DIY
by Daren Foster

***Some things are best left unregulated.***

There I was typing away, minding my own business, churning out a weekly column minding other people’s business, relatively happy. Sure, I could get used to being a little more in demand. Have people calling me, rather than the other way around, wondering if I would write something for them and offering me a lot of money to do so. I mean, a lot of money. So much money that I would be shitting the stuff out, to paraphrase a line from a recent episode of Flight of the Concords. I could get used to that.

Now who up and died and made them the bosses, I demanded from no one in particular, sitting as I was in front of the TV, typing away on my weekly column. (You can see why I’m pretty happy doing what I do -- what with working while watching television and all). Who on earth would want the Canadian government to get more involved in adjudicating content on the Interwebs? Can’t we just leave them to screw with what appears on our television and movie screens?

Let’s be clear here. In no way am I one of those Fox-loving/government hating, libertarian leaning, greed-is-good-Gordon-Gekko-gushing, free enterprising zealots who’s been spending much time of late wiping their faces free of egg gunk. Just the opposite in fact. Ply me with a couple pints of Strongbow friends and watch me roar mightily about living under the yoke of cultural imperialism. In theory, I am all for protectionism of our national identity. It’s just that, with one notable exception, our government has a very long history of making matters worse when they’ve set out to shield Canadian artists and audiences from the behemoth oppressors to the south.

You see, Canada is a very big country with very few people, a good majority of whom live within spitting distance of the United States of America. It’s not that we like them that much but has more to do with history. We set up shop along the major waterways that brought us across the Atlantic from Europe and just kind of hunkered down there. To travel much further north, away from what is claimed to be the world’s longest undefended border between two sovereign countries is a dicey proposition. Temperatures plummet and it gets awfully, awfully frigid up in those parts. At times, death-inducingly so. Perhaps you’ve heard tell of an Arctic cold front sweeping down from Canada.

So, li’l ol’ us was easy pickins for the over-weaning expansionist impulses of our southern neighbours. What they couldn’t do militarily (think Vietnam was the first war the U.S. lost? Think again. How about the War of 1812? Remember the Skirmish of Butler’s Farm!!), they sought to accomplish by mesmerizing us into a compliant stupor with their mind-numbing mass entertainments.

First came the moving pictures. With no home-grown Chaplin or Griffiths to defend us -- “America’s Sweetheart” was Canadian born screen legend, Mary Pickford, the first of countless cultural Benedict Arnolds who left their home and native country for the greener, warmer pastures of Hollywood -- we were helpless in warding off the artistic onslaught. A few years later, wireless radio waves began enchanting us to buy soap, toothpaste and U.S. war bonds. Already reeling, we were dead meat upon the arrival of television.

Some mild resistance was offered up with the establishment of the Canadian Broadcast Corporation and the National Film Board of Canada in the `30s and `40s, but our world class, award winning documentaries and animation were ultimately no match for Gable and Lombard, Mickey and Goofy, Amos and Andy, or the Ricardos. By the time more interventionist minded governments turned their furrowed brows to the problem of American cultural dominance of the Canadian landscape in the `60s and `70s, we were already a population of willing vassals chained to a global entertainment complex. Who wants the low rent shenanigans of The Party Game when we could be making whoopee with The Newlywed Game?

Now remember when I suggested there was one exception to the ineffectualness of our government’s attempts at keeping the barbarians at the gate? Canadian content rules (Cancon) were introduced in the early `70s to force commercial radio stations to play a certain percentage of Canadian music in peak hour rotation. It was a fairly simple formula that left very little wiggle room for broadcasters to weasel out of and was deemed necessary because, despite having more than a few well established artists like Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, The Guess Who and Gordon Lightfoot, private radio stations were indifferent to putting their music on the air. They claimed Canadian audiences didn’t really want to hear Canadian music; a circular, specious argument that is still in use today when we talk about indigenous television and movies.

Now, I wouldn’t claim that Cancon rules and regulations are the sole reason we have such a vibrant and healthy music industry these days, but it certainly didn’t hurt. Such success was never repeated for television programming or the movie industry although it wasn’t for a lack of trying. For the past 40 years, countless attempts have been made to protect and encourage Canadian filmmaking and television production from Cancon rules to tax policies, to little effect. Our TV drama is but a shadow of its former late-80s self and at the movies.. ? When’s the last time you went out to a theatre to see a Canadian film?

Now we want the Canadian government to work that kind of magic on the Internet?! Everything’s just fine over here, thanks very much. I don’t know who those people are asking for your help but please, I beg you, don’t listen to them. Lately, it seems every time a new policy is ushered in to help nurture Canadian culture, there just winds up being less and less of it. No, seriously. We don’t need your help with this.

The beauty of the Internet as it stands right now is that no one knows what the fuck’s going on with it. It’s like the Wild West out there. If you have a notion, computer, high-speed broadband and maybe a camera, hey, what exactly are you waiting for, mister? No one’s going to say ‘no’. You do it. You post it. Let the chips fall where they may. On the World Wide Web, we’re all just content providers, doing our respective things as we best see fit. It’s mano-a-mano with millions of others thinking the same thing and the lack of control and oversight is what makes it all so very exciting.

What regulations I have encountered so far have not opened up more possibilities. They’ve only restricted them, usually in favour of the Big Boys who no longer stride the entertainment world like the Colossus they once were. As clueless as everyone else, they’re blindly staggering around looking to hold onto the last vestiges of power they used to possess. Gatekeepers with their gates long since kicked off the hinges, the only hope they have of regaining the upper hand is with a helping hand from our governmental agencies.

So for God’s sake, stop encouraging our officials to get involved. They don’t have any better ideas than the rest of us. No good can come of it.