The Baie Comeau policy and foreign ownership in the Canadian book publishing industry: Culture, continentalism, and Canada-United States relations

Since the 1960s, the Canadian book publishing industry has struggled with problems related to distribution and foreign ownership. Domestic publishers have become marginalized, publishing only a small number of the books sold in Canada each year. On July 6, 1985, the Minister of Communications, Marcel Masse, announced a new initiative for the industry: the Baie Comeau policy. Its role was to Canadianize the industry by preventing direct takeovers and forcing non-Canadian firms to divest 51 percent of the publishing firms they acquired through indirect acquisitions. However, the policy was difficult to enforce because it was placed under the jurisdiction of Investment Canada, whose role was to encourage foreign investment. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's Conservative government had no incentive to enforce the policy because of the free trade negotiations taking place between Canada and the United States. Economic integration with the U.S. curtailed Canada's policy-making autonomy, making it difficult to implement nationalist cultural policies. Because the government did not have the political will to enforce it, Baie Comeau proved to be a failure, repatriating only five out of over a dozen publishing companies.