"What we intend to do ... is to look at how we can create a new program or new avenues that will be even better-performing and with a stronger impact for our culture abroad."
What a complete load. If you do "care", then you announce your "new program or new avenues" as a replacement. You don't slash, and then have the audacity to argue that we will now "look" into other initiatives. What serious person operates in this manner?
The fact of the matter, it's just a smokescreen, there is ZIP coming, by her own admission Verner says nothing is even on the drawing board. It's a simple CUT, end of story, period, fini, buh bye. Not only don't the Conservatives care, they are in fact HOSTILE.
BTW, I just upped my contribution to the Victory Fund, I find this sort of crap motivating. As an aside, I spoke with one of the solicitors and he said there has been a "considerable" uptick in contributions in recent weeks. Good, Canada can't afford these backward ideologues much longer.
16 comments:
Wonder where the hundred million for an environmental study in Alberta headed by one of Harpers flunkies who is also the head of it directing how the money is spent and receiving taxpayers dollars as salary.
Any takers on cancillation of 6 arts programs the last I heard?
Sorry it was 15 million for a Calgary school of energy and the environment. Got my stories mixed up. The main point is how different Harper is from Mulrony when dealing with a deficit. Wheras a PC party would reduce spending on programs they disagreed with Harper simply cuts them to replace them with what he feels Canadians should have like any other dictator from Castro to Hitler.
Why the Liberals aren't jumping on this sort of thing like flies to roadkill is a mystery. If the PC's were still around they would be.
The Harper government not only cuts programs without having replacement approaches on the table, but these changes are made with absolutely no industry consultation or official public announcement of their intentions. The arts community was blind sided yet again. (Remember the censorship clause of Bill C-10?)
It's also of a piece with the way they handled Kyoto, if I remember correctly. First they in essence denounced it, claimed they had a "Made in Canada" plan to replace it, then announced not a plan, but a future time frame for beginning consultations with industry on what best to do.
To provide covering fire while they scuttled from hole to hole, they screamed at every opportunity that the Liberals had done nothing for 13 years (not true), and somehow successfully concealed the fact that they themselves had done even less than that.
Glorious.
All part of the FIRE WALL AROUND ALBERTA.
Oh! sorry Lurkers, did I hit a nerve?
BTW Dippers, like what you've got so far? Guess you need just a titch more to feel really & truly superior.
To the progressive left, culture isn't something that naturally happens from a diverse and richly unique populace,
its something that is defined by bureaucrats in government cubicles, which government defined 'culture' must be funded and hence appropriately controlled, lest the wrong kind of "culture" develops naturally.
Well aren't you completely out to lunch then. These programs most certainly do allow freedom and independent creativity, to say it's all directed, sounds more like the Con approach than anything I'm familiar with.
north
This is exactly the script we saw on the environment file. A series of cuts, with no replacement, only when political heat was generated did they try to bandage, actually re-introducing what they shelved. Once again, it shows this Conservative Party is lead by people who know what they don't like, they tear down, but they have nothing positive to offer in return.
Steve V,
classic leftist response:
that we should be happy with the "choices" the government has left for us, after deciding what "programs" deserve our funds.
Similar to the notion of a tax break being a "cost" in the budget, as if the starting point is that our money is for the government to control, and our take home is really given to us.
Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism" couldn't be truer.
No wonder it was on Amazon's bestseller list for so long.
If a particular "cultural" artist/event/location/ what have you, cannot survive without government funding,
this simply means that given the choice, Canadians do not really believe that is an aspect of culture they want.
But the left believes that the nanny state knows better than us ignorant masses,
so we should fund the guy who draws red lines on a canvass and calls it "art". The Canadian public who's chosen not to buy his "art" in sufficient quantities to allow him to make a living,
must be wrong.
We knuckle draggers prefer to spend our money on professional football, which as was all know is not part of our "culture". No, our "culture" is limited to what the elites who sip cappucino and look down their noses in contempt at the rest of us simple people decide what "culture" is.
Bruce Carson, who has been appointed by Harper for the environmental study & also works in the PMO from what I understand, is also a convicted felon who served 3 yrs. for stealing money from his clients. He was a lawyer at the time.
Is this not interesting? He fits in perfectly with this abominable mob of charlatans.
"We knuckle draggers"
I appreciate the candor, and I agree.
the CPC still spends more money on the Arts then the Librals did.
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=726631
To funny, you liberals are great. and yes I know Harper hates the arts and is evil.
But what does that make liberals?
Well, speaking of culture, the CRTC has approved Canada's homegrown abult channel. Northern Peaks is an Alberta company that does things for Playboy TV etc.
Charles McVety should be up in arms about this as should the social conservative wing of the CRTC. Shhhh! Don't tell him about this.
anon
I've been waiting for that Canwest story. Typical lazy journalism, if you actually drill into the numbers, it tells a different story. Nobody disputes that the Cons have spent like drunken sailors, but look where the increased funding went. For instance the article mentions a 24% increase in funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage. This includes the 100 million given to Quebec City for the anniversary, plus 50 million for the Olympics. There's you increase right there, so its typical vote grabbing initiatives, rather than any actual investment in culture, like the programs they've cut. Sorry.
Ironically named culturalist:
Perhaps you should take an Art History class, if you did you might know that fellas like Michelangelo would not have produced art without the patronage of an educated cultural elites, in this example the Catholic Church. Most of the Group of Seven supported themselves by & large with other occupations. Other civilized nations support their artists in many ways, in Ireland artists pay no income taxes (up to a limit). Funny thing, even in United States, they have national endowments for the arts. Thanks to the guilty conciseness of dying Robber Barons over the generations the USA also has private arts endowments. Like your football do ya? Me I prefer the real man's sport of Rugby so why don't you CFL fans pay for the EFFing CFL & stop asking for handouts from the government.
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