Introduction

The book publishing industry has always been an uncertain business. In Canada, the landscape of publishing is even more complicated. A relatively small population extended over a vast geographic area makes the production and distribution of books complex and expensive. Furthermore, competition with international firms puts the Canadian publishing industry under constant pressure of being profitable.

The language also makes it difficult to analyze the industry as a whole. Although Canada is a unified political entity, it is not a monolingual country. It is ethnically heterogeneous and culturally diverse. According to 2021 census, 25.2 million Canadians speak English, 4.08 million speak French, and 6.5 million speak both.Footnote 1 Geographically, most of the English-only speakers are found outside Quebec and New Brunswick while most of French-speakers live in those provinces but also in Ontario and Manitoba (Statistics Canada, 2021).

Three provinces concentrate the major population of English speakers. Ontario has a population of 12,440,795; British Columbia, 4,382,328, and Alberta, 3,888,983. It is the same to publisher firms. Ontario has 44% publishers firms; British Columbia, 21%, and Alberta, 16%. The distribution of funding followed a similar pattern with Ontario receiving most of the funding given by the federal government—26.8%. British Columbia receives 10.4% and Alberta 2.9%.Footnote 2 Thus, since many Canadians speak English as their first language and because of the funding provided for the production and distribution of books, studying the Canadian English-language publishing industry becomes relevant.

However, in the twenty-first century Canadian English-language publishers have faced the emergence and influx of larger foreign-controlled publishing houses, particularly British and US.Footnote 3 Such houses sought to specialize in a single language, which may explain the lessening of cross-language collaborations and the increasing competition to sell books.Footnote 4

Despite those difficulties, the Canadian English-language publishing industry continues to survive and grow. It publishes the work of international Canadian authors such as Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, and Alice Munro. Statistics Canada registers 6,123 new titles published by Canadian English-language authors in 2020, while just 1,620 were written by foreign writers [2,3,4,5,6,7]. That data reveals both an enormous increase from the 55 English books published in Canada in 1948 [8], and a series of political projects that have contributed to the preservation of Canadian English-language publishing industry.

Justified on the grounds of creating and maintaining national identity, federal and provincial governments tend to fund their publishing industries. In this regard, through subsidies, Canada keeps protecting their own publishing industry from globalization and assimilation, though in recent years the country has encouraged foreign investment.Footnote 5 By promoting cultural and economic development, it might seem that Canada has relaxed some regulations. For example, lately the department of Canadian Heritage has not strictly applied the regulation of Revised Foreign Investment Policy in Book Publishing and Distribution. Before, foreign investors were obliged to invest in books businesses controlled by Canadians, but in 2020 Canadian Heritage has approved investments that are not subject to such policy. Some sectors of the Canadian publishing industry are now managed mainly by U.S. companies. That is the case of Amazon, which established a distribution center in Canada, or Apple, that set up an e-book business in the country. However, some policies keep applying.

For instance, the Book Publishing Industry Development Program Funding is responsible for the subsistence of local and regional publishing firms. In April 2021 the subsidy targeted to independent English-language publishers increased to $32.1 million [9]. Such program provides financial assistance to publishers for production, marketing, and distribution of Canadian-authored books.Footnote 6 As Lorimer argued, there was a desire on the part of Canadians for national identity, which prompted the government to intervene in the publishing industry, under the excuse that literature and nationalism are linked.

Even though Lorimer has argued this point before, it is necessary to examine contemporary debates on the role of government intervention in Canada’s English-language book regarding cultural diversity. There are two reasons why it is relevant.

One of them is that Toronto dominates and shapes the country’s book production and distribution [10,11,12]. That metropolitan area concentrates the reception of subsidies. Although Ontario has 79 publishing firms, 42 are located in Toronto. It is true that if publishing policy disappears from Toronto, the publish industry may fade away or be engulfed by foreign-owned firms like Penguin Random House. But also, it is important to create a policy that supports not just Toronto publishing houses but the voices of Canada’s periphery as well.

The second reason is that Canadian indigenous publishers and non-white publishers receive less government support than white publishers [13]. That may be due to the criteria established by the government to access subsidies, such as infrastructure or the operating time. For example, in 2020 to be eligible for federal government publishing support, a publishing firm must have at least one year of operations as a book publisher, be financially viable, and have fulfilled all contractual obligations with its authors. Within a context of structural inequality, for indigenous publishers owning a printing press is a complicated task.

Thus, this paper is focused on the Canadian English-language publish industry and tries to answer what it means for cultural diversity that most of the publishers are concentrated in an urban area. Consequently, it argues that metropolitan publishers’ firms lead the way in cultural diversity through its overwhelming number and by concentrating publishing production and distribution. At the end, this paper suggests that, in order to achieve cultural diversity, subsidies should also support new publishing projects before they become publishing firms.

For the publishing firms studied in this paper and which data were available, the average year of creation was 1980, while the federal and provincial policies supporting Canada’s book trade were implemented since 1970. So, firms founded after 1970 publish in a subsidy-rich environment. Most of them remain in business in 2020 due to those subsidies. Besides, as they continue to grow, publishers gain more experience about how to operate a publishing house.

The data on this paper builds on the early works of Lorimer and Boggs—whose sources of data as well as statistics tend to reveal meaningful trends such as domestically-controlled book publisher configuration—and it draws on English-language documents.

Furthermore, this work is based on secondary sources like time-series data provided by Statistics Canada and trade organizations data collected by Canadian Heritage. And it is also completed by three trade associations—The Association of Canadian Publishers,Footnote 7 The Literary Press Group,Footnote 8 and The Publisher’s Archive.Footnote 9

In this regard, this paper does not use primary sources such as semi-structured interviews because they are generally time-consuming and expensive. Besides, their application is better for answering precise questions, generally about the internal operation of book publishers and employees’ perspective. Instead, this work relies on both Statistics Canada data taken from the publication Book publishing industry, 2020, and Canadian Heritage data taken from the report “Economic profile of the Canadian book publishing industry: Technological, legislative and market changes in Canada’s English-language book industry, 2008–2020”.

However, as is common with government-collected economic data, the locations, owners, and name of the firms are covered up for confidentiality reasons. Moreover, those data neither report the number of employees nor the number of titles published or printed. But such statistics are important because they reveal a large overview of Canada’s book publishing industry, especially their profitability, their influence zone (that is, where they sell more books), and what genres are read the most. That is the reason why this paper also relies on information providing by those three trade associations, so the data can be completed.

Firstly, this article makes a summary about cultural diversity applied to the Canadian English-language publishing industry. Secondly, it presents and interprets the data referring to Ontario's publishing production in comparison to that of British Columbia and Alberta. It argues that Toronto congregates Canadian book production, and while British Columbia and Alberta have cosmopolitan cities like Vancouver, in terms of publishing production, both provinces are peripheral. Thirdly, it suggests that cultural diversity would benefit from emerging publishing initiatives.

Cultural Diversity in the Canadian English-Language Publishing Industry

Cultural diversity is a debatable and open-ended term. Generally, it refers to a coexistence of multiple symbols, subjective practices, and material differences like beliefs, morals, languages, genders, ethnicity, sexual orientations, etc. Besides, it implies people reacting to those distinctions and the way each person chooses to live in society. Because of its multiple meanings, that ranging from institutional definitions like the one UNESCO promotes to academic approaches, this paper prefers to understand cultural diversity as a vast concept where different and contradictory interpretations coexist together. Thus, this paper goes with Cong Lin [14] who argues that there is no unconditional and effective approach that fits to every culture. Rather, it is a question of what kind of approximation describes and explains better a specific context, such as the current claims of cultural representation that are on the political agenda of Indigenous people in Canada. Nevertheless, being emphatic to specific contexts and particular idiosyncrasies can cast light on cultural diversity.

In the Canadian context, for example, cultural diversity refers to the demographic composition of the country, focusing on its ethnic heterogeneity [15]. From the beginning, in the 1960s, the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism described cultural diversity in terms of the population size of those who do not belong to English and French groups. In that sense, Canada was a mosaic, or a multicultural society, made up of a trichotomy: the British, the French, and other Canadians. However, in that time, such definition was written from the vantage point of European rules. That changed after the end of the Second World War, when Canada modified its immigration regulation. There was an increase in migrants from all over the world, which made ethnic diversity more noticeable. So, In the 1970s Canada adopted the federal multiculturalism policy, and although linguistically only English and French would remain official languages, culturally everyone would be treated as equal. Multiculturalism aimed to preserve traditions and customs, also, it wanted to reinforce the international image of Canada.

Thus, as the country became more diverse, in the 1980s, the notion of the multiculturalism as a medium for cultural preservation was debated by non-white Canadians. They were more concerned with job, racism, and discrimination. Therefore, the multiculturalism was seen as a vehicle to promote equality and racial harmony regardless of economic inequality. However, in the 1990s, the debate over the constitutional and sovereignty claims of Quebec provoked an examination of the multiculturalism policy and, by the 2000s, the politics of difference raised as a popular term.

Important factors, such as social class, ethnicity, and gender were exposed. However, some scholars claimed that Euro-centered focus still applied in school programs [16], and, despite political policy, the desired goal of “true” multiculturalism has not been archived yet.

Under the twenty-first century, those debates get complicated with globalization. Not only cultural diversity continued to be discussed but also the changes in the mediascapes were considered as well (Table 1).

Table 1 Features of the Canadian English-language publishing industry, specializing in Ontario, British Columbia, and Alberta, 2020
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Thus, Vincent Mosco explains that the level of concentration in international media conglomerates has deepened and broadened. From his point of view, the success of such companies depends on controlling both production and distribution [17]. In the case of books, publishers from multinational media conglomerates have the possibility of expanding its products through advertising, but also, they have access to an extensive communication system that allow them to manage the market more effectively. So, the possession of information is central to customize products and to sell them faster. On the other hand, small publishers who do not have access to such system are in disadvantage.

That is why Jeff Boggs explains that since 1980 the government of Canada has been stepped into the publishing industry [10]. He argues that interventions are crucial for creating and reproducing a national identity and cultural diversity. While the confidence in unregulated markets may result in lower prices, it also may harm Canadian culture. Indeed, among Canadians there are concerns about the influx of British, U.S., and French titles and content. Foreign publishing firms may crowd out opportunities for Canadian publishers. Then, according to Boggs, policies have an economic and cultural impact as they may privilege dominant firms or independent publishers. Moreover, policies can concentrate their benefits in a specific area or distribute them to different locations.

In line with Graciela Martínez-Zalce, Canadian publishers have contributed to articulate symbols that represented the country’s identity [18]. Besides, they have provided Canadian authors with an effective way of reaching readers. Indeed, their success is based on publishing Canadian titles that contain cultural value. It is the result of a Pan-Canadian perspective that promotes a heterogeneity as a weapon against assimilation.

Having that in mind, Rowland Lorimer traces the policies and efforts that shaped Canada publishing industry (2013) in a globalized environment. He points out the concept of cultural diversity. Along with his thought, Canadian federal government policies promote access to cultural expression, production, and exchange, which contributes to cultural diversity. For example, in his opinion, despite from subsidies, the federal government intervenes in supporting copyright law and some other programs such as the Public Lending Right, the Convention on Cultural Diversity, BookNet Canada, and the national education system. Hence, Lorimer suggests that federal, provincial, and municipal governments provide direct and indirect support to the Canadian publishing industry. Among that assistance, the billions of dollars spent on education infrastructure are crucial. Extended from roads, transportation, and warehouses to the postal system, and the tax system, the Canadian infrastructure has a considerable impact on publishing and reading.

In this regard, Jordana Lobo-Pires studies the Canadian financial programs offered to the publishing industry [19]. The major program that supports the industry is offered by the Canada Council for the Arts and is called Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP). From Lobo-Pires perspective, that program is almost entirely responsible for the continuity of local and regional publishing industry. At the beginning, in 1979, it started funding publishers directly, and its investment was approximately $6 millions, but by 2006 its resources had grown steadily to $38.4 million distributed among 222 Canadian publishers.

Thus, government policies are important to the Canadian publishing industry. The market is complex and constantly evolving, making it difficult for independent publishers to perform profitably. For example, over the past two decades the sector has experienced an increasing consolidation of market share in terms of the proportion of sales and of largest publishing houses. In 2013 Penguin and Random House—two of the largest English-languages publishing houses——merged. That shrunk the “Big Six” into the “Big Five”. Moreover, the merging of companies continues with the Bertelsmann’s attempt to buy Simon & Schuster through its company Penguin Random House.

That is one of the reasons why the publishing industry is so complex. Hannah McGregor indicates another one [20]. She argues that publishing in Canada lies at the intersection between deep investment in cultural objects such as books, whose goal is to imagine different worlds, and an understanding of the cultural policies that shape the industry’s very existence. So, to avoid independent publishers’ extinction is needed policy interventions. At that regard, Jim McGuigan notices that governmental funding programs are not enough. He explains that political economy-based approaches demand a dialogical analysis, properly sensitive to the complexity of symbolic process [21]. Each publishing house that looks for government support is interested in political economy and cultural policy, because publishers need to understand their own possibilities at a time when the publishing markets they knew are now working under new forms of production and distribution. Therefore, it is up to publishers to examine the terms of their own possibility. As pointed out by Darren Wershler, the government is a special factor regarding cultural projects. On one hand, it creates policies to support and to fund initiatives emphasizing the concept of cultural diversity; on the other hand, the same bureaucrats design mechanisms of distribution that underline the industry [22]. Both perspectives recognize something and cover something. But as the Canadian publishing industry is shaped by government policy, publishers negotiate not just with authors, but also with the state, which determines through subsidies the ongoing worthiness of a publishing house. “By implication, this is also an assessment not just of one’s ongoing worthiness to edit those books, but also of one’s worth as a citizen making contributions to national culture” (225).

However, Emily Watt points out that certain forms of concentration and discrimination are routinely practiced in government publishing programs [23] Despite Canadian multiculturalism and cultural diversity, it is most common that metropolitan publishers receive government subsidies. Also, indigenous publishers in Canada obtain less support than white voices. That is true even to legitimize institutions like those which grant authors. According to Kara Locke, who analyzed three of Canada’s largest English-language fiction prizes, the proportion of white authors far exceeds that of racial authors. She exposes that until 2017 the oldest award in Canada, the Governor General’s Award for English-language fiction, controlled by the Canada Council for the Arts since 1959, has mainly gone to white authors. As a matter of fact, only eight percent of the winners were non-white. “Further, 3 of those years went to the same author, Michael Ondaatje, meaning that only 4 unique authors of colour have ever won this prize” (2). The same applies to the second largest award in Canada, the Scotiabank Giller Prize. From 1994 to 2017, only 38% of their winners were non-white authors. Similarly, four of the 20 winners of the Rogers Writer Trust Fiction Prize, the third major English-language fiction prize in Canada, were people of colour [13]. Thus, Locke concludes that there is a ethnicity problem in the Canadian publishing industry and in its literary awards, stories, and nearly every other aspect of the industry. However, awareness of this issue has become more visible in recent years. For example, Theytus Books has become an independent publishing house that has made efforts to promote indigenous literature and cultural diversity.

Apart from that issue, another one is that the Canadian English-language publishing houses located in metropolitan areas receives more subsidies than provincial publishing houses. That has been pointed out by Lorimer [11], Boggs [10], and Scott [12]. They argued that some areas receive more government support than others. According to those scholars of the cultural industries, large metropolitan areas tend to hoard the creation, production, and commercialization of creative content.

Hence, Ontario, the most populous province, is over-represented, and Toronto, the largest metropolitan area, concentrates the reception of subsidies and the production of books. The concentration of workers stretches from Toronto to the East as well. Toronto's workforce dominates the market, which is in line with the location of highly skilled workers. [10]. In other words, Toronto exemplifies an agglomeration of Canada English-language publishing industry.

Canadian cultural diversity is articulated in that complex context. Historically, one of the concerns of both the Canadian government and its population was the articulation of their cultural identities in harmony. Some debates on that issue were at its time approved, but they were later reformed in accordance with the social demands. As Cong Lin [14] argues, beyond government programs applied to state institutions such as schools, there is not a complete definition of cultural diversity. Instead, the empathic approach to cultural codes and the contextual demands of the population can make clear what cultural diversity is.

In that regard, in the twenty-first century Canada, reconciliation, the rights of women, migrant, and queer people are current demands. Therefore, if cultural diversity is understood in light of the needs of communities to achieve fairer representation, then it is valid to examine the way in which these communities have made their voices heard.

The Canadian English-language publishing industry, seen as a space where nationality and identity are interwoven through cultural production, implies its commitment to cultural diversity [11]. So, what happens when most of the Canadian English-language publishers are concentrated in an urban area? Especially, asking that is relevant for peripheral publishers whose books are most of the time written and read outside Toronto and help to shape cultural diversity as well.

Cultural Diversity and the Production and Distribution of Books

The publishing industries are involved in making products that have an influence on the way we understand the world. Through their relationships between culture, society and economy they can orientate readers towards certain type of knowledge that does not coincide with the interest of capitalism or of structured domination. But also they can preserve or normalize inequality.

Most of the government's grants to the Canadian English-language publishing industry go to publishing houses run by white publishers in Toronto, who have marginalized peripheral publishers [10, 11, 13]. Statistics Canada data and Canada Heritage data expose that in 2020 the English-language publishing industry were concentrated in Ontario. That province generated $979,500,000 dollars of the revenue (that is approximately two-thirds of total national operating revenue), while British Columbia produced $85,700,000, and Alberta $14,400,000. For every 11 dollars generated by Ontario publishing firms, British Columbia establishments produced one in revenue. Besides, outside of Ontario, the publishing industry operating incomes were less than the dollar value of grants.Footnote 10 It means that excluding Ontario, subsidies exceed operating revenue. This underlines both the relevance of the federal and provincial policies in providing support to Canada’s peripheral regions and the unbalanced market.

According to The Publisher's Archive, there are in Canada 180 English-language publishing firms, 79 in Ontario and 42 in Toronto. British Columbia has 38 publishing firms, 12 of them in Vancouver, while Alberta has 28–14 in Edmond and 10 in Calgary. This underlines the concentration of publishing in urban areas, particularly in Toronto. There are two Ontario’s publishing firms for every one in British Columbia and three for every one in Alberta. Although many jobs and access to social services such as education are found in metropolitan areas, other places have writers, reading communities and publishing projects that deserve to be supported by the government as well.

Not only the Canadian English-language publishing firms are concentrated in urban areas, but also the sales from both printed and electronic books are. In 2020, Canada's publishing industry obtained $894,700,000 of printed books. More than a half were commercialized and distributed in Ontario. That is, $621,700,000 dollars came from books that were available for sale or purchase in Toronto’s bookstores. On the other hand, British Columbia received $26,000,000 dollars in book sales, while in Alberta no information was found due to personal data protection. This is best reflected in the e-book market. In the same year, e-book sales made $130,600,000 dollars in the Canadian market. Ontario’s publishing industry got $120,000,000 dollars; British Columbia, $1,900,000; and Alberta, $200,000. It means that most of the e-books Canada reads are produced and distributed from Ontario.

This unbalanced distribution exemplifies the urban concentration of publishing production, and it illustrates how Canada reads its own books. For instance, in the case of literature, most of the time the best-selling titles are taught in schools or shared in reading circles. When books are not distributed on a large scale, they eventually get lost. Only those who get more attention survive. In Canada, these copies are selected by the Ontario reading community, since much of the printed book and most e-books are concentrated there. While there may be different cultural settings in British Columbia or Alberta that require representation, Ontario's voices have more resonance in the Canadian publishing industry.

figure a

Furthermore, as the data shows, e-book publishing has not diversified the Canadian English-language publishing industry. On the contrary, because of the lack of infrastructure or skilled workers, e-book publishing occurs just in urban areas. Whereas Ontario made 600 e-books in 2020, Alberta generated only one. Producing e-books on the periphery is a complex task. It requires to buy equipment and hire qualified people, who know how to use the software. Government subsidies do not cover this kind of activities, because they are generally interested in selling printed books.

Hence, federal subsidies also go to Ontario publishers. Although each province has its own supports, the federal government's budget for Canada's publishing industry is much larger than the provincial budget for the same purpose. In 2020, the Government of Canada provided the publishing industry with $8,400,000,000 dollars. Ontario got $2,091,600,000 from that budget; British Columbia, $924,000,000; and Alberta, $378,000,000. For every five dollars that Ontario receives from the federal government, Alberta receives one. As the publishing industry is an unprofitable business and its market is monopolized by large multimedia corporations, subsidies help the publishing industry to remain profitable.

figure b

Despite the overwhelming presence of foreign companies, Canadian publishers still print domestic authors. In addition, they employ local workers. This again highlights the importance of government subsidies for balancing the market. By striking a balance between demand and the production of cultural goods like books, Canadian readers have the opportunity to access a national offering. However, based on the total sales of local and foreign publishing industries, the Canadian book market remains divided between Canadian publishers and foreign firms (Table 2).

Table 2 Financial statistics by national and foreign publishers
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For instance, in 2020 Canadian publishers made $673,600,000 dollars in sales, while foreign publishers made $635,300,000. But surprisingly foreign publishers have received more royalties in Canada than Canadian publishers. While foreigners earned $416,100,000, Canadians earned $478,600,000; that is, $6,250,000 less than foreign companies.

Nevertheless, this is partially offset by exporting books and publishing local authors. In both cases, Canadian publishers defend themselves against international publishers. Canadian firms generated $134,100,000 dollars on export revenues, and foreign publishers received $125,700,000. In other words, Canadian publishers collect $125,700,000 more than foreign publishers for exporting publishing products.

Thus, subsidies help Canadian authors' voices to continue to be heard abroad and by their own community. In 2020, the Canadian publishing industry supported the work of 6,123 authors, while foreign publishers included only 1,620 Canadian authors in their catalogs. This illustrates the importance of subsidies to Canadian cultural identity and its representation in the publishing industry.

figure c

However, the cultural diversity of the publishing industry also depends on such government support. Since the supporting is concentrated in one area, the cultural diversity cannot reach different places all over the country. The greater the amount of support, the higher the probability of selling books. When some provinces receive more assistance from the federal government, others are unable to have their authors published and read. Therefore, a government promotion that neglects peripheral publishing houses can contravene the cultural diversity of book alongside the country.

But the problem becomes more complex as the emphasis shifts to employability. One of the criteria for subsidizing is the number of employees a publishing house has. Excluding distribution and export, by 2020 the Canadian English-language publishing industry directly employed 2,405 people. These jobs were broken down between 868 in Ontario, 186 in British Columbia and 55 in Alberta. Then, the supply and demand for jobs is higher in Ontario. In addition to its mission to protect culture, subsidies must encourage the local economy.

Having that in mind, it is understandable that many of the government’s support aims urban areas, but cultural diversity also passes through peripheral areas. One of the reasons why peripheral publishers do not have the same amount of government support is due to their lack of infrastructure. To obtain the support, it is required to publish a certain number of books and have a printing machine run; nonetheless, sometimes publishing projects that are just beginning can hardly reach those numbers, have such machinery, or employ many workers.

Therefore, to diversify the Canadian English-language publishing industry, federal government support is required as well as strengthening the start-up publishing sector. Subsidization of established local publishers is not enough. Focusing on projects that not published books but which have what it takes to become a productive publishing house, such as the idea of a catalogue or a network of writers and readers, could help to archive cultural diversity beyond urban areas. In this way, the voices of peripheral readers, writers and publishers will join the public debate and be heard across Canada.

If, in the minds of many politicians, a publisher's profitability is related to size and economic profitability, cultural diversity will always focus on established Canadian publishers. Typically, they are those located in urban areas. This may explain why Ontario publishers, and Toronto publishers in particular, are at the forefront of producing and distributing Canadian books. But when cultural diversity is understood as a relationship with the demands for representativeness, then one can argue against the concentration of cultural products.

The book, as an element of integration that influences on social subjectivity, should not be treated as an economic asset, but as a symbolic object, whose value lies in elements that are difficult to quantify, such as its content or its ability to change the mind of readers. As a result, cultural diversity in the Canadian publishing industry requires abandoning urban areas and moving to peripheral areas with a history of negligence and abuse, and whose voices in the twenty-first century claim a place in the national identity.

One way to do this is to recognize that it would be difficult for peripheral publishers to apply for government subsidies. Statistics Canada and Canadian Heritage data show that most of the funding goes to Ontario publishers. Many publishing projects never see the light because they can't go through the first stage—buying the required equipment. Therefore, public policy is needed to ensure that new publishing projects can move from planning to creation. Consequently, cultural diversity would move away from urban areas to reach every corner of the country. In this way, the books of writers from different regions would be together with those of the most famous authors, and readers would have a broader editorial offering to learn more about Canada's multiple and heterogeneous subjectivities.

Furthermore, even the catalogue of the books that, over time, have been taught in schools and have become outstanding titles can be expanded. For example, by incorporating different cultures into the media discussion, Indigenous stories can be added to the most award-winning books. Thus, the so-called literary canon would extend to other subjective views beyond those of the West.

In short, if government subsidies to the Canadian English-language publishing industry also focus on new publishing projects located on the periphery, then they may become more than simply support for business growth. They would get the true success of publishing, that is, the contact between different cultures that occurs when books reach readers.

Conclusion

This paper examined the data provided by Statistics Canada and Canadian Heritage to suggest that government support for the publishing industry as well as the production and distribution of books are mainly concentrated in metropolitan areas. It also complemented the information with data provided by three trade associations—The Association of Canadian Publishers, The Literary Press Group, and The Publisher’s Archive.

Comparing Ontario's results with those of the main English-speaking provinces, British Columbia and Alberta, this paper found that Ontario has more publishers, generates more operating revenue, sells more print and e-books, receives more grants, and creates more jobs. This is not to question the adequacy of government support for Ontario's publishing community, but rather to highlight the asymmetry in its distribution. There are peripheral regions where authors and readers have not been adequately represented in the publishing industry, such as indigenous communities.

Hence, given the editorial concentration in a metropolitan area, this paper also questioned the configuration of Canadian cultural diversity related to the publishing industry. It argued that diversity is linked with the demands of representativeness of historically marginalized communities. And because of structural inequities, these communities can scarcely afford the infrastructure to start a publishing house and apply for government subsidies.

Therefore, this paper proposed that subsidies, in addition to supporting established publishers, could contribute to cultural diversity by fostering emerging publishing projects before they become publishers. This could increase the number of author and readers outside Ontario.

In this way, this paper concluded that the publishing industry, as well as the titles that constitute the Canadian literary field, could benefit from cultural diversity. The subsidies would renew the literary canon by expanding its borders beyond the West through the voice of publishing communities far from the center.