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An open letter from Peter Keleghan to the editor of the Toronto Star Toronto Star When it comes to delivering culture, private broadcasters, dictated by their mandate to shareholders, will only ever make the right business decision: turn a profit. Within this short-sighted vision, their bean-counters know it is cheaper to buy American shows than it is to make Canadian ones. But at what cost to our culture? We all must recognize that our art is the best way to deliver our meaning. Theatre, literature, music, film and even television can enlighten, lift us above the common stuff and unify. For us here in Canada, our multiculturalism, sensibilities and images are singularly unique, and our communal recognition of them fulfilling. It makes us family. Only at our table in Canada, we are overindulging on entertainment that will make us unhealthy. We do have profoundly nourishing stuff delivered as well, but a great part of this tasty, fast, easy, cheap, glitzy, foreign stuff is nothing more than fast-food entertainment – a fast-food culture that will quietly negate our heritage, disable our identity and homogenize our cultures to a lowest common denominator. Homegrown culture may be expensive, but it's much cheaper than the alternative – and last time I looked, we weren't a poor country, except in identity and vision for our future. Peter Keleghan, Toronto
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