Legislating identity: A critical review of the Cultural Property Export and Import Act

In 1977 the parliament of Canada introduced An Act Respecting the Export from Canada and Import into Canada of Cultural Property Illegally Exported from Foreign States. Commonly known as the Cultural Property Act, this federal law was established as a means to protect and preserve any moveable object deemed "of such a degree of national importance that its loss to Canada would significantly diminish the national heritage." The Act established a system of export restrictions on objects entering the market, tax incentives for those wishing to sell objects, and purchasing grants for designated institutions wishing to buy them. These controls significantly influence which objects are preserved as symbols of Canada's cultural heritage and national identity. The Act is the outgrowth of a long history of cultural property legislation in the Western world. It is also a response to internal and external pressure on the Canadian state to promote a distinct and cohesive national identity. Nationalist objectives and a Western interpretation of art, culture and identity are thus encoded in the language and administration of the Act. The law is consequently problematic for Canada's marginalized cultures because it suppresses alternate sovereignties and cannot articulate non-western approaches to cultural property preservation. The version of national heritage protected under the Act thus enables a form of cultural mainstream. This study, through a critical assessment of the assumptions and ideologies underlying the Cultural Property Act, strives to show that the Act relies upon disputable interpretations of national heritage and cultural value. In so doing, it seeks to find new ways of thinking about cultural property preservation as a way of recognizing the possibility of other cultural identities in Canada.