Canadian Cultural Policy—Bridging the Gaps: Or the Cultural Activist—A Laboratory Specimen

Abstract

It was with a balance of pride and trepidation that I agreed last year toparticipate in the conference entitled Commerce, Culture, and Identity afterNAFTA. In accepting the narrow definition of culture as it appears in tradeagreements we may, after all, be doing an ultimate disservice to what I op-timistically assume to be the general objective of studies in the Humanities:To foster cultural development, and not to impede it. Then, when I saw thatour fearless leader, Bob Adolph, had cast me in first position I thought:How shall I play it? Sacrificial lamb or Judas Ram? Then I realized thatneither would serve as an appropriate anthropomorphic metaphor tor thisexercise and that if I needed a costume to play a certain part it might betterbe that of a lynx, bobcat or cougar: That, given the somewhat precariousdisposition of public policy in this area amidst the insistent call by the U.S.government to reopen the so-called cultural exemption in NAFTA as Chileand other Latin American countries line up to sign on, that we had betterkeep a watchful eye and be ready to fend off danger while keeping optionsopen.