The Canadian Magazine Case Study

Instructions for submission
Revisit two of the issues that arose due to concerns over protecting local cultures from the impacts of globalization, as discussed in this issue brief: the Canadian magazine dispute an exemption for whaling
Choose one of these issues and answer the “Questions for Discussion” following the issue that you choose. For the “Canadian Magazine
To what extent do you think the U.S.-Canadian magazine dispute was motivated by genuine desires to protect Canadian culture?
I think this motivation was rather extreme when looked at from a global perspective but one would consider it was engendered to protect the country’s local interests. According to the reading, However, globalization has recently changed much of this calculus.
This didn’t go down well with the International Community, Hence the intervention of the WTO. In the reading, on quote, “However, imposing a tax on only the foreign producers of magazines quickly raised the charge by American magazine producers that this measure constituted a discriminatory practice. Foreign magazines producers would be put at a significant disadvantage selling their magazines in Canada because of the tax. And since the principle of non-discrimination between foreign and domestic producers ("national treatment") is one of the core principles of the World Trade Organization, the United States instituted a WTO dispute settlement case against the
However, advances in technology and trade agreements (in short, globalization) have altered the way the government can deal with foreign magazines.
In 1993 Time Warner started to produce a split-run version of Sports Illustrated. New technology allowed Time Warner to produce the magazine in the US and then transmit the contents electronically to a Canadian printer via satellite.
The old determination of whether a magazine was foreign or domestic was based on where it was printed. Now, SI Canada was managed by Time-Canada (a division of Time Warner), printed and distributed in Canada, and even had Canadian content. With domestic status, SI Canada, under Canadian law, could offer tax deductions to Canadian advertisers which could draw those advertisers away from Canadian magazines.
Canadian publishers and the Canadian government feared many Canadian magazines would be forced out of business.
In 1995 the Canadian government tried to protect Canadian magazines by imposing a tax on all advertising revenue for what it considered to be split-run publications; to avoid the new tax a magazine would have to contain at least 80% Canadian