03-04-2025, 09:44 PM
The last time that Canada had an example of what a closed border looked like was circa 1939 to 1941 (and possibly beyond that to the end of the Second World War) when a lot of cross-border trade was halted to keep capital in Canada. As a random example, that led to a brief flourishing of the Canadian publishing scene (including comic books) as Canadians could no longer buy American books. As a different example, with an open border in the early 1970s, the Canadian government introduced rules for Canadian content in broadcasting which mean that the Canadian music and film industries began to expand dramatically. Acts from Anne Murray, to Bryan Adams, Justin Bieber, and Drake would not be where they are today if the Canadian government had not legislated space for Canadians in Canadian media. I'm not sure how our friends to the south would react today to those rules, but we can look no further than the current government legislation to protect the digital space and see how big tech (and the government behind them, or vice versa) is reacting to being told that they must support Canadian content if they wish to operate in Canada.