This study examined the authorship and discourse types of Canadian basal anthologies to determine whether the lingering centrality of the basal anthology in Canadian programs controls students and teachers by controlling language and reading. Each selection within five Canadian basal series (Gage Expressways II, Ginn Journeys, Holt Impressions, McGraw-Hill Ryerson Unicorn, and Nelson Networks) in grades one, three, and five were coded for authorship and discourse type. Results indicated that although Canadian programs still exhibit some of the controlling features characteristic of basal readers produced in the United States, the basal publishing industry in Canada appears to exhibit an implicit sense of textual integrity and wholeness by keeping adaptation to a minimum. House-written material, for narrative in particular, tends to decline across the grades suggesting an increasing emphasis on literature but this decline is partially offset by an increase in expository house-written text in Grade Five. (One table of data is included: 18 references are attached.) (RS)