Changing Theorizations of Cultural Production in Canada and Quebec: A Review of Some Recent Literature on the Cultural Industries

the peace ofMeech. Throughout all this, Rae was a major player on stage left who, so far as I know, never tried to do for the left what Mulroney did for the right, though the social democratic cast of the Bloc Quebecois is suggestive of the possibilities in Quebec. As premier, he kept his blinkers firmly in place by choosing as his key constitutional advisors people not Likely to think outside the conventional wisdom. His contribution since the October referendum is to insist that 50 per cent plus one is no longer acceptable as a "Yes " vote; to doubts about whether he is a socialist we can now add doubts about whether he is a democrat. These have been tough and troubling times for the left, are still, and shall so remain. In Ontario it won by a fluke and then Rae blew it, doing serious damage to the federal party as well (about which Rae cares so Little that Audrey McLaughlin's name is not to be found anywhere in this book); it is unclear when there shall again be such a chance to make good. I hope Rae is donating his royalties to the NDP; it would be appropriate redistribution of income to the party which has suffered most in this separation. Is it possible that Bob Rae is - I know this sounds off the wall - the John Diefenbaker of our times? In 1965 George Grant wrote his prescient Lament for a Nation, in which Diefenbaker's inability to govern and ultimate defeat - his impossible behaviour and the impossibility of conservatism in a technologically driven world - became a metaphor for the impossibility of Canada, for its death. Grant dismissed the social democrats as too bland to recognize real power much less challenge it - and was he not right on that one! The most depressing thought of the many that crossed my mind as I read Rae's memoirs was that Rae's similar inability to govern, the opening of the door for Harris and his marketeers, the slamming of the door on Quebec, are metaphors for the impossibility of the social democratic touch that distinguishes Canadians from Americans, for the slow slide of Ontario into the nearest American shopping mall; in short for the break-up of a Canada no longer worth lamenting. 178 MEL WATKINS University ofToronto Changing Theorizations of Cultural Production in Canada and Quebec: A Review ofSome Recent Literature on the Cultural Industries LA SOCIETE DE L'INFORMATION: DU FORDISME AU GATESISME. Gaetan Tremblay. Montreal: Southam Conference, Canadian Communication Association/GRIcrs , UQAM, 1995. L'ETAT DE CULTURE: GENEALOGIE DISCURSIVE DES POLITIQUES CULTURELLES QUEBECOISES. Martin Allor and Michelle Gagnon Montreal: GRECd Concorclia University, 1994. MISSED OPPORTUNITIES: THE STORY OF CANADA'S BROADCASTING POLICY. Marc Raboy. Montreal & Kingston: McGillQueen 's University Press, 1990. THE MEDIUM AND THE MUSE: CULTURE, TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND THE INFORMATION HIGHWAY. Charles Sirois and Claude E. Forget. Montreal: The Institute for Research on Public Policy, 1995. HOUYWOOD'S OVERSEAS CAMPAIGN: THE NORTH ATLANTIC MOVIE TRADE, I920-1950. Ian Jarvie. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. A CANADIAN JOURNEY: CONVERSATIONS WITH TIME. Peter Harcourt,Toronto 1994: Oberon Press. CANADA'S HOILYWOOD: THE CANADIAN STATE AND FEATURE FILMS. Ted Madger, Toronto 1993: University ofToronto Press. Rhetorics of the Divided Voice In a provocative discussion in late 1994 of the sterility of Canadian debates in film criticism (a discussion which, Like the debates themselves, seems to have been met with the usual indifference), BartTesta (University of Toronto) drew attention to the consensual moralism that has underlain the relatively limited critical analysis the medium of film Revue d'etudes canadiennes Vol. 31, No. 4 (Hiver 1996-97 Winter) has received in the Canadian context. In Testa's view, the actors participating in the elaboration of the Canadian film "industry" - from critics and government officials in particular, to filmmakers occasionally have all shared a belief that film should first serve a "high moral purpose" however this formula was to be understood by individual participants. Testa noted the considerable extent to which the critical discussion of film in the Canadian context has been a "prescriptive" discourse, preoccupied with defining what film ought to be at the expense of whatever else it...