Canadian content regulations

The loss of Pierre Juneau, father of Cana­dian con­tent reg­u­la­tions served as the pre­text for a good debate on the reg­u­la­tions in the National Post last month.

Marni Soup­coff, Lorne Gunter and Matt Gur­ney of the National Post agreed in large part that gov­ern­ment gen­er­ally should not get involved in the arts. They then argue that the absence of quo­tas in the broad­cast and music indus­tries in the U.S. and the United King­dom is some­what healthy. They also claim that “Can­Con require­ments look most ridicu­lous when you con­sider how many peo­ple now sim­ply select their own music and tele­vi­sion shows from iTunes, bypass­ing net­works and radio sta­tions entirely. Big Brother is being over­taken by technology.”

The National Post colum­nists sug­gest that the Cana­dian music scene has grown to such an extent that it does not need com­plex rules. The Van­cou­ver Olympics open­ing is a good exam­ple of artists who are known around the world and will be played no mat­ter what rule is in place.

Matt Gur­ney con­cludes: “When it comes to Can­Con, only (sic) that basis alone, we’re bet­ter off Los­ing It.”

On Feb­ru­ary 29th, broad­caster John Moore responded to the afore­men­tioned arti­cle in the National Post. Even though he admits these rules are some­what of a mar­ket manip­u­la­tion by the gov­ern­ment, he defends the Can­Con sys­tem. In fact he says, “Cana­dian tal­ent stands tall on the inter­na­tional stage and four decades of the Juneau rules have cre­ated a robust domes­tic record­ing and per­form­ing indus­try.  But that hardly con­sti­tutes proof that Can­Con rules were never needed — only that they have served their purpose.”         

The next Juno awards cer­e­mony will be held in Ottawa on April 1, 2012.  We’ll be fol­low­ing and Pierre Juneau will most likely be honoured.

Mean­while, why not par­tic­i­pate in the debate by leav­ing a com­ment below?