Stephen Harper's federal Conservatives have axed a
$4.7 million-dollar federal program that helps Canadian artists promote their work abroad. The announcement came on Friday, as the opening of the Olympic Games in Beijing dominated the news.
Called
PromArt, the program helped send Canadian artists ranging from rock musicians to ballet companies overseas to promote Canadian culture.
Amidst heavy criticism,
Anne Howland, spokesperson for foreign affairs minister
David Emerson, said the move is mostly for budgetary reasons, and that the government is committed to "a more disciplined approach" to managing spending.
Still, she acknowledged that at least part of the decision was ideological, and driven by groups including Juno and Polaris Prize nominees
Holy F*ck.
"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 Howland.
"I don't even want to say [their name] on the phone," she said.
"Holy F - that was one that was flagged."In an internal document which heavily criticized various recipients of PromArt funding, author and foreign policy expert
Gwynne Dyer, who got $3,000 toward a lecture series in Cuba, was described as "a left-leaning columnist and author who has plenty of money to travel on his own."
Former CBC broadcaster and author
Avi Lewis, who is now with
Al Jazeera, was called a "general radical" who could afford to pay for his own travel.
"Some of the groups we felt had little to do with our foreign policy or how Canadians would want us to be perceived abroad," said Howland.
Other recipients include the
Canadian Museum of Civilization, which received $50,000 to help take an exhibit of Inuit art to Brazil; the
Royal Winnipeg Ballet, who got $40,000 for a U.S. tour; and
former Supreme Court justice Michel Bastarache, who got $3,000 to go to Cuba to lecture about the Canadian Charter of Rights.
The NDP compared the move with the conservatives' Bill C-10, which tried to retroactively strip tax credits from films that were deemed "offensive or not in the public interest," such as
Young People F*cking.
"These all seem to indicate concerns that are based in personal taste and conservative ideology, rather than in how to best reflect the diversity of culture in Canada and how best to represent Canadian cultural expression," said
Bill Siksay, the culture and heritage critic for the NDP.
"It doesn't strike me as a strong political strategy for a government that is facing re-election and byelections."
Liberal MP
Denis Corderre said the whole thing "smacks of McCarthyism," referring to the U.S. government's obsession with rooting out communism in the 1940s and 1950s. "I am totally disgusted," he said.
