Cultural protectionism in Canada has, since the mid-20th century, taken the form of conscious, interventionist attempts on the part of various governments of Canada to promote Canadian cultural production and limit the effect of foreign culture on the domestic audience. Sharing a large border and a common language with the United States, Canadian politicians have perceived the need to preserve and support a culture separate from US-based North American culture in the globalized media arena. Canada's efforts to maintain its cultural differences from the US and Mexico have been balanced by countermeasures in trade arrangements, including the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). History Government sponsorship One of the first such responses to perceived American cultural invasion in the later half of the 20th century was through the National Film Act of 1950, which increased the authority of the government's National Film Board to finance and promote Canadian culture. The Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences, also known as the Massey Commission, was released in 1951. It advocated the creation of a government sponsored organization that would exclusively finance Canadian artists. This organization, the Canada Council for the Arts, is responsible for the distribution of large sums of money to individuals or groups that promote what it defines as Canadian culture. The council had a greater impact than its parent, and continues to support emerging Canadian cultural talent that it approves of. The commission also works to foster a general sense that Canada risks being swamped by an invasion of foreign culture. This led to an increased fear that Canada might very well lose a distinct, national culture. Quota system In 1955, with this fear in mind, the government appointed Robert Fowler to chair a royal commission that is known as the Fowler Commission. The Fowler Commission reported that the majority of Canadian stations, including the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, used not Canadian material, but American. It was the commission's belief that a quota system should be enacted to protect Canadian content on the airwaves. This recommendation, passed in 1956, affirmed the CBC as Canada's official broadcasting station and initiated the quota system. In its inception, the quota system said that 45% of all content broadcast on the airwaves must be Canadian in origin. While this number has fluctuated over the years, it has generally required that