A Danger of Dependence?

After nearly a century and a half of peace along the border, Canadians had long since banished any fears they ever had about annexation to the U.S. Last week the bogeyman reappeared in another, more insidious form. Thoughtful Canadians were pondering the 517-page report of the Royal Commission on National Development of the Arts, Letters and Sciences; in it they read a warning that U.S. films, radio programs, books and magazines are steadily shaping Canada in the U.S. image and that cultural, if not political, annexation is a real threat. Said the report: "We must not be blind to the very present danger of permanent dependence."

The five-member commission, headed by Chancellor Vincent Massey of the University of Toronto, had spent two years on a study of Canadian culture. It found Canada's arts and letters undeveloped, its universities, libraries and museums neglected. Said the commissioners: "The cultural life of Canada is anemic."

The commission seemed to feel that the ailment had been picked up largely from a lack of Canadian resistance to low-grade U.S. cultural germs such as soap operas, Hollywood banalities, pulp magazines and other commercialized peddling to mass tastes. Canada, the commissioners conceded, has gained much from the U.S. in higher culture (e.g., symphony broadcasts, Guggenheim fellowships, the better magazines, etc.). The question is whether she has gained too much for her own good.

"Our use of American institutions," they said, "or our lazy, even abject imitation of them has caused an uncritical acceptance of ideas and assumptions which are alien to our tradition."

If Canada wants to guard herself against the wrong kind of U.S. cultural influence, the commission said, the way to do it is by heavy government spending. The report proposed an estimated outlay of $50 million for a new national art gallery, a national library, historical and scientific museums, to make Canadians more conscious of the best in their national life. Aside from the initial capital outlay, an annual $30 million program was recommended for government sponsorship of the arts and aid to universities.

Many Canadians supported the commission's high-minded declaration of cultural independence but questioned whether Canada was ready to uphold it. Said the Montreal Herald: "A sparsely populated country adjoining a heavily populated country and sharing with it the same speech and largely the same cultural origins must expect to be dominated for a time." There was also a leaven of doubt whether money would buy the culture that Canada now lacks. "A nation cannot buy culture," warned the Calgary Herald. "It is something which grows out of the heart, not out of the pocketbook."

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