Canadian Artists, Take Heed!
The following is an editorial written by my former Canadian Theatre professor:
A Canadian Government that Hates Canadian Culture
The federal Conservatives have once again shown how much they despise Canadian arts and culture and the artists who create and perform it. Over the past few months they have boycotted the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards ceremony and attacked Canadian filmmakers with the censorship of Bill C-10, allowing the government to unilaterally cancel Telefilm grants to Canadian filmmakers AFTER filming has begun, based on unspecified ideological objections-offense to Conservative notions of morality or politics or whatever.
Now they’ve taken aim at two federal programs that promote Canadian arts and culture abroad, cancelling the $4.7 million PromArts program in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and the $9 million Trade Routes program in the Department of Heritage. Their reasons? I kid you not: because past grants have gone to what “senior Conservatives” call “a general radical,” “a left-wing columnist and author,” and “a left-wing and anti-globalization think tank.” This from an article in the August 8 Vancouver Sun from Canwest News Services-hardly left-wing or radical sources! Even they can’t seem to believe the stupidity, pettiness, and ideological narrow-mindedness involved.
That article and another in the Aug. 11 Globe and Mail point out that these programs have helped send an Inuit art exhibition from the Canadian Museum of Civilization to Brazil, fund a US tour of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and a lecture in Cuba by a former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada on the Canadian Charter of Rights, and have helped Hot Docs and the Canadian Independent Record Production Association market their cultural products abroad.
The government claims it’s about saving money. Bullshit. The money is pocket change in a $10 billion + surplus. It’s straight-out, right-wing Reds-under-beds politics of the Reagan-Bush variety. It’s appalling and a scandal. Time to vote these assholes out of existence. Imagine what Harper & Co would do with a majority . . .
A Canadian Government that Hates Canadian Culture
The federal Conservatives have once again shown how much they despise Canadian arts and culture and the artists who create and perform it. Over the past few months they have boycotted the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards ceremony and attacked Canadian filmmakers with the censorship of Bill C-10, allowing the government to unilaterally cancel Telefilm grants to Canadian filmmakers AFTER filming has begun, based on unspecified ideological objections-offense to Conservative notions of morality or politics or whatever.
Now they’ve taken aim at two federal programs that promote Canadian arts and culture abroad, cancelling the $4.7 million PromArts program in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and the $9 million Trade Routes program in the Department of Heritage. Their reasons? I kid you not: because past grants have gone to what “senior Conservatives” call “a general radical,” “a left-wing columnist and author,” and “a left-wing and anti-globalization think tank.” This from an article in the August 8 Vancouver Sun from Canwest News Services-hardly left-wing or radical sources! Even they can’t seem to believe the stupidity, pettiness, and ideological narrow-mindedness involved.
That article and another in the Aug. 11 Globe and Mail point out that these programs have helped send an Inuit art exhibition from the Canadian Museum of Civilization to Brazil, fund a US tour of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and a lecture in Cuba by a former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada on the Canadian Charter of Rights, and have helped Hot Docs and the Canadian Independent Record Production Association market their cultural products abroad.
The government claims it’s about saving money. Bullshit. The money is pocket change in a $10 billion + surplus. It’s straight-out, right-wing Reds-under-beds politics of the Reagan-Bush variety. It’s appalling and a scandal. Time to vote these assholes out of existence. Imagine what Harper & Co would do with a majority . . .