There’s a story I learned back at school. It tells the tale of an extraordinary deception. Two civilizations, the story goes, were at war – one inside a fortified area, the other outside it. The siege between the two had gone for years, without a victor. Then, those outside the walls withdrew, leaving behind a relic of war – a wooden horse. Rejoicing at their apparent victory, the people inside the walls, pulled the relic into their midst. That night, spies hidden inside the wooden horse crept out, opened the gates and allowed the outside army inside the walls.
“Trust not their presents,” the Trojan priest Laocoon had cried. “Is surely designed by fraud.” But his countrymen had ignored him. And victory belonged to the Greek outsiders.
This week, I read a news story about James Moore, the federal minister of Canadian Heritage. He announced the results of a recent parliamentary review; the review had deliberated on a proposal by a U.S. corporation wishing to set up shop in Canada.
To better serve Canadian customers, it maintained, Amazon.com, the 15-year-old, American-based, multinational electronic commerce company, with headquarters in Seattle, Wash., (selling such products as CDs, DVDs, MP3s, computer software, video games and, oh yes, books) wanted to set up a distribution warehouse, or as it preferred to call it, “a fulfillment centre,” right here in Canada.
What’s more, over the past few years, when accused by Canadian booksellers of potentially harming the country’s cultural industry – with cheap editions and non-Canadian content – Amazon.com representatives apparently said, “preposterous.” The U.S. bookselling juggernaut, which posted revenues of $24 billion (US) last year, went on to say that it would invest $20 million in cultural events and awards to promote and market books written by Canadians.
Need I repeat Trojan priest Laocoon’s warning?
But then, this country has travelled this road before. And lost. Once upon a time, when Canadians began locating and developing crude oil deposits in Western Canada, an almost forgotten federal government proposed national ownership of a majority of the country’s oil resources under the banner Petro-Canada. The government, for its good intentions, was vilified as being anti-free-enterprize. In fact, some ordinary citizens went so far as to recommend the creation of an organization – the Canadian Development Corporation – whose mandate would be: majority Canadian ownership of a majority of Canadian enterprise for the benefit of the majority of Canadians. Why that’s bordering on communism, some said!
In an era of rampant, unbridled globalizaton such as we have today, I realize how antiquated – even counter-intuitive – the notion of Canadians owning Canada might seem. But clearly there were some – who today are laughing all the way to the bank – who recognized the merits of such nationalization in the bad old 1960s and ’70s.
The potash industry in Saskatchewan is as classic case in point. The then New Democratic government of Premier Allan Blakeney did the unthinkable back then, when it took over the mining and marketing of potash – the underground mineral that is perhaps the largest natural source of agricultural fertilizer on the planet.
Today the industry, owned by the people of Saskatchewan, is responsible for an income in just the past three months (of 2010) of nearly $100 million (US). And despite a recessional setback last year, potash shares have bounced back and continue to drive the province’s thriving agri-business. But that’s only one Canadian-controlled resource among most that today are not, including pulp and paper, steel production, coal mining and a host of manufacturing facilities we’ve sold to offshore interests in the past quarter century. It appears book publishing and sales will be next.
Perhaps the greater downside to allowing Amazon.com into the Canadian bookselling marketplace won’t be so immediately obvious. Sure, the presence of their so-called fulfillment centres might well deliver a book even more quickly than the warehouse in Seattle, Wash., could.
But can it listen to your request at the 11th hour, when fulfilling the book-loving Aunt Sally’s or son Jason’s birthday needs, the way a knowledgeable neighbourhood bookseller can?
Can a dot-com multi-national wrap the Christmas book with as much flair and tender loving care as our main-street book merchant?
Will a point-click-and-pay service keep a reading corner within walking distance for your children or grandchildren to enjoy? Not to mention the excitement of a Harry Potter midnight launch or a national Lucy Maud Montgomery literary festival on your downtown street?
So, listen to the minister of Canadian Heritage tell you all he likes about Amazon.com’s commitment to Canadian writers and publishing. As he opens Canada’s literary gates wide to empty promises of juicy awards and lucrative promotions, remember well the millennia-old words of a priest about a horse of a different colour.
“Beware of dot-coms bearing gifts,” might be the cry of the modern Laocoon.