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I think when ordinary working people come home, turn on the TV and see a gala of a bunch of people at, you know, a rich gala all subsidized by taxpayers claiming their subsidies aren't high enough, when they know those subsidies have actually gone up – I'm not sure that's something that resonates with ordinary people.

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Originally posted by 500_Apples:
To be fair to Stephen Harper, I don't think it's clear that "ordinary people" care about the arts beyond hollywood productions and professional sports.

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Originally posted by 500_Apples:
To be fair to Stephen Harper, I don't think it's clear that "ordinary people" care about the arts beyond hollywood productions and professional sports.

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Originally posted by kropotkin1951:
I heard a conservative on the CBC yesterday explaining that ... the cons had actually increased funding.

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Stalin?

Mao?

Khmer Rouge?

Steven Harper?????????

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Originally posted by pogge:
Are you suggesting I'm not an ordinary person? I'd give you my immediate reaction to that but I'd probably get myself banned.

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Originally posted by bagkitty:

Hey, we aren't necessarily talking opera here... I look at the success of things like the Montreal Jazz and Comedy Festivals, the whole Folk Festival circuit out west... lots of small town celebrations with live music. Government of Canada sponsorship for most, and lots of "ordinary people" in attendance. And how dare you use the words fair and Stephen Harper in the same sentence

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Layton attacks Harper over forestry, food

... he took Harper to task for refusing to say in French what he said in English yesterday about "ordinary people" not caring about arts funding.

"I think when ordinary working people come home, turn on the TV and see a gala of a bunch of people at, you know, a rich gala all subsidized by taxpayers claiming their subsidies aren't high enough when they know those subsidies have actually gone up — I'm not sure that's something that resonates with ordinary people," Harper said in Saskatoon on Tuesday.

But because the Tories' $45 million in cultural funding cuts are hugely controversial in Quebec the Prime Minister declined to make the same claim in French.

Layton, who attended a large concert protesting the cuts in Montreal last night, said Harper lacked the "courage" to be so brazen in French.

"He's hiding behind his sweater."

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Edited to add: Harper's barbed shot at whining elites attending glitzy affairs was curious, given that his wife Laureen is the honorary chair of the National Arts Centre's gala next month in Ottawa. Canadian Press

[ 24 September 2008: Message edited by: writer ]

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Originally posted by bagkitty:
Unionist:

I hope you don't mind if I post the subtitled (english) version of the the video. They did an excellent job and everyone should get the full benefit of the jokes.

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Originally posted by ElizaQ:
To echo bagkitty's point. I live out in the boonies with 'ordinary' folk and the 'arts' are a pretty big thing here. Festivals, concerts, small town theatre, artisan fairs and art shows abound. Pretty much every single country fair from tractor pulls to pumpkin festivals have an 'arts' component and a lot of small towns have artists co-ops. It may not be big city opera but to say that ordinary folk don't care about airy fairy arty stuff is pretty laughable.

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Originally posted by unionist:
To Stephen Harper's chagrin, the following brilliant video has been "resonating" among "ordinary folks" all over Québec, with over 400,000 viewings since it was posted six (6) days ago!

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
You obviously share Stephen Harper's contempt for the "ordinary folks."

This isn't the USA.

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Originally posted by writer:

Edited to add: Harper's barbed shot at whining elites attending glitzy affairs was curious, given that his wife Laureen is the honorary chair of the National Arts Centre's gala next month in Ottawa.

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when they come home after a hard day working....at a music festival, film set, recording session, or even perhaps a mural painting gig in their local community with disadvantaged youth....do they think that their jobs are elitist and the paycheque they derive from such work doesn't "resonate" with their family or landlord or bank holding their mortgage?

does harper really, honestly think that "arts" is just fancy gala balls and cocktail parties?

Harper carefully said "rich gala", but it sounded as if the artists themselves were rich. There are very few wealthy Canadian artists, and a lot of us in cultural work are borderline poor. Someone pointed out that the pretty frocks the ladies wear at those things are rented or lent, and of course all the gentlemen's tuxes are. You want them to show up in jeans? Then you'd be complaining about artists who are contemptuous of the audience.

Boom Boom, the arts are making a huge difference in the largest settlement in your parts, La Romaine - there are a lot of young Innu people who have thrown themselves into musical and other creation. It has made a huge difference in their lives and is one of the positive Aboriginal stories we hear too little about.

And I'm damned glad about the closed captioning. That is another "perk" they'd no doubt like to cut.

We have a writer friend who is blind (he lost his vision in Lebanon after a bomb blast during one of the civil wars there). Radio dramas and cultural programming on CBC and Radio-Canada are as important to him as closed-captioning is to hearing-impaired people.

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Originally posted by lagatta:
Boom Boom, the arts are making a huge difference in the largest settlement in your parts, La Romaine - there are a lot of young Innu people who have thrown themselves into musical and other creation. It has made a huge difference in their lives and is one of the positive Aboriginal stories we hear too little about.

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Originally posted by writer:
Harper's barbed shot at whining elites attending glitzy affairs was curious, given that his wife Laureen is the honorary chair of the National Arts Centre's gala next month in Ottawa.

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Originally posted by bagkitty:
Unionist:

I hope you don't mind if I post the subtitled (english) version of the the video. They did an excellent job and everyone should get the full benefit of the jokes.

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Meanwhile, back in realityland, this gala talk has little to do with the lives of most who are in the arts.

I loved this comment at macleans.ca:

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Probably leaves out the 99% of artsy-fartsy types who go home from their waiter/waitress jobs and just want to turn on the TV.

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hmmm...cultural/intellectual purges...where have we seen this before?

Stalin?

Mao?

Khmer Rouge?

Steven Harper?????????

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"I think when ordinary working people come home, turn on the TV and see a gala of a bunch of people at, you know, a rich gala all subsidized by taxpayers claiming their subsidies aren't high enough when they know those subsidies have actually gone up — I'm not sure that's something that resonates with ordinary people," Harper said in Saskatoon on Tuesday.

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When I hear the word culture..., I release the safety on my Browning

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[ 24 September 2008: Message edited by: Jingles ]

I must say that when I get home, I don't ordinarily turn to something artsy fartsy to wind down. Unless a long shower with my wife's rather artistic home made soap counts.

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Originally posted by torontoprofessor:
The Toronto Star headline is misleading.

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Originally posted by torontoprofessor:
A small point: neither in the clip nor in anything else quoted by the Toronto Star, does Harper ever say that ordinary folks don't care about the arts. The Toronto Star headline is misleading. It's usually a sign of clear thinking to be accurate when representing what someone else said, whether you agree with what he said or not.

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This quotation:

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"I think when ordinary working people come home, turn on the TV and see a gala of a bunch of people at, you know, a rich gala all subsidized by taxpayers claiming their subsidies aren't high enough, when they know those subsidies have actually gone up – I'm not sure that's something that resonates with ordinary people,"

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clearly shows Harper misrepresenting the meaning of culture in order to justify his funding cuts. I suppose his characterization of the arts as the domain of rich whiners is done out of his love for both the arts and accuracy in language?

And on whose authority is Harper qualified to speak about what us "ordinary" folks like? In our family we get out of the trailer every once in a while to go to Folkfest, Roughrider and Blades games, the opera and ballet, demolition derbies and monster truck rallies.

Last week we went to a play, after which one of the actors asked us to consider becoming a sponsor of the theatre company. In a civilized country she wouldn't have had to do so.

[ 24 September 2008: Message edited by: al-Qa'bong ]

It's anti-big city, plain and simple. This is a party without a single seat in the three biggest cultural centres in the country. This stuff solidifies Harper's appeal to many rural voters I talk to. This is a guy, they feel, who is making the right decisions, the hard decisions, not wasting money on nonsense like fancy art and culture, or empty justice.

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It's anti-big city, plain and simple.

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No, it isn't simple. I live in a small city in the middle of the prairies, where the survival of the arts is a constant struggle. We ain't the elite in these here parts.

[ 25 September 2008: Message edited by: al-Qa'bong ]

Edited to add: Speak of the devil!

[ 25 September 2008: Message edited by: lagatta ]

Very few people in the arts make a lot of money. Even film and tv producers. Some make a comfortable living, but much of the time if you don't take on multiple roles you may have a hard time making ends meet -- especially in the documentary world. And the non-factual world is very hard to get into, very competitive, so you could be sailing along great, get canceled and then have a tough year. I'm certainly making less money than I would be if I'd stayed with the gov't job I had 11 years ago and quit to do this. Or if I'd put all those extra years of education into a professional degree.

We have a problem with home-grown content in this country for several reasons, not all of which I have time to get into right now. We have problems with distribution, for one thing, giving preference to the promotion of American content. We can look at Corner Gas as an exception -- it did fantastically well with Canadian audiences, but CTV promoted the shit out of it. If they hadn't, it wouldn't have performed nearly so well.

There is a conception that all the "arts" people in this country are making content that only the "elite" or artsy types watch -- not so. Sure, some do and we need to support the innovators who break the initial barriers that the mainstream adopts later or in less extreme form. However, at least in the tv and film world, there is a great deal of attention paid to generating accessible content and drawing audience share. To suggest otherwise is sheer ignorance. Who wants to make something that doesn't get seen?

And about the "rich galas", Doyle hits it on the head. These are put on via corporate sponsorships, not government grants or funds. It's a flat-out, bald-faced lie that Harper hopes people who don't get invited to fancy shindigs like the ones the missus puts on will suck up with righteous indignation.

The man is a snake. It's an insult to snakes to say so, but a more apt analogy is beyond me at the moment.

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Originally posted by al-Qa'bong:

No, it isn't simple. I live in a small city in the middle of the prairies, where the survival of the arts is a constant struggle. We ain't the elite in these here parts.

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Never said you were and I would never use that term concerning art or artists because to me, that's just buying into that same whole tired populist conservative worldview.

All I'm saying is, let's recognize this for what it was: Harper's pre-writ campaign. Candidate positioning is the whole objective anytime leading up to an election. This is the PM singing to his choir, and if we don't follow the tune, that's because we're not in it. It's an emotional appeal that he's putting out there so if we're going to poke any holes in it, it will only be by using the same kind of rhetorical tools.

The dictator angle works for me, but the thing is, I'm not the one who might ever in anyone's wildest dreams consider voting for him.

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Originally posted by triciamarie:
Well, sorry, but I don't see much inconsistency in Harper's position. It's not the small-town community concerts and plays and little crafts festivals that he's targetting; those aren't "art" as he's defining it. It's the edgy, forward, more challenging (and I include opera and ballet with that), less small-c conservative, read: urban programs that he's publicly scaling back -- or at least that's the impression being given out, which amounts to the same thing in an election campaign.

It's anti-big city, plain and simple. This is a party without a single seat in the three biggest cultural centres in the country. This stuff solidifies Harper's appeal to many rural voters I talk to. This is a guy, they feel, who is making the right decisions, the hard decisions, not wasting money on nonsense like fancy art and culture, or empty justice.

The only thing that sets them back about Harper is that he broke his word about fixed election dates.

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No, you don't get it. He's cutting all of us. Regional culture will suffer equally or more than urban culture. Cut off the film and tv tax credit, the regionals suffer even more than the big city production companies. Cut off the Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund, you cut off the small producers who need it to make Canadian stories. Cut off traveling artist grants, you make it impossible for regional artists to get a following.

This isn't about urban vs rural. It's about a puffed up idealogue pretending he's all grass roots. It's about silencing voices that he, personally, doesn't like.

You sooooo do not know whereof you speak.

[ 25 September 2008: Message edited by: Timebandit ]

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In an e-mail from the election campaign trail yesterday, Mrs. Harper did not answer the question as to whether she cancelled because of her husband's comments and the kerfuffle he created over the issue of arts and culture in Canada. Rather, she said it was because of campaign constraints.

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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).”

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Originally posted by Timebandit:
This isn't about urban vs rural. It's about a puffed up idealogue pretending he's all grass roots. It's about silencing voices that he, personally, doesn't like.

You sooooo do not know whereof you speak.

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What makes you say that? My husband is a (small city) artist (with a day job) and a number of our friends are also artists, both part-time and professional, various media, so I think I do bring some perspective.

And honestly, from where I sit, the silencing dissent thing, while great and helpful to conservative interests over the mid to long term, just strikes me as peripheral to the central objective of brand management in an election campaign.

It's probably even secondary to just the general mayhem and confusion and infighting (case in point) that has resulted from these cuts.

excerpt:

Mr. Harper is wrong on arts funding and he must be made to understand that real people - ordinary Canadians - really do support the arts.

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
Holy phoque, Stephen Harper

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Here, Rivard plays a small-?scale music festival curator appealing to a panel of bow-?tied, elderly [sic], unilingual Conservatives for government funding. Part of his pitch includes singing a Quebecois folk song about a seal.

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It isn't a folk song, but Beau Dommage's (the long version of the clip had the inquisitors calling Rivard "Mr. Damages") 1970s tune, La complainte d'un phoque en Alaska.

If you get the chance to hear it sung in the right venue by the right people, the song can sound like an anthem.

[ 25 September 2008: Message edited by: al-Qa'bong ]

[ 25 September 2008: Message edited by: unionist ]

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Originally posted by mauser98:
we owe the artists a living.

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[ 26 September 2008: Message edited by: oldgoat ]

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I don't understand the political strategy behind the Conservative cuts to arts and culture, any more than I understood the wisdom of Stephen Harper's war with the parliamentary press gallery. As the saying goes, never get into a spitting match with people who buy ink at wholesale prices. A fortiori - one can add - for those who have access to video cameras and pop music.

I do, however, know bigotry when I see it. And I see shades of it in the video clip lampooning the Conservative cuts that reportedly has had 50,000 hits on YouTube.

The grant-seeking artist, played by Michel Rivard, is a Francophone. The review board making the cuts is comprised of unilingual Anglophones - the stereotype of the "square head,” as we're sometimes called, interested only in money ...

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Originally posted by It's Me D:
what are you quoting here?

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Sigh, this is becoming a full-time job. The article is here.

ETA: By the way, make sure to read the "Comments" after Norman Spector's article. Everyone "got" the joke except him.

[ 26 September 2008: Message edited by: unionist ]

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Sigh, this is becoming a full-time job.

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Still, it's far better that Ms. Atwood and others in the creative community focus on Canadian rather than American politics, and that they write about current events rather than science fiction.

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The rest of this diatribe is here

Couldn't Mr Spector have at least managed to read some of Atwood's work before writing it off as having no relevance to current events? Both the Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake, Atwood's sci-fi, have a great deal of relevance to current events today; even more than when they were written.

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Originally posted by unionist:

ETA: By the way, make sure to read the "Comments" after Norman Spector's article. Everyone "got" the joke except him.

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The point of the joke, Mr. Spector, is that most artists and most civil servants handsomely paid to apply Mr. Harper's cutbacks speak two very different languages - and I don't mean French and English.
Capiche, sir?
And what I REALLY like about this video is - to surf on your latest column about our national treasure, Ms. Atwood - that it has brought hundreds of thousands of previously uninterested Quebecers to take seriously a political problem, bigotry in the halls of federal power, which is why Mr. Harper's fortunes are currently plummeting in Quebec.
Meaning: we are once more about to save your collective a**es.

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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 opera s 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.

(snip)

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.

(snip)

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. Histo ry, 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!

Adapted from the 2008 Hurtig Lecture, to be delivered in Edmonton on Oct. 1

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Actually I realize that she used the term to describe what Harper thought of average Canadians, but still ooohhh! I hate that term.

[ 28 September 2008: Message edited by: N.R.KISSED ]

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Originally posted by N.R.KISSED:
Please don't tell me Margaret Atwood used the term "envious hater". I appreciate what she says in this speech but I really don't understand how this term "hater" has become so common that even a talented wordsmith would utilize it. It really is a meaningless term and there are certainly much richer ways to describe the psychology of Harper and his allies.

Actually I realize that she used the term to describe what Harper thought of average Canadians, but still ooohhh! I hate that term.

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Quit bein' a hater!

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In an artistic way, here is my video response to Harper's comments:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhaXsa4Czcs

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"...Canadians risk a damaging polarization between conservative rural voters and liberal urban voters similar to the divide between Republicans and Democrats in the U.S., argued Eric Miller, director of the university's Cities Centre.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's recent comments that "ordinary working people" are unable to relate to government-funded cultural elites were less about devaluing art, since Harper himself plays piano, than about creating a divide between liberal cities and the rural, conservative heartland, Miller said.

"I think the reason Mr. Harper's comment about ordinary people and these fancy elites resonates was not just because it was an attack on the arts," Miller told the Star.

"He's using classic, Republican code-word, wedge-type (politics). He's trying to differentiate between the city slickers and the rural people. He's trying to create that sort of classic red-blue division that you see in the States."

Miller, whose Cities Centre hosted the event called Urban Issues in the Federal Election, added: "Even if you don't care about the arts, the fact that (Harper) is trying to create those sorts of divisions in people's minds is very dangerous. Because I think we do have a social cohesion in Canada."

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http://www.thestar.com/FederalElection/article/509358

I'm very proud of our surprisingly large demonstrations in favour of the arts and culture, and of reproductive choice. They seem to have halted Con gains in many parts of Québec - let's hope so.

[ 02 October 2008: Message edited by: lagatta ]

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Originally posted by Tommy_Paine:
I'd rather not think of myself as ordinary, but I suppose I am. Work, though, is something I deffinately do. Actual work, nothing you could do from behind a desk, or in a three piece suit.

I must say that when I get home, I don't ordinarily turn to something artsy fartsy to wind down. Unless a long shower with my wife's rather artistic home made soap counts.

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Gee, I had no idea that what I did 40-50 hours a week wasn't "actual" work. I always figured that since it paid the "actual" bills, it was real work.

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... the Baird campaign has filed an official complaint with Elections Canada over the involvement of this “foreign organization”, and is seeking an injunction to prevent Azaaz.ca from launching its ad campaign targeting Baird and others. (Isn’t that a lot like the ‘gag order’ on third parties that a certain former National Citizens Coalition president fought all the way to the Supreme Court?)

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Monsieur le premier ministre,

We are neighbours. We work across the street from one another. You are Prime Minister of the Parliament of Canada and I, across the way, am a writer, theatre director and Artistic Director of the French Theatre at the National Arts Centre (NAC). So, like you, I am an employee of the state, working for the Federal Government; in other words, we are colleagues.

Let me take advantage of this unique position, as one functionary to another, to chat with you about the elimination of some federal grants in the field of culture, something that your government recently undertook. Indeed, having followed this matter closely, I have arrived at a few conclusions that I would like to publicly share with you since, as I'm sure you will agree, this debate has become one of public interest.

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Originally posted by Michelle:
Open letter to Stephen Harper

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The Harper government has abruptly cancelled plans for a National Portrait Gallery that has been in the works for years.

Newly minted Heritage Minister James Moore announced Friday that none of the proposals received from developers is acceptable to the government.

He said it's important for the government to act prudently in a time of economic instability and the project cannot go ahead.

He made the announcement after 5 p.m. on a Friday — a tried-and-true strategy to minimize bad press.

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He made the announcement after 5 p.m. on a Friday — a tried-and-true strategy to minimize bad press.

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So, the new "New Government" is going to continue to act exactly like the old "New Government". Is anyone surprised?

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
Hell, why not say Calgary while you're at it?

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