The Coalition for the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (CDCE) expresses serious concerns about the provisions on cultural industries in the new Canada–United Arab Emirates Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), signed on October 27. The agreement includes two provisions that break with Canada’s traditional approach. As Canada pursues negotiations with several countries, this new agreement risks setting a serious precedent for Canada’s ability to protect and promote its culture: a significant setback that is difficult to understand.
Canada has traditionally excluded cultural industries from the scope of its trade agreements through a general cultural exemption. Maintained in most agreements concluded since 1988, this approach seeks to preserve Canada’s ability to adopt cultural policies suited to its circumstances, without subjecting them to the trade obligations negotiated with its partners.
Two provisions that limit Canada’s policy flexibility to support its culture
Although the agreement includes a general cultural exemption, it also incorporates the retaliation mechanism found in CUSMA (article 22.5): t This mechanism allows the other party to adopt measures of equivalent commercial effect if Canada invokes this protection in a manner deemed discriminatory. This provision, which CDCE has consistently viewed as problematic in CUSMA, weakens the protection afforded by the cultural exemption. This is the first time such a provision has appeared in a Canadian trade agreement with a partner outside North America.
The second provision raising concerns appears in Annex 8-C-6. It sets out a reservation to most-favoured-nation treatment for Canadian cultural industries, but expressly excludes financial contributions to the development of Canadian content and measures restricting access to foreign online audiovisual content. As a result, any more favourable access conditions granted on these matters to a country with which Canada has an agreement would have to be automatically extended to the United Arab Emirates. This is the first time Canada has signed an agreement containing such a clause (a similar provision was considered in the past, but Canada ensured that it would have no effect).
CDCE is concerned about the implications of these provisions for Canada’s ability to retain full policy flexibility to develop, implement and adapt the legislative and regulatory measures needed to support funding for the cultural ecosystem and the discoverability of Canadian works—two essential conditions for the long-term viability of our cultural industries and Canada’s cultural sovereignty in the digital age.
A lack of transparency that raises questions
The CDCE also questions the role given to consultation with the cultural sector in concluding this agreement. Contrary to the government’s longstanding good practices, the cultural sector only learned of these provisions after the agreement had been signed, despite recent meetings with government officials responsible for the file.
Did concluding the agreement “in record time,” as the government proudly claims, allow sufficient time for meaningful consultation and an assessment of the implications of these choices on Canada’s cultural sovereignty?
A precedent with far-reaching consequences for future negotiations
As Canada seeks to rapidly diversify its trade and pursues several negotiations in parallel, including with ASEAN, India and Mercosur, as well as on digital trade with the European Union, CDCE is concerned that this approach could be repeated. Choices made in one agreement can become reference points in subsequent negotiations. This issue is particularly important amid current trade tensions with the United States, where poorly negotiated agreements become tangible threats to our cultural sovereignty.
As Canada pursues future agreements to diversify trade and attract new investment, CDCE calls on it to return to its historic position: including a general cultural exemption that applies to the entire agreement, with no clauses that weaken it. It also calls for the cultural sector to be informed and consulted before any new free trade agreement is signed. This approach is essential to preserving Canada’s cultural sovereignty. These approaches are essential to preserving Canada’s cultural sovereignty and ensuring that its trade policy is consistent with its international obligations regarding the diversity of cultural expressions. It should be recalled that Canada was the first country to ratify UNESCO’s Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions and is recognized worldwide as a leader in this area.