La dimension culturelle dans le commerce international: quelques réflexions en marge de l'accord de libre-échange Canada/États-Unis du 2 Janvier 1988

Abstract

SummaryThe debate that has emerged during the Canada/U.S. free trade negotiations regarding the fate of Canada's cultural industries and cultural identity has been blurred by the use of loose language and simply has not yielded a clear image of what was at stake. This article, in its first part, looks at the various arguments put forward during the negotiations by representatives of the cultural industries and considers the respective positions of the American and Canadian governments on the subject. The second part analyses the actual content of the free trade agreement between Canada and the United States signed in January 1988 in so far as it relates to cultural industries. The conclusion suggests that the ambiguity that has characterized the discussions on culture during the negotiations and has found its way into the content of the agreement itself may be due to a blurred vision of the relationship between cultural industries and cultural identity, and more fundamentally to a lack of understanding of the relationship between culture and commerce.