Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion met with a group from the Toronto arts community on Tuesday and spoke these word....
A Liberal government would reverse the Conservative government's $11.8-million cut to cultural diplomacy, and add another $11-million to promote and tour Canadian artists abroad.We can only hope.
Here is the full article from the
Globe and Mail...
Dion's gamble on culture
VAL ROSS
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
July 11, 2007 at 3:46 AM EDT
Normally an oppressed-looking demographic, Canadian writers - at least, those eight senior literary types faces drinking beer in the lounge of Toronto's Drake Hotel late last week - were in an unaccustomed state of cheer. They'd just had an in-person session with Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion, and he'd told them something they wanted to hear: A Liberal government would reverse the Conservative government's $11.8-million cut to cultural diplomacy, and add another $11-million to promote and tour Canadian artists abroad.
"The meeting with Dion was a huge relief," said Susan Swan, chair of the Writers Union of Canada. "We got a feeling of being on the same page with a politician after months of trying to have a dialogue with the Harper government."
The Liberal leader is on a charm offensive with Canadian artists and arts leaders and has had face time with artists and leaders from the music industry, theatre, museums and dance in Montreal, Winnipeg and Toronto. He is gambling that culture matters to urban voters. Whether or not that's true, "it's a weak spot for this Conservative government," says Peter C. Newman, one of the writers at the Drake. "With globalization, we've lost the battle for economic independence, but cultural nationalism is our saving grace."
This time, however, the Liberals aren't chanting old mantras about "We need Canadian culture to tell Canadian stories." Dion has a more pragmatic formulation: "The way to be strong economically is to be creative." He also argues that the cuts have undermined Canada's international image: "Compare this to what other governments are spending - the Germans through their Goethe Institutes, the French through their Alliances Françaises," Dion says. "To cut this [cultural diplomacy] is beyond understanding."
Since the Harper government assumed power last year, the foreign service has become more narrowly focused, or "instrumentally minded," as staffers put it.
Gone is most discretionary money for embassies and posts to host book-promotion readings and concerts, contact local media, buy blocks of tickets, top up performers' fees, help with tour logistics and generally prime new markets.
However, there is money to promote Canada's multicultural image, advance the war on terror, and leverage big names into useful political connections. Next month, the Canadian high commission in London is throwing a party to salute the world premiere of Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad at Stratford-Upon-Avon.
But Atwood is one of those most alarmed by the cuts, which she first heard about while attending a party at the American embassy during the Festival Amérique in Paris. Why was she at the U.S. embassy? "Though Canada was the festival's featured country," explains Atwood, "we had no money." Things have become more dire since then, staff at the Canadian embassy in Paris complain privately.
In Berlin it's worse. The new $90-million Canadian embassy that opened in 2005 was built with concert hall and exhibition spaces. Much of the time they appear to be empty.
Canadians in London recall when the high commission would make concert recording space available for artists such as pianist Angela Hewitt, and then throw black-tie receptions for local cultural leaders - such as the novelist Ian McEwan, who had mentioned Hewitt in his novel Saturday. "The cuts have hammered the life out of Canada House," says Judy Harquail, former tour director for Les grands ballets Canadiens. "The public face of Canada has taken a huge hit."
Staff at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International trade rightly point out that the Arts Promotion Program budget to help artists tour has remained untouched at $4.4-million.
But the Liberals hope to score points with Dion's promise to more than triple that.
Of course, Liberal promises of support for culture are just promises. But with Canadian cultural exports (including advertising services and film production) totalling almost $5-billion a year, Dion's pragmatic arguments may win new voters, and won't alienate artists already angry with Ottawa.
"Dion sees culture and the arts as part and parcel of a creative, innovative society," says the Writers Union's Swan. "Now he just has to get himself elected."
