Is there a softening of support for protective media legislation?

Partway down in a story on the issue of foreign takeovers in Canada in today's Globe and Mail is a short reference to a working paper circulating in Ottawa about loosening up restrictions, even in sensitive areas such as media.

"...the government documents, obtained by Ottawa researcher Ken Rubin, also argue that Canada should consider further reducing foreign investment restrictions, even in sensitive sectors with special barriers: telecommunications, broadcasting, airlines, publishing and banking.

"One internal document, which was marked "secret" and written on Jan. 11, 2006, a couple of weeks before the Conservative election win, said Canada has "lagged behind" in reducing foreign investment restrictions.

"Some parts of the documents were blacked out by government officials before they were released, but the Jan. 11 document concludes that Canada needs more multinational corporations, whether they're foreign-owned or not.One document cites a recent OECD study that found that Canada has the second-highest level of foreign ownership restrictions among the group's countries, after Iceland."

Such trends in government thinking, or at least advice to government (particularly one so enamoured, as this one is, of all things Republican) have been highlighted by similar published morsels in the past. If this indicates backroom thinking on this issue, it will soon enough come out into the light and those who oppose foreign takeovers of Canadian magazine publishing companies should have their ammunition ready.

Of course there are some people in the executive suites of large publishing companies who would think this was a swell idea, particularly if a sellout leads to a big payout. I'm sure they're paying close attention to such documents, too.