Censorship through funding cuts.
Hey! Did you hear that Stephen Harper’s Tories have cut another arts program?
Its true!
Recently the entire PromArt prgram was axed. PromArt was a program via Foreign Affairs that enabled Canadian Artists to travel abroad and give them a world showcase. Some examples might be a band nearing their breakout point travelling in the UK, or a dance troupe like Les Grand Ballets Canadiens de Montréal being able to travel abroad.
But not any more.
"Certainly we felt some of the groups were not necessarily ones we thought Canadians would agree were the best choices to be representing them internationally," said Anne Howland, a spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Minister David Emerson.
Pressed for an example of those who failed to meet such a requirement, Howland cited a Toronto-based experimental rock band.
"I don’t even want to say [their name] on the phone," she said. "Holy F, that was one that was flagged."
She’s talking about internationally acclaimed Toronto band, Holy Fuck, a band pretty much recognized as one of the best Canadian indie products in a long while. Sadly, Howland is using them as a scapegoat here. Holy Fuck is not the reason they are cancelling the program. They’re giving reasons that some people who received money were partisan or political, or didn’t reside in Canada. But that’s not a reason to cancel the program. Clearly the people who received the money, qualified to apply for the program (because its not like you can get this kind of funding without going through a pretty rigorous application process). That doesn’t mean that you cancel the program. You take a look at your qualifying criteria.
But the Harper Government doesn’t do that. And this isn’t about money. This is the same tactic that was used to justify the tax credit changes under Bill C-10: its censorship of things that Harper and his cronies don’t like.
I notice that conservative paper the National Post has weighed in on the issue with an opinion piece. Its a highly partisan justification of the decision to axe the program. They cover in some detail the “abuses” of the program: people that they feel shouldn’t have gotten money (again…they clearly qualified for the program, so its the qualifications that are the problem not the program itself). But here’s the thing that really pisses me off in the article:
If Canadian artists produce world-class art, then it will be noticed on the world stage — with or without government assistance.
Written as someone who’s never been an artist. To get noticed on the “world stage” with “world class art” one needs to take your art onto the “world stage”. I don’t know any artists that can do that without funding. Its not possible. No matter how good the art is. If you can’t get it in front of an audience…its not art.
Here’s hoping our opposition parties finally find their balls and bring down this government in the fall.
