FTAA could jeopardize digital funding: Canadian Conference of the Arts

Public funding of Canada’s new media industry could be jeopardized by the lack of a solid exemption for cultural industries in the proposed new free trade agreement for the Americas. The Canadian Conference of the Arts (CCA) has reviewed the draft text of the agreement, released early this month, and found what it describes as glaring discrepancies with what was promised by politicians at the recent Quebec City Summit of the Americas. Of prime concern to culture advocates are draft provisions in the text of the Free Trade Areas of the Americas (FTAA), handed down from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which give corporations the power to sue governments for measures that restrict their ability to do business in that country. "There’s a legitimate concern with these agreements that if culture isn’t solidly exempted, that you could have big entertainment companies suing governments throughout the Americas for supporting their cultural producers, including new media producers," says Janet Creery, associate international coordinator for the CCA. She notes that the new media industry in Canada is heavily subsidized, and cites the recent $108-million funding announcement by Canadian Heritage as an example. "This is a pretty major push on the part of government thinking that we want to encourage our producers," she told Canadian NEW MEDIA. "It’s possible, if there isn’t an exemption for culture in this agreement, that those measures could be challenged under the investor/state dispute mechanism of the investment chapter." During the Quebec summit, government officials sought to ease the fears of cultural advocates by promising to take arts off the table in trade negotiations. A declaration released at the summit reads: "We consider the cultural diversity that characterizes our region to be a source of great richness for our societies. Respect for and value of our cultural diversity must be a cohesive factor that strengthens the social fabric and the development of our nations." Creery says that motherhood statement isn’t substantiated in the meat of the draft agreement, which contains no solid exemptions for culture. One of the few provisions in the document pertaining to culture offers a narrow definition, however. In it, the framers have said that "Nothing in this agreement shall prevent a Party from adopting or enforcing measures it deems necessary to…Protect national treasures of artistic, historical, anthropological, paleantological and archeological value." While Creery says the proposed article seems like an ironclad guarantee, she sees those specifically exempted items as defining culture very narrowly, and don’t take into account new cultural products – "living" culture as she terms it. Of course, all parties to the discussion recognize that the draft version released July 3 is written almost entirely in brackets, trade-code for items where no consensus has been reached. A final version isn’t expected until 2005, allowing the CCA and its partners time to lobby the Canadian government for stronger cultural exemptions. Activists will also be questioning provisions in other chapters of the draft agreement dealing with intellectual property, including an apparent attempt to include various treaties such as the 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization within the framework. Creery says that while artists have an obvious interest in the formalization of IP law, some analysts have noted that the main beneficiaries have tended to be transnational corporations. Over the course of negotiations, one of the key considerations will be whether it is hammered out in "top-down" fashion, as the Americans have argued, or "bottom-up", as the Canadian government has argued. If a bottom-up approach is adopted in the negotiations, various sectors will be exempted unless specifically mentioned in the text – a way for the government to live up to its commitment to leave sectors such as health care and culture off the table.

FTAA could jeopardize digital funding: Canadian Conference of the Arts

News | 07/12/2001 4:00 am EDT

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