My mother's family was American, so it was distressing to me in grade ten to hear my social studies teacher tell us how unfair the Americans were in negotiating fishing rights to the Fraser River when they built dams on the Columbia River. It was, however, only my first insight into American foreign domination. My next big surprise came when I learned that there were only three countries in the world not using the metric system: I was taught that two of them put together had a land mass smaller than that of BC and the third was the US. Since then I have been thoroughly saddened to see how my mother's country has responded to the Kyoto Accord, the international war crimes court and softwood lumber. The US can sometimes be a bully of a nation.

But being an arts nationalist, it is the US position on Canada's UN initiative to create an international convention on cultural diversity that has caused me the greatest concern. Recently, Commission IV of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) voted 151 to 2 in favour of a Canadian proposal to protect cultural diversity. Only the US and Israel voted "no," and Israel's dissenting vote was probably influenced by American officials—US Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, campaigned vigorously against the Canadian initiative with her foreign counterparts and US ambassadors supported her by actively promoting defeat of the convention.

The official title of Canada's proposal is the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. The initiative is designed to allow sovereign states to "maintain, adopt and implement" cultural policies to protect and promote indigenous expression and national access to it, as well as to exempt national cultural protectionist policies from being overturned by rules contained in free trade agreements.

The Canadian government made the proposal to UNESCO as a result of a dispute many readers may remember. The battle erupted over Sports Illustrated magazine (SI). The magazine printed what came to be known as a "split run" Canadian edition: they published one magazine for America and essentially the same magazine but with ads directed to the Canadian consumer for distribution in Canada. Canada protested the move but the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled against Canada on a US complaint. The US had argued that Canada used unfair measures to protect its magazine industry and the WTO ruled that our tax on "split-run" editions of magazines, our lower postal rates for Canadian magazines, and our excise tax on advertising in split-run editions were inconsistent with our international obligations. Hence our proposal to UNESCO.

Another lesson I learned in high school that really resonated with me was when a social studies teacher taught us about the cold war. It was a time when the Soviet Union and US relations were at an all time low and Soviet war ships were on their way to Cuba. He said to us: "The best thing that could happen to the world right now would be for Martians to invade us." His point being that all nations on earth would be drawn together to fight a common and foreign enemy and would stop fighting each other here on earth.

In much the same way, the WTO ruling brought together all governments opposed to the domination of US cultural (entertainment) products such as film, music, magazines, etc; and not only internationally, but here in Canada as well. Rarely has there been such cooperation between French Canadian and English Canadian legislators as there was in introducing the Convention to UNESCO. All nations felt strongly that cultural products have two values: their commercial value and their value to indigenous culture or national identity.

Concerned Canadian citizens and many of our leading artist/producers formed a Coalition for Cultural Diversity to support Canada's UNESCO Initiative; its Co-Chair was Vancouver publisher Scott McIntyre. On behalf of the Coalition, he explained that the Convention would allow nations to have protectionist cultural policies that set national content quotas, subsidies, tax credits and foreign ownership guidelines to protect their culture. "If you don't have these policies, you simply will not have a meaningful choice of Canadian books, music, films or television programs," he is quoted as saying in a Coalition press release. "This is what has been at stake all along in this debate."

When the Convention was introduced, what did the US do? They posited that it would open the door to censorship and make intercultural expression impossible and presented 27 amendments for discussion. They also used every method possible to delay the vote. Their concern, according to many close to the discussions, was that its passage would lead to a diminished market for American TV shows, films and magazines. However, in spite of all their hard work, the Convention passed without any of the US amendments.

If the Convention is to become a binding international agreement, it must now be ratified by 30 countries within a year. With a vote of 151 to 2, however, it is likely to become international law.

And now some news about a good government initiative: here is a summary of City of Vancouver, Government of BC and big cultural grants announced during the past year of which I am aware and that total $453 million dollars!

Olympics related funding: $96 million for a 5-week arts festival leading up to 2010, during the games and the opening and closing ceremonies; $12 million for the 2010 ArtsNow program; $10 million for an Olympic capital fund.

Arts venues assistance: $200 million (possibly) for a new downtown arts complex to be built near the city's civic theatres; $5 million for renovations to those civic theatres; $30 million (possibly) for a new maritime museum; $20 million for renovations to the Buchanan arts complex at UBC; $45 million for the Simon Fraser University School for the Contemporary Arts to be located in the Woodward's building renovation.

Arts support: $25 million for the Vancouver Foundation's BC Arts Renaissance Fund; $3 million-a-year increase to the BC Arts Council; $1 million for new public art funding through Vancouver's draft capital plan.