There are many reasons why the Canadian GovernÂment’s proposed anti-pornography legislation, as tabled in Bill C-54, will make for bad law. In attempting to do too much at once, and to satisfy simultaneously too many constituencies, the government is creating for itself new powers in the control of discourse which are not only potentially abusive, but even as presently composed and intended contain reprehensible notions of state authority.
The cultural support organizations established in Canada since the Second World War have reached a stage of maturity which makes them now available for historical analysis.
The art publication artscanada (1943-1982) is identified, in this work, as an institution whose origin and development can be viewed as illuminating the terms of formation and operation which have shaped national arts organizations and the policies which brought them into being and to which they remain related.