It may seem unimportant (in the face of the emotional debates ongoing in the United States) that the chilly neighbour in the north also went out to vote this week. And indeed only 59% of Canadians bothered to turn up to the polling booths (we expend most of our political energy in feeling righteous about American politics). Nevertheless, there was a Canadian federal election, and at least some of us went to cast our ballot for a leadership that among other things would protect social programs, support green initiatives and provide support for our cultural industries. We lost. (Although my favourite headline the day after the election read ‘Harper wins a stronger minority’, which means that a month’s worth of campaigning – not to mention 300 million dollars – brought us almost precisely to the same point that we started from.)
The issue of arts funding never made an appearance during last night’s American presidential debate, but here in Canada we’ve been talking a lot about the cuts made to funding for the arts by our Conservative government. We’ve been getting hot under the collar about phrases like ‘the cultural elite’ and ‘ordinary Canadians’ and ‘the need to cut back in the face of a global recession’. Mind you, the talk has died down a little in the wake of economic crisis, but we (the cultural elite, that is) must insist that it doesn’t fall by the wayside. A recession is an excellent distraction from a discussion about the relevance of arts’ grants – but Canada’s economy is as reliant upon cultural activity as it is upon forestry, or fishing. The lumberjack, leaping from tree to tree in the wilds of British Columbia has been knocked off his log by bespectacled, Apple-toting writers, digital artists, choreographers, independent filmmakers...
Margaret Atwood wrote a righteous, insightful and very funny piece for our national newspaper about how shameful and wrong-headed it is to not only make cuts to our vibrant but economically fragile arts community, but to clothe the decision in language that falsely divides the country into those who work hard and don’t have time for fannying about with poetry and paintbrushes, and those who sit in ivory Torontonian towers and whinge about not having grant money enough to buy the new ipod. To be creative, she insists, is to be ordinary.
We’ve lost around 60 million dollars in funding for the arts, particularly from programs that promote Canadian artists abroad. I have a friend whose publishing company won’t be going to Frankfurt next year; another who won’t be able to find the money to take their short film to any international festivals. There may well be fewer Canadian acts at the Edinburgh Fringe.
We belong to a country that is proud (if one can be proud in a humble, Canadian sort of way) of our dualities: English and French, urban and rural, prairie and mountain, lumberjack and bohemian. And the language used by the Conservatives in justifying their cuts to funding made their decision no less than an attack on the elements of our society that they see as standing in the way of Big Business and ordinary Joe-the-Plumbers. To polarize the country this way, over the issue of how we value and promote our cultural activity, has exacerbated all the old frustrations and prejudices.
Shame on the Conservatives for not valuing our arts community, and shame on us ordinary Canadians for not bothering to vote to protect it.
