“It has always struck me as being particularly sad that the arts have rarely occupied a central position in our political discourse. Canada is the arts. If I am sitting with a guy and he says ‘Tell me about Canada’, I am probably not going to say, we are cooking up a fabulous trade arrangement with Columbia. I am probably going to say my country is Margaret Atwood, and Atom Egoyan, and Jeff Wall and Karen Kain. That’s our country.”
Canadian actor and director Paul Gross earlier this month on the Conservative government’s cuts in arts funding
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In Canadian election news today, NDP leader Jack Layton said today that if elected his party would cancel the Conservative’s recent $45 million cut to arts funding: “One of the key things we must do, before we start giving $50-billion tax giveaways to banks and oil companies, is to protect and promote the arts.”
Not to be bested, Liberal leader Stéphane Dion announced that his party would also cancel the cuts and pledged to double the funding for the Canada Council for the Arts, to $360 million. Said Dion, “There is no strong economy without a strong artistic and cultural industry.”
Meanwhile, also today, Prime Minister Stephen Harper dismissed the cuts in arts funding as “a niche issue for some”; admittedly, the subject seems to be important to Quebecers than to Canadians in other provinces. Speaking to reporters, the PM said, “You know, I think when ordinary working people come home, turn on the TV and see a gala of a bunch of people, you know, at a rich gala, all subsidized by the taxpayers [ahem], claiming their subsidies aren’t high enough when they know the subsidies have actually gone up, I’m not sure that’s something that resonates with ordinary people.”
Meanwhile, across the pond…
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Updated to add: Head over to Sheila’s blog, Greenridge Chronicles, for Sister Wendy’s thoughts on the importance of art.
Filed under: Canadiana, Current Events
Yeah, I saw that. The one day I actually watch the news. And Stephen Harper says that with a straight face. We so need to get rid of him. I hope he’s wrong. Thinking about the possibility that he’s right is really, really frightening.
Wow, now I want to move across the pond. Then I could visit the British Museum all I wanted. And if I started lisping I could be Sister Sheila one day.
And since when did galas become “the arts”?