ICA SPEAKS OUT AGAINST SPLIT RUNS
By Adnews Staff
The association representing ad agencies that account for the majority of national ad spending in Canada has told the Canadian Senate that it supports a tax that would effectively kill split runs of foreign magazines in Canada. Last week, Institute of Canadian Advertising President John Sinclair urged a Senate committee to recommend passage of Bill C-103, which would impose an 80% tax on Canadian advertising in split runs - special editions of foreign publications that contain little or no Canadian editorial content but carry ads from Canadian companies. Sinclair said that if split runs from bigger, better capitalized U.S. magazines are not stopped, it would inevitably lead to fewer Canadian magazines. This, in the long term, would mean fewer jobs in Canadian marketing departments and in the Canadian ad industry. Sinclair was part of a special task force which recommended the punitive tax for split runs. Although the task force was willing to allow Sports Illustrated to continue running seven issues a year of a split run without the special tax being imposed, the federal government's bill would not grant this exemption. However, the Senate committee recommended this week that the bill should be amended to allow Sports Illustrated to be exempted from such a tax. In reply, Canadian Heritage Minister Michel Dupuy warned that if the Senate sends the bill back to the House of Commons to be amended it will likely die on the floor.