric when it comes to culture. As he sees it, in spite of the claims, Canadian cultural policies and programs have been steadily restricted by successive trade deals. He explains how this has happened, and what needs to be done for Canada to maintain our cultural sovereignty and creative life in the face of multinational corporations and their government supporters who are promoting a world monoculture.

Border culture emerges through the intersection and engagement of imagination, affinity and identity. It is evident wherever boundaries separate or sort people and their goods, ideas or other belongings. It is the vessel of engagement between countries and peoples—assuming many forms, exuding a variety of expressions, changing shapes—but border culture does not disappear once it is developed, and it may be visualized as a thread that runs throughout the process of globalization. Border culture is conveyed in imaginaries and productions that are linked to borderland identities constructed in the borderlands. These identities underlie the enforcement of control and resistance to power that also comprise border cultures. Canada’s borders in globalization offer an opportunity to explore the interplay of borders and culture, identify the fundamental currents of border culture in motion, and establish an approach to understanding how border culture is placed and replaced in globalization. Published in English.

Is globalization a myth or a new reality? Is it an overwhelming and ineluctable process, or can human communities control trajectories of change? Is globalization fair and advantageous, and if so, for whom? Whatever the answer to these questions, globalization forces are upon us. Some of the implications are examined in this collection. The aim of the contributors is to discuss ways to use the new economic, social, and cultural forces of globalization to help renew the vitality of struggling or fledgling communities. Over the last decade, a new global economy has rapidly changed how we work, do business, communicate, and even think. Twenty scholars from different backgrounds look at the process and impact of globalization from a Canadian perspective, discussing issues such as indigenous peoples, land use, and the effect of television on remote communities.

What are the fictions that shape Canadian engagements with the global? What frictions emerge from these encounters? In negotiating aesthetic and political approaches to Canadian cultural production within contexts of global circulation, this collection argues for the value of attending to narratorial, lyric, and theatrical conventions in dialogue with questions of epistemological and social justice. Using the twinned framing devices of crosstalk and cross-sighting, the contributing authors attend to how the interplay of the verbal and the visual maps public spheres of creative engagement today. Individual chapters present a range of methodological approaches to understanding national culture and creative labour in global contexts. Through their collective enactment of methodological crosstalk, they demonstrate the productivity of scholarly debate across differences of outlook, culture, and training. In highlighting convergences and disagreements, the book sharpens our understanding of how literary and critical conventions and theories operate within and across cultures.

Scholarly Essay from the year 2011 in the subject Cultural Studies - Canada, grade: -, York University, language: English, comment: Widely published articles on multiculturalism. Teaches at York University. Former school principal and school superintendent. Nominated for the York Presidents Teaching Award 2010, abstract: Many have argued that there is no such thing as a Canadian culture or identity. This article explores the history of how schools in the past have shaped a national identity and how cultures transmit their vaules and traditions to their young. This article argues that there are twelve commonplaces about Canada that all Canadians, regardless of where they live or how long they have lived here can identify with. The schools across the country have an obligation to debate, argue and explore these twelve commonplaces thereby promoting a shared Canadian culture that is fluid, flexible and evolving. It argues that these twelve are not fixed in stone but are just a starting point for "keeping the conversation going." It promotes a revisioning of our culture throiugh a myulticulturalism prism.

An exclusively Canadian textbook, this collection investigates the relationships between identity, geography, and popular culture that are produced and consumed in this sprawling country. Expanding beyond the clichés of friendliness and snow, this text provides a fresh perspective on what it means to be Canadian, both nationally and transnationally. Scholars look at historical subjects like Québécois identity and Indigenous self-representation and explore issues in contemporary media, including music, film, television, comic books, video games, and social media. From Drake to the Tragically Hip, Trailer Park Boys to The Amazing Race Canada, and poutine to maple syrup, mainstream icons and trends are studied in the interdisciplinary context of race, gender, sexuality, politics, and patriotism. Contributing to the location of Canadian popular culture, this unique resource will engage students and scholars of communication studies, cultural studies, and Canadian studies. FEATURES - Includes key concepts and theories and a glossary - Engages students with relatable historical and contemporary examples of Canadiana through a breadth of media, including television shows, websites, journals, celebrities, newspapers, literature, comic books, video games, music, and films - Ensures equal representation of a national and transnational Canada, which includes examples of race, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity, with particular attention to geographical intricacies that contain all provinces and territories