Gov’t wants to lose luggage stickers

The Canadian government is upset about a Vancouver company’s cheeky stickers for luggage, which depict bags of cocaine, a flight attendant stuffed in a suitcase, sex toys and bundles of money.

“Joking around like this could possibly be a serious violation of the Aeronautics Act,” James Kusie, a spokesman for Transport Minister John Baird, told CBC News.

“Joking about potentially trafficking illegal substances, or worse, is not funny, and the government will use the full force of the law to ensure Canadians who travel by air are safe,” Kusie said.

Really? The government is going to use the full force of the law to crack down on… stickers?

Immigration minister deletes gay rights from immigration guide

Sigh.

Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney blocked any reference to gay rights in a new study guide for immigrants applying for Canadian citizenship, The Canadian Press has learned.

Internal documents show an early draft of the guide contained sections noting that homosexuality was decriminalized in 1969; that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation; and that same-sex marriage was legalized nationally in 2005.

But Mr. Kenney, who fought same-sex marriage when it was debated in Parliament, ordered those key sections removed when his office sent its comments to the department last June.

New funding rules could kill CanLit mags

The Conservatives have changed the funding rules for Canadian magazines, and it looks like small magazines are going to pay the price. This might be a case of “go online or die.” Or it might be a case of “go online and die anyway.” I guess time will tell.

Canadian literary, arts and scholarly magazines are likely going to die while large-circulation periodicals like Chatelaine and Maclean’s will have to make significant adjustments to operations as a result of new funding rules announced Tuesday by the Harper government.

While the overall aid-to-publishers budget is roughly the same as last year – $73-million – a single title can now receive only a maximum of $1.5-million a year. The only exception to this cap are agricultural publications such as The Western Producer, Canadian Cattlemen and Grainews.

Moreover, small publications with a total annual paid circulation of 5,000 copies or less are ineligible for any CPF assistance, with exemptions for aboriginal, ethno-cultural and official language publications.

Conservatives announce new arts and culture funding

I’m having trouble following the funding shell game, but I suppose this is a good thing.

Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore announced major cultural funding renewals this afternoon, securing $504-million in arts and culture funding for the next five years.

Moore announced that the Canadian Arts and Heritage Sustainability Program, Cultural Spaces Canada Program and Arts Presentation Canada Program will all continue through 2014-2015, though re-branded with new names.

Could the CBC be sold?

The Post reports the federal government is considering privatizing “not self-sustaining” Crown corporations, including the CBC. 

The federal Department of Finance has flagged several prominent Crown corporations as “not self-sustaining,” including the CBC, Via Rail and the National Arts Centre, and has identified them as entities that could be sold as part of the government’s asset review, newly released documents show.

Conservatives good for the arts after all?

Over at the Post, columnist Don Martin says the Conservatives have spent nearly $250 million on the arts trying to make up for cutting $45 million in funding last year.

That’s why endless streams of arts funding press releases have rolled out, some 118 announcements under Moore’s signature alone since the election, with many more to come.

Add it all up and the total is roughly $250-million, or five times the value of the original cuts, as the Conservatives attempt to reverse polling figures that have put their Quebec popularity into single digits.

While some of the announcements have limited artistic or cultural impact, it’s not hard to see their political value.

More money for the arts?

The Globe says the Conservatives are going to shower the arts with money in the new budget. A shower of gold!

On the weekend, Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore said $160-million will be designated to the sector over the next two years, and did not rule out the possibility that there could be more in store in today’s announcement. Deirdra McCracken, Moore’s communications director, confirmed that the entire $160-million would be over and above existing funding, and is not a re-announcement of any money already pledged.

Several arts executives said yesterday that such a windfall shows that the Conservatives are becoming more aware of the economic clout the sector holds, after $44.8-million in cuts to arts funding last year cost the party votes come election time. Alain Pineau, the executive director of the Canadian Conference of the Arts, said he is still concerned about the effect of cutting programs such as PromArt, but if arts and culture do indeed receive $160-million in additional funds today, “we can only rejoice.”

Conservatives cancel new portrait gallery

What — you’re surprised?

The Harper government has abruptly cancelled plans for a National Portrait Gallery that has been in the works for years.

Newly minted Heritage Minister James Moore announced Friday that none of the proposals received from developers is acceptable to the government.

He said it’s important for the government to act prudently in a time of economic instability and the project cannot go ahead.

He made the announcement after 5 p.m. on a Friday — a tried-and-true strategy to minimize bad press.

Conservatives say they won’t reverse arts cuts

Someone thought they would?

Those who hoped to persuade Canada’s new heritage minister to reverse the government’s proposed cuts to arts and culture programs are going to be disappointed.

Heritage Minister James Moore says he has no plans to cancel the $45 million in cutbacks announced before the start of the federal election campaign.

“These decisions have already been made, they’re in the past,” Moore told The Canadian Press in an interview at his office in Gatineau, Que.

“But in the future, there will certainly be opportunities to examine our spending.”

“We should be the landlords of our own industry, not the tenants”

Canada’s artists continue to defend themselves against Stephen Harper’s attacks.

Canada’s artists have launched a pointed and passionate attack at the nation’s political leaders, decrying Conservative Leader Stephen Harper’s statement yesterday that ‘ordinary’ Canadians don’t care about the arts.

In a united press conference on Wednesday morning, leading actors and artists insisted that arts is not about galas and subsidies.

Rather, they said, it’s a resource that comes from the minds of Canadians and delivers fantastic returns in the form of quality of life, education and national identity.

“We should be the landlords of our own industry, not the tenants,” said veteran actor and CBC presenter Gordon Pinsent.

See also “Actors condemn Harper’s culture cuts” and “Premier defends arts funding.”

Suck the Canada!

A video response to Conservatives Gone Wild. Make sure you turn on the subtitles. (Some language NSFW.)

(Via Michael Geist.)

“A targeted approach to arts cuts”

The Globe “has parsed the budgets and crunched the numbers to reveal the true trajectory of Canada’s support for the arts in recent years.”

Spokespeople for Canadian Heritage confirmed, when approached by the Globe this week, that every program cut under strategic review has come from the department’s arts-and-culture arm, leaving untouched the branches devoted to sport, youth, citizenship and identity, and diversity and multiculturalism. Such a revelation certainly hints at a targeted approach to arts cuts, which would contradict the government’s assertions that programs were axed based on simple efficiency reviews – and without ideological motivation.

“The analysis seems to point to a very worrisome trend, which is the federal government moving away from investing in arts and culture toward more societal aspects of the mandate of the Heritage Department,” says Alain Pineau, national director of the CCA. “I’m not against that – but it’s not new money. We’re taking away from Peter to feed Paul here, and that is really worrisome.”

Previously:

• Conservatives Gone Wild thread

Harper defends art cuts

In an exclusive interview with the Globe, Stephen Harper says he’s actually a fan of the arts, but government has to fund things people actually want. Like luge runs?

In his first detailed defence of $45-million in controversial cuts to arts and culture funding, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper called his party’s decisions good governance and said the government must walk “a fine line” between providing financial stability and “funding things that people actually don’t want.”

In an exclusive telephone interview with The Globe and Mail during a campaign stop at a winery in St-Eustache, Que., Mr. Harper, who many have called a Philistine, also spoke at length about his life-long passion for music and the piano as he denied the cuts were ideologically motivated.

He said the government should play “a fundamental role” in encouraging growth and excellence in arts and culture, but added that the marketplace, consumers and benefactors must also help shape the cultural landscape.

“You don’t get to the point where you’re just abandoning it, because I think cultural life is too fragile for that. And on the other hand, you don’t get to the point where, to be blunt, you have creators or producers who are entirely cut off from public need or public demand.”

Previously:

• Conservatives Gone Wild thread

Nova Scotia premier criticizes arts cuts

Premier Rodney MacDonald joins Newfoundland premier Danny Williams in denouncing the Conservatives’ recent cuts to arts organizations across the country. Now we’re just waiting to hear from PEI.

Premier Rodney MacDonald is urging the prime minister to reconsider cuts to arts programs, a move widely denounced by groups in Nova Scotia last month.

MacDonald said he sent a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper saying the province is trying to emphasize the economic spinoffs of arts and culture.

“I sincerely hope that these cuts do not represent the level of importance that the government of Canada places on the value of this sector to the Canadian economy, to our provincial and our Canadian identity,” the premier said.

Previously:

• Nfld. covers arts cuts, Ottawa cuts Nfld. in retaliation

• Conservatives Gone Wild thread

Conservatives axe another arts program

Who could have seen this coming, especially with an election looming?

The elimination of the Canada New Media Fund, the central support mechanism for an industry many call the future of communication, comes shortly after Canadian Heritage Minister Josée Verner told The Globe that some previously cut programs needed updating to keep pace with emerging technologies.

The CNMF, a decade-old grant and advance program administered by Telefilm but funded by the Department of Canadian Heritage, has historically lacked stability, operating under one- and two-year sunset clauses. Until now, it has been renewed each time.

But stakeholders recently received phone calls from Telefilm urging them to submit final reports because the program will not be extended when its current two-year mandate expires on March 31. Rumours have circulated that a replacement project could be in the works, but new media industry leaders are facing financial uncertainty and find themselves in the dark about future plans.

“You couldn’t have hit a harder blow to this sector. This is the definitive fund,” said Raja Khanna, co-CEO of GlassBOX Television, which doubles as a broadband video company. “We have no idea what’s going on. They might be working on a replacement project, but we’re in the dark. So the message we’re trying to get out is to talk to us.”

Previously:

• Conservatives Gone Wild thread.

Nfld. covers arts cuts, Ottawa cuts Nfld. in retaliation

I want to move to Newfoundland.

The federal government clashed with Premier Danny Williams on Friday over arts funding in what may be a sign of things to come in the next federal election.

Mr. Williams has announced that his Progressive Conservative government will cover federal funding cuts to artists in Newfoundland and Labrador by their Conservative counterparts in Ottawa.

He said he wants to protect local artists and the province’s cultural industries from $45-million in funding cuts across the country recently announced by the federal government.

Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn, the federal minister responsible for the province, accused Mr. Williams on Friday of trying to score political points that are not supported by the facts.

Hundreds protest arts cuts

You’d think the Conservatives would have waited until after an election to start pissing people off….

Hundreds of people gathered in downtown Montreal on Wednesday to protest government cuts to arts and culture programs.

Artists, singers, actors, writers and politicians spoke out against some $48.5 million in funding cuts announced by the Conservative government earlier this summer.

They accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper of censoring creative production in Canada, and harming the nation’s image abroad.

The Tories’ attitude suggests they scorn culture, says Marie Tifo, a Canadian actress and Genie Award winner.

“They don’t want to recognize the existence of art in our society, and that’s appalling,” said Tifo in French. “I’m here with all my peers to say ‘no,’ we exist, and [culture] is an essential good.”

Tifo was one of several high-profile Quebec artists and politicians who attended the protest at the Société des arts technologiques, a cultural centre on St-Laurent Boulevard.

Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe accused the minority government of waging an ideological war by cutting cultural funding.

“Culture is the expression of a people, of a nation,” he said. “Attacking it, like the [Tories] are doing, shows they are ideologically short-sighted.”

Duceppe said the cuts are in line with censoring, and “that’s dangerous. We can’t allow politicians to determine what is written, what is seen, what dances are allowed, what songs are tolerable.”

Harper defends arts cuts

The PM says the recent cuts to arts programs were necessary and that funding to the arts has increased under the Conservatives.

Harper said the government’s “changes” to more than a dozen programs is the only responsible path, and echoed recent assertions by his communications director, Kory Teneycke, and Canadian Heritage Minister Josée Verner that the government has managed to walk a tightrope, trimming the fat from its culture portfolio while simultaneously increasing overall spending.

“What this government has also done in that area, as it’s done across the government, is we’ve instituted an expenditure-management system, where over a period of five years we comprehensively review every program and we make sure that we’re spending on priorities and spending on those programs that are most effective,” said Harper. “Some programs in arts and culture have increased in funding, others have gone down – in total it’s gone up.” Federal investment in culture for the 2007-08 fiscal year was $3.4-billion, up from $3.2-billion in 2006-07.

Harper also painted promises from Liberal Heritage critic Denis Coderre to reinstate the eliminated programs, should the Liberals be elected, as irresponsible. “The opposition has a view that you can never cut any single program, ever. If that’s how they want to run the country, you’ll have two consequences. You’ll either have out-of-control spending or you will have a flat amount of program funding that is increasingly less effective over time,” he said.

Meanwhile, Karen Kain, the artistic director of the national ballet, has written Harper a letter asking him to reconsider the cuts.

“We are writing to express our deep concern about the recent cuts in budgets within the departments of Canadian Heritage and Foreign Affairs,” says a letter sent yesterday from Kain and Kevin Garland, executive director of the ballet company.

In both cases, programs that supported appearances abroad by Canadian artists are to be discontinued next March.

Their plea comes on the same day as the release of a new economic report arguing that culture is a major contributor to national wealth and prestige. The 60-page study from the Conference Board of Canada, a private-sector think-tank that did the study in collaboration with the federal government, argues that culture generated $84.6 billion in direct and indirect economic benefits last year, or 7.4 per cent of total gross domestic product.

“The prospects beyond 2010 are disastrous”

The Star talks to the Canadian music community about the Conservatives’ cuts to, well, everything to do with the arts.

“Music industry conferences in Canada will yield less because showcases will be unattended by foreign music buyers, agents, label representatives and radio programmers whose travel and accommodation expenses were partly paid by these federal funds.

“And fewer Canadian acts will be able to take part in showcases in major foreign talent conferences. Hundreds of small businesses in the Canadian arts sector representing millions of dollars in cultural revenue will be affected.”

Using grants of $60,000 to $70,000 from two cancelled programs, music industry organizations such as ECMA, Canadian Music Week and the Western Canadian Musical Alliance have paid up to half the travel expenses of international music industry representatives attending their annual showcases and awards presentations.

In the past decade, that small investment has helped hundreds of Canadian acts to sign foreign record deals, land contracts with overseas agents, and book tours in Europe, Asia and Australia.

Ride Via, ya lazy bums!

Opposition launches review of arts cuts

Opposition MPs have launched a review of the recent cuts to arts funding by the Conservatives.

Opposition MPs launched a House of Commons review of nearly $45 million in cuts to arts funding on Tuesday, suggesting the way the cuts were made was an example of government censorship and abuse of power.

“They were done in secret, with no consultation, with no public review,” New Democrat MP Peggy Nash told a meeting of the Commons heritage committee.

The three opposition parties demanded the session in the wake of cuts the government quietly implemented during Parliament’s summer recess.

“There is real concern the government is picking and choosing which artists it is supporting and which artists it is not supporting,” said Nash. “I suggest, in a democracy, that is a dangerous thing.”

Previously:

• Tories slash arts funding… and then stab it a few times more for good measure
• A no-brainer indeed
• Wondering what those arts grants funded?
• Tories axe more arts programs
• “Counterintuitive and counterproductive”
• “Support for arts and culture are among the most efficient investments a government can make”
• Have the Tories written off the cultural sector?
• Tories Gone Wild: Barely funded
• What exactly are the arts good for?
• Arts funding to go to Olympics programs
• “Governments need to invest in the people and businesses that make up our cultural industries”
• “I am worried about what direction this is taking us”