ROD Stewart's Rhythm of My Heart had been thoroughly dissected, and the verdict had been reached: definitely Canadian. A surprising decision, perhaps, given that the song has no direct connection to the country, and the singer himself is one of the last people you'd associate with the Great White North.

But the music and the lyrics were written by a Canadian, Mark Jordan - and that gives Rockin' Rod the two points he needs to meet the government-imposed requirement that 35% of the music played on daytime radio in Canada should have some kind of Canadian content.

Welcome to the bizarre world of Canadian cultural regulation, a sometimes arbitrary, often contradictory system of rules and measures cobbled together over several decades to protect Canadian culture - not just music but film, television, magazines and literature - from invasion by the American likes of Mickey Mouse, Rambo and Homer Simpson.

It gets stranger. Celine Dion is one of the country's most famous musical exports - yet her biggest worldwide hit, the Titanic theme My Heart Will Go On, doesn't make the grade. The point system for determining Canadian content is known as MAPL - music, artist, production and lyrics - and at least two points are required for a record to be treated as Canadian. My Heart only gets one point, for the artist, so it cannot be counted in a radio station's quota.

Canada is not alone in trying to draw a Maginot line against American culture. France requires cinemas to reserve 20 weeks of screen time a year for French feature films. Australia demands that 55% of a television broadcaster's schedule be filled with domestic programmes. And while Mexico allows foreign films to be shown with Spanish subtitles, it does not allow them to be dubbed because that would increase the mass appeal of new Hollywood films.

Canada may be the Death Star of cultural fortifications, bristling with regulatory armaments - but at a glance it appears the battle is already lost. Eighty percent of what Canadians watch on television, outside of news, comes from the United States. So do up to 80% of English-language magazines, 65% of the songs heard on the radio, 60% of English books and 95% of feature films.

At the same time, though, few people in the world match the Canadians' appetite for American cultural goods - everything from Walt Disney to the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. So as barriers are thrown up to keep Hollywood out, both Vancouver and Toronto welcome film production crews with a cheap dollar and incentives to dress up Canadian streets to look like New York and Chicago. Their efforts have been so successful that the American Screen Actors Guild estimates that Canada lured away the equivalent of almost 19,000 full-time film production jobs last year.

The cultural restrictions are partly intended to protect the 700,000 Canadians who depend on culture for their jobs. But those like Norman Jewison, the director of Moonstruck and Fiddler on the Roof, argue that much more is at stake. "This isn't just cars or refrigerators for sale; this is ideas," he says. "And when you start exporting ideas, philosophies, ways of living, it becomes an assault on the culture."

Yet entertainment is now one of America's most important exports, and for Washington every question involving culture and trade has assumed enormous importance. The office of the US trade representative even threatened to start a trade war over a proposed Canadian law intended to protect domestic magazines - a law which would have made it a criminal offence for Canadian companies to take out advertisements in Canadian editions of American magazines. Canada's position is that its own magazines will be undercut if Americans can simply place a maple leaf on a magazine cover and sell cut-rate advertising.

After months of argument, Canada's cultural minister, Sheila Copps, agreed to allow Canadians to provide up to 18% of the advertising in American magazines. She was pilloried for selling out - although the compromise represented a crack in Washington's defence against cultural restrictions. "This decision gives other countries the opportunity to argue that the precedent of taking cultural considerations into account has already been set," said William S Merkin, a former US deputy chief trade negotiator.

The systems which have developed to preserve Canadian culture are largely considered to have been successful in helping the nation break out of colonial dependence - first on Britain, then on the United States - and develop its own creative universe. Celine Dion, Shania Twain, Alanis Morissette, Bryan Adams and the Barenaked Ladies are all Canadian stars in the music field. In film, Mike Myers, Jim Carrey, David Cronenberg, James Cameron and Norman Jewison share Canadian roots. Television programmes such as The Outer Limits and The X-Files have been filmed in Canada - and in literature, Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro have been joined by a stable of accomplished writers including Michael Ondaatje and Rohinton Mistry.

What is less clear is the degree to which the system of regulation is responsible for such cultural blossoming. Many pop stars signed major contracts after leaving Canada, suggesting that the content regulations cannot be credited with their success.

The content rule also creates a kind of musical ghetto in which songs are replayed endlessly just to meet requirements. Barry Stewart, the music director of Toronto's CHUM-FM, says that because there are not enough 'Canadian' hits, a song by an artist like Shania Twain has to be kept on the playlist for more than five months. Listeners tire of it, and end up tempted to tune in to stations from the USA.

Others argue that the radio regulations can generate an artificial popularity that comes back to haunt Canadian groups. "If an artist has success in Canada, international markets often see that as 'rigged'," said Steven Page, the lead singer with the Barenaked Ladies, in a recent interview.

With its overwhelming impact, television is the fiercest battleground for Canada's protectionist policies - and the most controversial, because broadcasters often find themselves opposing the government.

Regulations now require 60% of a station's schedule to be Canadian. But regulators are constantly redefining what Canadian content is. Top Cops, a CBS programme that tells American police stories, fulfils the criteria because it is produced in Canada. But Disney's Never Cry Wolf, a 1983 film version of the Canadian author Farley Mowat's book about the Arctic, is not Canadian enough because it was produced in America.

Broadcast executives like Ivan Fecan, the president of CTV, one of Canada's largest commercial television networks, argue that while Canada's cultural regulations may be necessary, their effect is limited because they can never overcome a fundamental premise: popular culture must be popular.

"You can't force people to read Canadian magazines or watch Canadian dramas, but you should provide them with the choice," he said. "I don't think anyone would confuse this with being anti- American. It's not. Canada is not another state - and we don't want to be one."

The New York Times

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