The precarious enterprise of nationhood

copies through Canada's newsstands compared with U.S. magazine sales of 55% (45% through subscriptions), it is not for lack of management skills. $1.5 million sounds like a lot of money to most of us. But when we consider the number of publishers - book and magazine, English and French - it becomes very small indeed. How is this money to be spent? How are we as publishers to know whether this extra subs·idy has helped us achieve greater penetration of the Canadian market a year from now, or five years from now? How are we to know whether any of our co-operative efforts have been successful without targets, a strategy for achieving them, and a mechanism by which to measure our failure or success? More to the point, how are you, Mr. Faulkner, as Minister to know? The precarious enterprise of nationhood DENIS SMITH I would like to begin with a few comments about the atmosphere or mood of yesterday's proceedings, which began in high spirits yesterday afternoon and were carried forward to the evening in fascinated anticipation of Mr. Faulkner's remarks; and ended, I thought, in rather tense and sometimes decidedly icy exchanges. If that was the way it ended, then I think it is worth passing on a few words of consolation to Hugh Faulkner , and then some words of caution for all of us. First of all, it was a tough audience to face. Our expectations had been raised by the various hints of promises of a policy that we have had over the last three years, and in the last few months those expectations have all been focussed more and more intensely on the evening of January 24th in this theatre. There are not many politicians - or even actors - who can live up to the kind of exaggerated billing that the occasion called forth. I suspect that almost nothing that Hugh Faulkner might have delivered could have satisfied such an audience on such an occasion. That is part of my message of consolation. The other part is probably more significant. 64 The high expectation, and the disenchantment that was evident in most of last night's questions, seemed to me simply to emphasize that what we are dealing with is not a trivial matter. We are dealing with vital issues to the life of this country, and vital issues, when they are recognized as such, provoke strong feelings and tense debate. We are not much used to that kind of debate in English Canada, but it seems to me to be a sign of new maturity that we are now engaged in it at this Conference and in other forums in the country. I sense very strongly that on issues relating to Canadian publishing, as on those relating to natural resources, and the environment, and the general questions of foreign influence and control in Canada, we are engaged in grappling with the nature of this community in a way that English Canadians have seldom, or never, known before. We are beginning to identify the real elements of our distinct existence as a community and to understand the nature of the choices that are before us if we are going to remain - or to become - ourselves. Realizing those choices and actually making them can't be an easy matter, a venture without trial and without spiritual risk. But we have assumed in English Canada in the Revue d'etudes canadiennes years since the Second World War that national existence can be carried on without trial and without risk, and we have avoided most of its choices. Now, we have almost lost that distinct national existence, and we must make the choices or discard the prospect of ever doing so. We must recognize, for example, that we can't be both Canadians and Americans, as we have so easily assumed until now. We cannot both create an influential domestic periodical industry and sustain a dominant American presence within it. But we have tried to do both those things for the past twenty-five years. Now we have to choose or the choice will be past making; and if we choose, then many consequences...