Over the past several weeks the government of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced drastic funding cuts to arts and cultural programmes across the country. This is in addition to earlier funding cuts, and part of a concerted campaign against the Arts community and the Canadian heritage begun at the very outset of his governance.
The latest cuts include not only trusts that archive and preserve our cultural heritage in all media and making it available to schools and individuals for study purposes, but specialized schools that train our future dancers, actors, musicians, artists, and film-makers, programmes that assist in the exchange of art and cultural objects between publically funded not-for-profit museums throughout this geographically huge country, the Museums Assistance Programme (the only federal funding dedicated to museums), programmes in schools and communities intended to improve sustainability of cultural links and help arts heritage organizations grow, and programmes that help in the creation, dissemination, and promotion of Canadian art in the face of an overwhelmingly American influence even within the borders or our own nation.
While there is merit in withdrawing government funding from for profit business enterprises, Harper has initiated these funding cuts to non-profit, public education programmes, organizations, and institutions. He has done so without consultation either with those most directly affected or with the people he is supposed to be serving. They were presented as fait accompli, done deals, with no recourse to appeal.
In typical Harper administration fashion, the Minister of Culture was unavailable for comment. The Prime Minister’s director of communications, however was. “The opposition seems to be accusing us of having an agenda to see the arts is funded to a lesser extent on an ideological basis, and I can say that’s not the case,” the Toronto Star quotes Kory Teneycke.
The opposition political parties do not agree. “They (the Harper Conservatives) don’t believe in culture, but the worst part of it is that they want to change the kind of society you want to live in,” Liberal Party Heritage Critic Denis Coderre told the Star.
He is right. The Harper government sparked outrage in the arts community earlier this year with Bill C-10, which gives the government’s Heritage Department power to deny funding for films and television shows it, that is the minister responsible and the bureaucrats of the department alone, without any other input, considers offensive. Harper has also been quietly carving away at the state-run Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. While the CBC is meant to operate at arm’s length from the Government, Harper has made blatantly political appointments to its senior staff. Along with major cuts to funding these actions have played havoc with the CBC’s radio and television programming, resulting in far less original work being produced, and more imported, ready-made American shows being aired.
Along with other cuts to arts and cultural organizations dating back to 2006, the year of Harper’s election, the latest cancellations will have a devastating effect not only on the arts community, but on present and future generations of Canadian citizens in general.
What the Harper government seeks to create is a country that cannot maintain its archived film and sound heritage, and in which, even before time destroys them, citizens will be unable to access their past in photograph, film, and audio recording. This same country, fragmented by geography, will be unable to appreciate its art and cultural past in whole, because each museum and art gallery, (those that manage to stay open), will be isolated and limited in its acquisitions, and due to lack of funds will no longer be able to exchange and share its inventory. Canada will no longer be able to claim orchestras, dance companies, artists, writers, film makers, musicians, or theatre companies of international caliber, and talented students who wish training in the arts will have to leave the country to get it because the government chooses to withhold funding from schools that teach the arts.
These decisions that affect each and every Canadian have been taken by the government not after consultation with its citizens, but unilaterally. Why would such steps be taken?
The United States has long badgered Canada to rescind its cultural protections, protections that are necessary if we are not to be overwhelmed by their giant, generic entertainment industry. Under those protections the arts in Canada have thrived, and we have developed a unique cultural identity that reflects our history and societal values, which, as a nation we take justifiable pride in.
The loss of specialized schools, of access to our own artistic and cultural heritage, and of our great theatre and dance companies, the loss of artists and cultural icons can have only one result – the complete annihilation of our Canadian culture. A nation’s culture is its heart. A nation without a heart is easy to dominate.
The generic mush that passes for culture promoted by the US and the global corporate machine will easily and quickly move in to fill the void, bringing its foreign and questionable values with it.
* Foundations, trusts, programmes, schools or heritage organizations in this article refer to charitable or education organizations, school research establishments and charitable trust, not to for-profit businesses or self-promotion enterprises.
By Eve London