[MisterF]

It also spends money on big business like automotive companies and aerospace.

As the article I posted shows, the arts contribute a lot more to the economy than they get in government funding. It's an investment, even if you look at it from a strictly financial point of view.

 

[Admiral Beez]

As the article I posted shows, the arts contribute a lot more to the economy than they get in government funding. It's an investment, even if you look at it from a strictly financial point of view.

If that is truly the case, then I say good, they deserve government support. If $100,000 given to some orchestra company returns more than $100,000 back to the economy then I can support it.

 

[doady]

I don't think we should always judge a program's worthiness of government funding solely based on its contribution to the economy. Surely there are things that worth funding that do not have economic benefit? Otherwise, the government might as well be privatized, and our Prime Minister replaced with a CEO, and all voters become shareholders of the National Corporation of Canada.

 

[Admiral Beez]

I don't think we should always judge a program's worthiness of government funding solely based on its contribution to the economy. Surely there are things that worth funding that do not have economic benefit? Otherwise, the government might as well be privatized, and our Prime Minister replaced with a CEO, and all voters become shareholders of the National Corporation of Canada.

Programs like libraries, which would not exist in a private system, but are important to the learning of our population should be funded outside of an economic model. However, music bands and orchestras, television producers and artists, for example, should pay their own way or if they're not economically viable, close down.

 

[ganjavih]

Programs like libraries, which would not exist in a private system, but are important to the learning of our population should be funded outside of an economic model. However, music bands and orchestras, television producers and artists, for example, should pay their own way or if they're not economically viable, close down.

Well, I guess that's your opinion. Our society deems culture things worth funding, so we fund it.

 

[Urban Shocker]

Libraries could exist in the private system. We could divest ourselves of everything that is of cultural value and run it as businesses to profit the few if we wanted to - but fortunately we don't.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Libraries could exist in the private system..

An interesting suggestion. How do you propose to achieve this?

To me, a private system library would not be a library, but would instead be a bookstore with rental agreements.

 

[Urban Shocker]

I'm not proposing it, since it would be in line with all the other harebrained right-wing schemes that have involved selling off publicly held utilities and services to fund tax breaks for the rich.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

what about our cultural ties to the UK? the governor general and our lieutenant governors? do these positions make money for us? if not, by beez logic we should become a republic?

 

[Admiral Beez]

I'm not proposing it

It looked like you were.

Anyway, let's put aside any right wing ideas, and instead, I'd like to know what policies and regulations the big government left of centre folks feel we should have for cultural funding. What criteria should we apply?

 

[ganjavih]

I'd like to know what policies and regulations the big government left of centre folks feel we should have for cultural funding.

OK, who here is a "big government left of centre folk" who would like to answer the question?

 

[JasonParis]

These cuts seem rather petty, ideological and curious for this period of pre-election talk. Not sure what Harper hoped to accomplish by this except to piss off people that would never vote for him anyway and to put a smug smile on the face of a few that would have voted for him anyway. Nothing gained or lost politically, but sadly a bite taken out of Canada's cultural infrastructure nonetheless.

 

[Hydrogen]

An interesting suggestion. How do you propose to achieve this?

To me, a private system library would not be a library, but would instead be a bookstore with rental agreements.

So why would you support public libraries if there is a private business model that suits your economic beliefs?

Also, why should my tax dollars be supporting the education of your children?

 

[PukeGreen]

These cuts show pure backward thinking. Our governments have no problem spending hundreds of millions of dollars to prop up dying manufacturing and automotive companies while expanding oil sands development, but any money similarly spent to support creative and tech fields is "wasteful" or "trivial". Why is the job of a designer or filmmaker seen as less valuable than that of an auto assembly line worker or oil engineer?

Many of the most interesting interactive web sites I've worked on in recent years have been at least partly funded by things like the CNMF (Canadian New Media Fund) which was chopped last week. Each of these projects employed a variety of hard-working people: filmmakers, graphic designers, translators, web developers, writers, editors, flash animators, sound recording engineers, etc. You know, the type of jobs that should be the future of Canada's economy.

But instead of embracing the future and generously funding creative industries our government is crippling them, while simultaneously spending money in a failed attempt to prop up obsolete industries. Car manufacturers in southern Ontario happily accepted hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks to keep them operating -- and then closed their doors only months later.

Instead of competing with Silicon Valley, Ireland and Europe for the creative jobs of the future, our government is choosing to compete with India and China for the manufacturing and resource jobs of the past. The best this vision holds for Canada is a reversion to our old economy whereby we subsist by supplying nothing more than raw resources (oil, water, softwood, beaver pelts) and cheap labour to our richer neighbours.

Why? I think it's a combination of older politicians who simply misunderstand the transitions that are taking place in our economy, along with pure political selfishness: the Conservatives want to appease their base of western and rural voters while simultaneously giving the finger to urban areas like Toronto where the vast majority of creative, arts and tech jobs lie. This politicking and shortsightedness is going to leave us all worse off.

 

[Hipster Duck]

These cuts show pure backward thinking. Our governments have no problem spending hundreds of millions of dollars to prop up dying manufacturing and automotive companies while expanding oil sands development, but any money similarly spent to support creative and tech fields is "wasteful" or "trivial". Why is the job of a designer or filmmaker seen as less valuable than that of an auto assembly line worker or oil engineer?

Perhaps because assembly workers are real men who drink real beer and built this country with their bare hands and all them arts types are just sissy girls who sit around lofts and discuss "theories of social unrest" while drinking French wine in leather pants?