MONTREAL – The Coalition for the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (a group comprised of the likes of the CMPA, ACTRA, the Director's Guild, SOCAN and others) is imploring the Canadian government to maintain the cultural exemption in NAFTA as it renegotiations the agreement.
The cultural exemption, already included in NAFTA, recognizes Canada’s sovereign right to adopt measures and policies to protect and promote the diversity of cultural expressions within its territory, a right recognized in 2005 in the UNESCO Convention for the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, of which Canada was the first signatory.
“Relinquishing the cultural exemption in NAFTA would have catastrophic effects on cultural ecosystems, many of which are particularly disrupted by the digital distribution of content”, CDEC said in a statement. “It would prevent our government from adopting policies and programs to support cultural development in Canada. Without these measures intended namely for Canadian artists, creators, producers, publishers and broadcasters, the cultural sectors could never have achieved such vigor and offered such a wide diversity of content in the face of U.S. productions, whose means of production and marketing are much more important.”
In addition to cultural content’s “irreplaceable symbolic value”, CDEC added that the Feds must retain the necessary leeway to continue to promote the creation and dissemination of Canadian cultural programming.
While there have been many leaks to the mainstream media on several topics and much talk about resources, automobiles and dairy, little has been publicly stated by NAFTA negotiators about the agreement's cultural exemptions and whether or not they will be weakened.
NAFTA negotiations between the U.S. and Canada are slated to continue this week.
