Who hates the arts?

It’s always funny to see the left get all bent out of shape — more so than usual, that is — during election campaigns. This time around, the instigator is arts funding cuts. Harper announced $45 million worth of cuts back in August that have, predictably, become a huge campaign issue.

If you caught wind of this on the news, you’d think that Harper had cut every aspect of arts funding in the country and then laughed about it. In reality (where left-wingers fear to tread), the Conservatives are now spending more on cultural programs each year than the Liberals did in their last year in office. Parliament has voted to spend more than $4 billion on cultural programs for the current fiscal year. That is $660 million or 19.7 per cent more than was spent in fiscal 2006, the last year when the Liberals were in power. Despite the relatively miniscule cuts that are being exploited by every news outlet in the country, the Conservatives have boosted spending on arts programs faster than they have boosted overall government spending!

A huge chunk of the programs that did get cut could barely be described as part of the “art” community at all. According to Nuncscio.com, over $17 million was cut from Canadian Culture Online and the Canadian Memory Fund, which exist to “help federal agencies to digitize their collections.” Another $3.8 million was cut from Culture.ca. That’s almost $20 million for essentially running and updating websites.

The direct cuts to the arts can be found in the cancellation of PromArt, a government grant program confusingly run by the Department of Foreign Affairs, which doled out almost $5 million to artists travelling abroad. Included here are grants to best-selling recording artists, radical political figures, and comedians to go on tour overseas.

Why would the government cut this funding? Could it be that these “artists” did not need or deserve the grants? Could it be because at their core the Conservatives are, and were elected as, a fiscally conservative party? Could it be that upon review of these programs, it was decided that they were not feasible nor in the best interests of Canadians? No, of course not! The crack squad of leftwing masterminds came to the completely sound conclusion that: Conservatives hate the arts.

That’s right, Conservatives hate the arts.

Now I personally take offence to this completely bogus statement. Not only do I enjoy and appreciate the arts, I can confidently say that I support and help the arts community more than the average left-wing know-it-all does, who uses this issue as nothing more than another tool to bludgeon the Conservatives with.

Stephen Harper enjoys the arts as well. Few people know (or will likely care to acknowledge) that he plays the piano, sings and writes poetry. Paul Dornian, the director of the Mount Royal Conservatory, wrote in the Calgary Herald about an experience he had with Harper several years ago. At a media breakfast event, a group of young artists played to a very uninterested crowd who talked through their entire performance. Everyone either left or clustered off into groups after the performance. The only person to come forward to congratulate and thank the performers was Stephen Harper. He was not prime minister yet, there were no cameras around, and there were no political gains to be had. He was authentically thanking them for their performance.

Stephen Harper’s wife Laureen is a huge theatre fan who attends shows regularly. She has been an honorary chair at several National Arts Centre events in the past.

And of course there is the above mentioned fact that these cuts add up to about one per cent of what the Conservatives pledged to arts and cultural programs this fiscal year alone.

But no — Conservatives hate the arts.

You can ask the Globe and Mail, who said that Dion reacted the same way he normally does, promising not only to reinstate the $45 million, but to double the budget of the Canada Council for the Arts to $360 million annually. In the same breath, he also promised to increase the video tax credits by 30 per cent to $160 million, to give $25 million to the Canadian Digital Media Strategy, $126 million to international arts promotion and $16 million to museum assistance programs.

And he wonders why he can’t break 30 per cent in the polls.

So why is everyone up in arms? Why protest these tiny funding cuts to completely frivolous government grants? Why make the untrue accusation that Conservatives hate the arts?

Because it’s easy. Why investigate the situation when you can just go “faceless on Facebook” in protest and claim moral superiority? Why attempt go get a firm grasp on the economy when you can just compare Stephen Harper to Hitler (as composer Walter Boudreau did) and call it a day? Why try to be self-sufficient when you can just blurt out “Conservatives hate the arts!” and blame them for the fact that you don’t have a job?

Stephen McCreary supports the arts that he likes, and doesn’t need the government’s help in doing so.