Note from the editor: The following confidential
memorandum is being distributed
to select publishing executives and has
ended up at The Walrus offices.
CONFIDENTIAL
To: The Board of Directors,
Association of Canadian Publishers;
Canadian Writers Union, and
Writers Union of Canada
From: Felix McMasterson,
Director of Government Relations
Re: Tax on blank paper
Executive summary
This memo outlines how the American publishing industry, working with Canadian writers and publishers, will manufacture a “literacy crisis” to get the Canadian government to impose an excise tax on blank paper with the revenues funnelled to us. This private, hidden tax on blank paper is just like the music industry’s private, hidden tax on blank CDs and will net hundreds of millions of dollars in a short time, as it has for them.
background to the proposal
