Francis Chartrand for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles

This weekend, Helene Buzetti from Le Devoir has taught us that, having threatened to withdraw any subsidy to films that go against public morality, Stephen Harper has abolished a program of $ 4.7 million to help artists and intellectuals Canadian occur abroad.

The reason? The prime minister does not want radicals and marginal tarnish the image of the country.

HEE HAW!

The first time I saw Stephen Harper on TV, I thought to myself: "Oh boy, this is a big cowboy from the West who care about culture as its first rib of beef ..."

But I immediately stopped telling me that one must never judge people on their appearance and must always be given the chance to rider.

But you know what? My first impression was correct. Stephen Harper is a big cowboy from the West who care about culture as its first rib of beef. This man did absolutely nothing to the arts.

For him, the only works of art that deserve to be financed by the state are those that are good, who advocate good values and show how Canada is the country for more than beautiful in the world.

The Inuit sculptures. Some quilts showing farmers currently working on the land. The rigodons from Aspen Cove and Harbour Breton.

The guy is so straight and flat so it would pass the former Canada pavilion at Expo 67 for the headquarters of Hustler.

AN IRONIC "CONTREPOINT"

A conservative source very well placed in the governement said to Le Devoir that the program was abolished because it had already been used to finance the travel of persons or groups who "were not consensus."

But the interesting art is never consensus! The role of an artist is not to please everyone, but to explore sensitive subjects, controversial.

Even though its Bedonnesse think, there is life after the Group of Seven! It is all very well, the Algonquin Park and major Canadian landscape, but art is not just paint spruce and moose.

The most ironic in this whole story is that this new release is the same weekend where we celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of Refus Global.

We could not find a more savory counterpoint.

LOW RISK

Here's how Borduas described the Quebec 40-50 years:

"A small people around the tight soutanes remained the only depository of faith, knowledge, truth and national wealth. Held to shelve the development of universal thought full of risks and dangers ... The revolutionary works, when by chance they fall under the hand, seemed the bitter fruits of a group of eccentric ... " It seems Canada, by Stephen Harper.

A country very "gnan-gnan" which is not vague and refuses to give $ 10 000 to a troupe of dancers under the pretext that they sometimes show their nipples, but that does not hesitate two seconds to spend $ 292 million for 'purchase of six military helicopters. Like what the concept of obscenity is all relative.

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Labels: Canada, Richard Martineau

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 11:38 PM