Many of you know about the election in Canada, coming up on Tuesday. I’m confused about who to vote for! Do I vote wisely against the Conservative government–that would mean voting Liberal because they have the best chance of beating the Conservatives–or do I vote for the candidate I want to in my riding–that would be Cathy McLellan, the Green party candidate, she has impressed me the most–or do I vote for the party I want to–the NDP, since I feel their platform best aligns with what I think (although I am not a particularly political person). There are issues I seriously, seriously don’t approve of with the Conservative government–the cuts in arts funding is probably the major one (read the article below: Margaret Atwood is a genius). Does Mr. Harper seriously believe that “ordinary people” don’t want the arts to exist? What about the many, many writers, artists, and hey, musicians that were given the opportunity to pursue their work better by the government? Is Canada’s rich arts community and culture to be demeaned so?

In Composition Seminar on Wednesday, Glenn Buhr (my prof) was telling us how many of the Canadian Composer competitions have been cut, and how we are in danger of not getting grants for our work–and it occurred to me a while ago, too, that the loss of the CBC Orchestra cut another source of employment for my friends, and another cut in possible commissioned works for me. This is serious business! This election is the first one I’ve been involved in that has had serious impact on me and my work, and my friends, and the future of Canada’s *culture*.

My brother, who is quite the little Harper fan, dug up the actual statement. Which, specifically, said that ordinary people don’t like going home, turning on their televisions, and seeing elaborate galas, subsidized by their taxes, in support of the arts in which elitist artists whine about cuts when their funding has actually gone up 8% during the past couple years.

May I say–if these artists are elite, they won’t be whining about cuts for themselves, but for students and the struggling artists who need it. The artists who work jobs like everyone else most of the time, often jobs they don’t like, so they can do what they love as a hobby. Quick note–what they love is actually the building blocks of Canadian culture. Do people really think that it is so wrong to provide some of those artists with the money to do what they love full time for a little while? Businesses get plenty of funding to do what *they* want, and it does not do a whole lot for Canada culturally–except in what they hand down in the form of grants that then get their name and logo plastered all over them. It’s my opinion that arts should never be cut, ever. I think it is one of the most important parts of Canada’s government to help create Canada’s culture.

I’m willing to pay my taxes, when the time comes. I’m willing to pay taxes to subsidize smokers’ healthcare, even though it will cost much more than my own, and I do not support smoking. I’m willing to pay taxes to improve our military–although I certainly begrudge that, and think it’s useless. I’m willing to pay taxes to give money to businesses that I have no interest in, and don’t think are important. Heck, I’m even willing to pay taxes so that the government can subsidize Canadian athletes. (Speaking of which, why aren’t people up in arms about that? Why is funding an athlete’s chosen way of life okay, but artists not?) Why am I willing to do all this? Because it will be my turn, eventually, to get something from the government, and that something is more than likely going to be an artistic grant to fund a period of time in which to make music. To make history, maybe!

But there exist people like my brother, and the many naysayers who clearly don’t have children in the arts, people who think the symphony is for the elite, and so clearly have never been…people who don’t understand why art, music, literature, film, and all the things that go along with them are important. People who say, “If the arts are so important, they can surely take care of themselves.” People who say “supporting the arts is a luxury”, “At least the auto industry and farmers and other industries produce something I want,” “I don’t want the products these so called artists produce. Most of it is garbage I wouldn’t waste my time on,” “I’m tired of my tax money subsidizing these whiners who waste my money producing junk. They should go get a real jobs or at least finance their own pet projects. Or go get a real life.”

Here’s a comment on an article that I can only hope was sarcasm: “Anyone who thinks there is more to Canadian culture than Molson Canadian, Tim Hortons, and the Air Farce is nothing but a pretentious bore anyway.”

I am concerned.

The following is an article by Margaret Atwood about the recent cuts to arts funding.

What sort of country do we want to live in? What sort of country do we already live in? What do we like? Who are we?

At present, we are a very creative country. For decades, we’ve been punching above our weight on the world stage – in writing, in popular music and in many other fields. Canada was once a cultural void on the world map, now it’s a force. In addition, the arts are a large segment of our economy: The Conference Board estimates Canada’s cultural sector generated $46-billion, or 3.8 per cent of Canada’s GDP, in 2007. And, according to the Canada Council, in 2003-2004, the sector accounted for an “estimated 600,000 jobs (roughly the same as agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, oil & gas and utilities combined).”

But we’ve just been sent a signal by Prime Minister Stephen Harper that he gives not a toss for these facts. Tuesday, he told us that some group called “ordinary people” didn’t care about something called “the arts.” His idea of “the arts” is a bunch of rich people gathering at galas whining about their grants. Well, I can count the number of moderately rich writers who live in Canada on the fingers of one hand: I’m one of them, and I’m no Warren Buffett. I don’t whine about my grants because I don’t get any grants. I whine about other grants – grants for young people, that may help them to turn into me, and thus pay to the federal and provincial governments the kinds of taxes I pay, and cover off the salaries of such as Mr. Harper. In fact, less than 10 per cent of writers actually make a living by their writing, however modest that living may be. They have other jobs. But people write, and want to write, and pack into creative writing classes, because they love this activity – not because they think they’ll be millionaires.

Every single one of those people is an “ordinary person.” Mr. Harper’s idea of an ordinary person is that of an envious hater without a scrap of artistic talent or creativity or curiosity, and no appreciation for anything that’s attractive or beautiful. My idea of an ordinary person is quite different. Human beings are creative by nature. For millenniums we have been putting our creativity into our cultures – cultures with unique languages, architecture, religious ceremonies, dances, music, furnishings, textiles, clothing and special cuisines. “Ordinary people” pack into the cheap seats at concerts and fill theatres where operas are brought to them live. The total attendance for “the arts” in Canada in fact exceeds that for sports events. “The arts” are not a “niche interest.” They are part of being human.

Moreover, “ordinary people” are participants. They form book clubs and join classes of all kinds – painting, dancing, drawing, pottery, photography – for the sheer joy of it. They sing in choirs, church and other, and play in marching bands. Kids start garage bands and make their own videos and web art, and put their music on the Net, and draw their own graphic novels. “Ordinary people” have other outlets for their creativity, as well: Knitting and quilting have made comebacks; gardening is taken very seriously; the home woodworking shop is active. Add origami, costume design, egg decorating, flower arranging, and on and on … Canadians, it seems, like making things, and they like appreciating things that are made.

They show their appreciation by contributing. Canadians of all ages volunteer in vast numbers for local and city museums, for their art galleries and for countless cultural festivals – I think immediately of the Chinese New Year and the Caribana festival in Toronto, but there are so many others. Literary festivals have sprung up all over the country – volunteers set them up and provide the food, and “ordinary people” will drag their lawn chairs into a field – as in Nova Scotia’s Read by the Sea – in order to listen to writers both local and national read and discuss their work. Mr. Harper has signalled that as far as he is concerned, those millions of hours of volunteer activity are a waste of time. He holds them in contempt.

I suggest that considering the huge amount of energy we spend on creative activity, to be creative is “ordinary.” It is an age-long and normal human characteristic: All children are born creative. It’s the lack of any appreciation of these activities that is not ordinary. Mr. Harper has demonstrated that he has no knowledge of, or respect for, the capacities and interests of “ordinary people.” He’s the “niche interest.” Not us.

It’s been suggested that Mr. Harper’s disdain for the arts is not merely a result of ignorance or a tin ear – that it is “ideologically motivated.” Now, I wonder what could be meant by that? Mr. Harper has said quite rightly that people understand we ought to keep within a budget. But his own contribution to that budget has been to heave the Liberal-generated surplus overboard so we have nothing left for a rainy day, and now, in addition, he wants to jeopardize those 600,000 arts jobs and those billions of dollars they generate for Canadians. What’s the idea here? That arts jobs should not exist because artists are naughty and might not vote for Mr. Harper? That Canadians ought not to make money from the wicked arts, but only from virtuous oil? That artists don’t all live in one constituency, so who cares? Or is it that the majority of those arts jobs are located in Ontario and Quebec, and Mr. Harper is peeved at those provinces, and wants to increase his ongoing gutting of Ontario – $20-billion a year of Ontario taxpayers’ money going out, a dribble grudgingly allowed back in – and spank Quebec for being so disobedient as not to appreciate his magnificence? He likes punishing, so maybe the arts-squashing is part of that: Whack the Heartland.

Or is it even worse? Every budding dictatorship begins by muzzling the artists, because they’re a mouthy lot and they don’t line up and salute very easily. Of course, you can always get some tame artists to design the uniforms and flags and the documentary about you, and so forth – the only kind of art you might need – but individual voices must be silenced, because there shall be only One Voice: Our Master’s Voice. Maybe that’s why Mr. Harper began by shutting down funding for our artists abroad. He didn’t like the competition for media space.

The Conservative caucus has already learned that lesson. Rumour has it that Mr. Harper’s idea of what sort of art you should hang on your wall was signalled by his removal of all pictures of previous Conservative prime ministers from their lobby room – including John A. and Dief the Chief – and their replacement by pictures of none other than Mr. Harper himself. History, it seems, is to begin with him. In communist countries, this used to be called the Cult of Personality. Mr. Harper is a guy who – rumour has it, again – tried to disband the student union in high school and then tried the same thing in college. Destiny is calling him, the way it called Qin Shi Huang, the Chinese emperor who burnt all records of the rulers before himself. It’s an impulse that’s been repeated many times since, the list is very long. Tear it down and level it flat, is the common motto. Then build a big statue of yourself. Now that would be Art!

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