Republicans in the late 19th century wanted to annex Canada. And the episode ought to serve as a warning for President Donald Trump.
Republicans in the late 19th century wanted to annex Canada. And the episode ought to serve as a warning for President Donald Trump.
It’s not a matter of whether Canadians would be ‘fine’, it’s a matter of whether they’d be prepared to lower their standard of living by using other services, particularly ones from other countries, often ones that don’t speak english, nor understand Canada’s culture.
Like Canada’s semi unique as a country in that almost all of our goods and services are made outside the country. We effectively export raw materials to the USA, and use the profit from that to buy manufactured goods and services from the USA and elsewhere. Even amidst all this trade chaos, we’re still mostly looking at how to do things offshore / not do it ourselves – that sort of shows us the general temperament of ‘contemporary’ Canadians, I think.
First of all, the US doesn’t understand Canadian culture, so why would it be any different.
Second, there is a lot of English content (and French) from other parts of the world.
Third, there is this amazing new invention called subtitles, you should check it out.
And fourth, if they would sell us their “culture”, there are plenty of illegal IP TV providers that would be more than happy to take up the slack, not to mention outright piracy.
American and Canadian culture is a lot more similar, than Canadian and most other cultures – denying that is pretty silly, even with the current issues ongoing.
The amount, and quality, of the content from other sources is lower than from the USA. I think I mentioned in the earlier post that it’s a matter of accepting a diminished quality of life / standard of living – a reduction in the quality / variety is just that, even if there are ‘some’ replacement options around.
Subtitled shows aren’t the same as hearing your native language spoken in media. It’s one reason immigrant parents are often very eager to get media from their home country / in their home language, as it’s better to expose their kids to the language/culture of their homeland if they want to maintain some ties.
Endorsing/embracing wide-spread piracy of IP would likely be very bad for Canada on the whole. Piracy to me is ‘fine’ in moderation and based on subjective individual situations, but if applied broadly to the entire population as a standard, it’d be a negative.
Ideally, Canada would make more content for Canada. But I don’t think we realistically have the market size for that.
I have lived and worked on both coasts and a few places in between, and worked in various cities across the United States. To say we are similar is the silly thing. We are drastically different in the most meaningful ways. Saying Canadian and American cultures are similar is like saying apples and strawberries are similar because they’re both fruit.
Spoken like someone that either doesn’t watch things from outside the United States, or just enjoys the kind of simple pablum most US shows are. I have watched English language shows from Canada, Ireland, Wales, England, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, France, Italy, Norway, and a few multi-country shows. Again, all in English.
I think it says more about you than the rest of us that you think worldwide shows are accepting of lesser quality. The rest of the world produces absolutely great entertainment, and if you think otherwise, you’re ignorant of reality.
Whose debating this? So you can’t enjoy a show unless it’s in English? I have watched shows from Korea, Japan, Germany, France, Spain, Denmark and French Canada and had no issues enjoying them. Again, I think it says more about you that you can’t enjoy something if it’s not in English.
How much Canadian content do you watch? A new season of North of North just started. Schitt’s Creek was one of the most successful Canadian TV shows ever. Letterkenny/Shoresy are world known. Do you watch Sone of a Critch? The Trades? Murdoch Mysteries? Allegiance? Wild Cards? Saite-Pierre? The Traitors (French and English)? Heated Rivalry? Private Eyes (A new version is starting)? Still Standing?
This is just a few.
Your point is also complete bullshit because the combined population of New Zealand and Australia is less than Canada and the amount of content which is locally grown exceeds Canadian. We have no excuse.
I’ll just respond with two things, then I’ll likely be ignoring this thread –
First, I have ‘tried’ to watch CBC Gem and other similar broadcasting, so I’m familiar with at least some of the shows you mentioned. But most were pretty niche market and not that entertaining – Canada’s public broadcaster funding and priority towards equity concerns means that most of the publicly funded programs in Canada speak directly to niche demographic segments, and are not intended for broad general appeal. Something like Heated Rivalry is a story worth telling, one that would obviously be lauded by a ‘progressive’ leaning film industry, but don’t expect “most” straight guys to gush / get excited about a gay romance series. Shows with Indigenous themes are similar, though they also have overt negative depictions of non-first nations, with very stereotyped/racist characters – again, content that’s fine to produce for a niche market, but don’t expect it to be something the people gettin slagged are all giddy to spend an evening watching.
Second, my point regarding Canadians resolve is proven by how many of us choose to continue to use things like Windows, Amazon, Netflix, Apple, Google, Tesla, etc. These companies are directly involved with the Trump administration, Musk even ran a government department dedicated to pilfering government data for the right-wing agenda. He did Nazi salutes on the world stage. Canadians keep buying and driving around in Teslas. They keep using US products and services. Carney hires Americans for cabinet assistants. We sell Moneris, a huge Canadian payment network to US Private Equity, and we all shrug. Our government runs on Microsoft cloud products, with data exposed to Microsoft/US Government agencies, and we accept our lack of privacy in exchange for convenience. That’s really all the evidence / rebuttal I need to demonstrate my point.
You didn’t really rebut anything, but I guess no point in pointing out how completely fucking bigoted the first half of your response was, because you think your making a valid point, and I’m not sure I am capable of explaining things simply enough for you to understand, and you said you’re going to ignore this thread.
Didn’t refute anything? My first comment spoke directly to the diminished options for main stream shows / shows with broader public appeal. Shows like North of North and Heated Rivalry are great to see in the mix, but they’re not really geared towards main stream interests – they focus on plots and characters that are ‘niche’, and which generally have less appeal/interest to the broader public. North of North is also a Netflix series, so that’s arguably American origin content – it’s one of those series that gets made, and aggressively marketed via algorithms, to meet government regulated content quotas. Even more, that there’s a large chunk of content that gets clipped, my point still remains valid that the standard of living / quality of life is diminished by clipping American content – by very definition, less choice/options, is a downgrade for Canadians. What I’d been pointing out with the ‘type’ of content delivered by the CBC, is that the cut in content when cutting American media, is largely mainstream / content popular with the majority of Canadians – and your examples of niche content for specific demographics, available on the cbc, isn’t enough to make up that shortfall.
My second note was broad stroke refutation of everything you’re trying to highlight, by simply pointing out that while you may be pontificating about this and that online, the cold hard truth is that Canadians aren’t moving in great numbers to clip things like American media/American streaming services, etc. You can armchair jockey all you want, but the boots on the ground (payment cards in the hands?) say that us Canadians don’t really care enough about Trump’s tariffs/trade shenanigans, nor about his administration’s policies, to reduce our options for streaming on apple or netflix or whatever, nor are people boycotting Amazon. Our creature comforts and convenience come first in our priority lists. Piss and moan about other options being around all you want, they’re not convenient enough, or high enough quality, for general Canadians to switch.
We’d rather sell the Americans our payment networks / critical infrastructure, and then the next week make a big blustery media storm about trade deals falling through because of sovereignty. We collectively shrug and make excuses for people like Danielle Smith, who runs to the USA to discuss trade rather than siding with her Canadian counterparts - Albertans, who are Canadians, still support her it seems. We are nowhere near as resilient / self-reliant as people seem to pretend at times, and there’s still no real indication that the public has moved aggressively away from American service providers, nor any indication that they would.
This just proves that you don’t know what the fuck you are talking about. Netflix funding, and slapping a “Netflix Original” label on it doesn’t make it American. The production company is Canadian, the crew is Canadian, the actors are Canadian (save one), the location is Canadian, it’s telling a Canadian story written by Canadians and also funded by CBC.
Netflix partners with local productions all over the world. That doesn’t make those productions American. Many countries have laws like C-11. Netflix pays some money for production costs and can get local content on their platform to fulfill rules like Cancon all over the world.
You made an utterly ridiculous non-point and demonstrated you clearly know nothing about the business.
Let me correct you, you don’t like those shows so you think they don’t have broad appeal.
Those are all currently in production shows.
But sure. They’re niche.
No. It really doesn’t. You are flat out wrong.
You have an interesting fantasy world. This shit takes time to extricate. And
Did you just advocate for a private business to be controlled by the government? I have no love for RBC, BMO or Moneris, but they’re all private companies. I just want to be clear, you think the government should have interfered? In a private sale, of a company? Because that’s what you just advocated.
We do? Me calling her a traitorous cunt is a favourite pastime of mine.
What a sad and pathetic attitude. I’m sorry you’ve given up, but not all of us have.
Edit: Funny enough, I’m watching an Australian TV show (one of a few I watch). I have no problem enjoying this “lower quality than American” TV show. It’s original, funny and doesn’t constantly reuse the same tired tropes.
Know nothing about business – ok, sure. Supply chain and source of funds matter. Netflix, a foreign company, funding a Canadian production is still arguably something that’d fall into the foreign-made content bucket. Specifically, it would fall into that bucket because we’re loosely discussing cutting American influence on Canadian content/media – you can’t take their money to make shows, if you’re cutting ties, so shows like North of North and other “Netflix” content would face more uncertain futures. It’s a valid criticism. Sorta like, if you’re trying to excise American influences from your day to day, you’d avoid McDonalds – even though the staff working there are generally Canadians. Or if you saw a show funded by China, made by Canadian chinese people, supporting China’s government values within a Canadian context, you likely wouldn’t think it Canadian / free from undue foreign influence.
Shows ‘showing’ in multiple countries doesn’t make them mainstream – it’s difficult to define what is mainstream these days, given how segmented the viewing markets are, and how captive audiences are to the ‘one new show’ that shows up on their streams that week. Viewership stats would count, especially if they broke down demographic splits, but those are very hard to come by – they’re also not very ‘organic’. In the ‘old days’, shows that were / are mainstream are things that got discussed at the office – Seinfeld, Friends in the 90s were frequently brought up. Shows that have themes, characters and plots that can cut across demographic segments and foster small talk banter in an office between the 50 year old accounting clerk and the 20 year old newbie. Some shows get brought up these days too – but typically not shows like the ones you’re listing. Likely partly because they are niche demographic areas that cannot be discussed openly without members outside that niche being accused of this or that.
In regards to banks selling payment networks – you do understand that banks / financial institutions are regulated entities, with the Federal Government regulating banks, and the Provincial Government regulating Credit Unions. These organisations generally can’t do shit without clearing it with regulators, without clearing it with the government. Things like their Deposit insurance require them to obey the governments demands – the Credit Unions in BC have basically all been getting forced to merge by the government, for example. Like “Why didn’t Canada have the same sub prime mortgage nightmare as the USA in 2008?” --> Because the banks werent allowed to do subprime mortgages, because the government told them what they could, and couldn’t, do. I may know nothing about business according to you, but I do know how that industry generally works.
As for Alberta, YOU may think one way or another about their premier. But they’re holding a fuckin referendum on sovereignty, at a ridiculous point in time. With their government having basically leaned on the scales the whole way to make it happen. And the province still, on aggregate, supports conservatives like PP, and support Danielle Smith’s party over the competition. So, you know, broaden your scope a little, think outside your own little bloody box, and see what’s going on with others in the province. They have a traitor leader, and they still support her. They still go along with her various bullshit initiatives.
And lastly, if you can’t understand that a reduction in product options is a reduction in the general standard of living, I think this conversation is at its end. You’re arguing against what’s essentially a self-proving statement, Fewer choices/options is practically part of the definition of a lower standard of living. You’re either failing to grasp basic concepts, or you’re intentionally just trolling / trying to pick fights and be anal about stupid shit. Neither possibility is particularly interesting, nor enticing to prolong this further.