Face it Parnel, it is your facile argument that is smoke and mirrors. CNN is on basic cable because it entered the marketplace first, FOX came along 15 years later. But the basis of your lane argument is you want to deny property rights in the Canadian market to Americans!

Funny last time I looked Canada was a sovereign country and a member of the GATT. This means we respect international trade rules and the property rights of those who offer their items for sale within our marketplace. But what you are suggesting is that we remove those property rights from all foreign producers of intellectual property and deny them the right to sell or license their property for sale in Canada.

Instead you would turn over those property rights to the Canadian market to American companies, who then would use their market power to extract those rights for far less than a free Canadian market would provide to the owner and seller of those rights.

In concrete terms, it costs about $2 million to make a one-hour TV show. US networks generally pay no more than 75% of that cost. The producer must make up the difference by licensing the program to foreign TV networks, or borrow from the bank. With up to three networks in Canada bidding for this program, the producer will see far more return from the Canadian market than if his US network just added another 5% for the Canadian market rights.

So why, Parnel and Simon and others, are you arguing for the expropriation of these vital property rights and thus denying a foreign entrepreneur from making a legitimate return on his investment from the Canadian market? How can you call yourself capitalists, conservatives and free marketers yet insist this be done so you can watch Ricky Gervais’ new sitcom a few months earlier?