For 33 years, TIME has published a special edition for Canadian readers called TIME Canada. It has included, in any given week, five to eight pages of reporting and comment on Canadian politics, society, art, sports and other fields, and often a separate cover (the last: new Conservative Party Leader Joe Clark). It was produced by a 33-member staff including editors, writers and reporter-researchers based in Montreal, plus correspondents and stringers in 17 Canadian cities. We have long believed that TIME Canada made an. important contribution to Canadian journalism, and many Canadians evidently agreed; the magazine's circulation--520,000--was, relative to the total population, our largest in any nation in the world. Last week, following the passage of much-debated new tax legislation in the Canadian House of Commons, we were forced to announce the closing of TIME Canada with the current issue. We did so, quite bluntly, because it became obvious that the Canadian government was determined to make it impossible for us to continue the edition.

The government's tax bill made that painfully clear. In Canada, companies are allowed to deduct the cost of advertising in Canadian publications as an ordinary business expense; for more than a decade TIME Canada, as well as the Reader's Digest, was defined as a Canadian publication for the purposes of this law. But the present government in Ottawa, plainly seeking to assist some Canadian publishers, decided to press for a change that would make it more difficult (or impossible) for TIME Canada to qualify under the tax rules as a Canadian publication--and thus much more costly for Canadian advertisers to use it to reach its readers.

The most onerous change proposed was a provision in the tax law that said that to be considered "Canadian," a magazine could not be "substantially the same as" one published elsewhere. Last May, Canadian officials indicated that this meant that "at least half" of TIME Canada's contents would have to be different from the U.S. edition. Again, we were prepared to comply. But in October, Canada's National Revenue Minister, J.S.G. Cullen, suddenly announced a far stiffer interpretation: the magazine would have to be "more than 80%" different in editorial content.

This totally arbitrary rule seemed to us completely unacceptable for TIME Canada, or indeed for any publication that seriously aims to provide its readers with worldwide news coverage of immediacy and quality. Soon after it announced the 80% formula, moreover, the Ottawa government also announced another completely arbitrary interpretation of the proposed rules that would permit the Reader's Digest to continue publishing in Canada. As an editorial in the Montreal Star put it: "It is now quite clear, if it was not before, that the sole aim of the legislation is to drive TIME Canada out of business."

Publishing economics will now force a sharp reduction in our circulation in Canada, although readers there will still be able to obtain the U.S. edition of the magazine. Advertisers--in Canada and elsewhere--will also continue to be able to reach Canadian readers through TIME. Although our forced decision to close TIME Canada is painful for us, the reasons why also trouble many Canadians who are concerned about press freedom. Said an editorial in the Ottawa Citizen last week: "Much more than TIME Canada's existence has been at stake. More important is the principle that the government can interfere in a publication's content."

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