Ceasing Cultural Coercion

The Toronto Star recently ran an editorial with the usual statist arguments for cultural coercion.

I responded with the following letter to the editor, which appears in today's paper:

Canadians can make own choices

Re: Fight to survive in a digital age, Editorial, Oct. 1

Why is the Star opposed to consumer freedom? You write that in this digital age, “consumers can use the Internet and on-demand video to watch whatever they want, whenever they want.”

Yet instead of cheering this choice-expanding trend, you see it as a grave threat to our sovereignty and accordingly call upon the state to limit our freedoms.

You want more government regulations to force “Canadian content” on the air and want to coerce citizens through their tax dollars to subsidize what you consider politically correct cultural choices.

This attack on individual freedom is necessary, you argue, to protect “Canadian identity.”

Yet surely, Canadians should have the right to determine their own identity through their own cultural choices.