Once upon a time, when the Harper government ruled the land, it launched a review of foreign-ownership rules in the Canadian book industry. In those years, as publishers merged and bookstores closed, there were pressing questions to answer. Would Canadian writers suffer or profit if more foreign publishers were allowed to establish themselves in Canada? Why block foreigners from owning Canadian bookstores when many Canadians buy from Amazon anyway?
Years went by and gradually the cultural journalists, exhausted by the platitudinous and evasive answers on any question they ever posed to the Department of Canadian Heritage, just stopped asking when the 2010 book-industry review might be released.
The Harper government felt uncomfortable with the cultural portfolio – unless its activities could be directly tied to Canadian history – and the book-industry review is just one example in which its solution was to do as little as possible.
KATE TAYLOR – Globe and Mail – Oct. 23, 2015.
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