Ms. Olivia Chow
c/o Olivia Chow Campaign Headquarters
659 Bloor Street West
Toronto, ON M6G 1K9

Dear Olivia,

Well there I was, all ready to give you my vote today, just like I had in the last election… And then one of your telephone campaigners went and messed it all up.

The young gentleman who called me was pleasant enough, but when I inquired about your plans for art and culture in this country he had no information to give me, and suggested that I visit your website. So I went to your website and as far as I can tell there’s nothing on there about art and culture. The NDP national site has a little blurb about more Canadian content on satellite radio, but not much else.

That’s about on par with the Liberals and Conservatives, but look what I found when I visited the this page on the Green Party site:

The Green Party understands that our future together, our sense of who we are, depends on policies that ensure a thriving, diverse and socially responsible cultural community as part of an inclusive Canada. Green Party MPs will work to (among other things):

• Increase support for community arts programs and facilities across Canada by establishing stable base-funding at a set percentage of the federal budget.
• Protect Canada’s cultural identity during trade negotiations.
• Expand support for regional arts festivals that bring new Canadian art to a wider audience.
• Introduce a law mandating cinemas and video chains to have 20 per cent Canadian content.

What’s more, the Green Party candidate for my riding is a showbiz-type, just like me!

Obviously there’s more to governing this country than supporting the arts. Here’s another list of Green platform policies that apparently your party doesn’t support:

• The Green Party is unequivocally opposed to subsidizing car companies such as Ford and GM — which have the highest CO2 emissions of any major car companies worldwide
• The Green Party is unequivocally opposed to clear cutting
• The Green Party is opposed to the commercial seal hunt and would cut government subsidies to it
• The Green Party is unequivocally opposed to importing toxic waste from the United States to incinerate in Canada.

Now folks are fairly confident that you’ll take Trinity-Spadina with or without my vote, so come tomorrow we can both breathe easier knowing that our favourite community is no longer under the reigns of Canada’s laziest MP. But please don’t think that I’m “throwing my vote away” to the Greens; I believe that in a very small way I’m investing in the future of this great country, and in so doing giving future generations of Canadians another option for responsible leadership.

That, and I’m still kinda pissed about your husband helping to bring down the government and wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on a winter election…

At any rate, looking forward to see you in Ottawa!

Andrew Currie,
a Trinity-Spadina voter

Alas, one director can only do so much…

Turns out that I won’t be making a film for ACTRA Toronto’s Co-Op Challenge this year, and truth be told, I’m really not all that busted up about it. Fact is I’ve been just too busy, and there’s no way I’ll be able to make the December 15th deadline. But I’ll also go on record with my suspicions that this campaign has a hidden, self-serving agenda behind it.

On the surface it seems like a noble cause, a call to action for local actors to speak out against the dwindling Canadian content on our big and small screens. But if you read past the first paragraph you’ll get a link to a bunch of information about the union’s co-op agreement, which made me wonder… Is this whole campaign merely a cover to harvest the names of members who are making shorts without ACTRA “participation”? Maybe I’m just a paranoid conspiracist, but if nothing else my theory would explain why an ACTRA rep was skulking around in the shadows at Darryl Gold’s last short film fest.

ACTRA’s likely hurting as much as anyone else in this age of digital piracy, but they’re sure not making any new friends with their lack of foresight in how to deal with it. At the last local members’ conference my girlfriend spoke up with what many in the room thought was a brilliant idea—having a centralized library of locally-shot video that members could borrow, enabling them to extract clips for their reels without having to pester producers on set. Unfortunately the idea was immediately dismissed by the head of our local chapter. And we pay dues to these people why?

Another sign that Canada’s acting union is way behind the times came with a comment from an old high-school chum, who also happens to work for the national ACTRA office in Ottawa. He was proud to tell me that ACTRA is trying to flex its muscle in the video game market, trying to make big game studios like Electronic Arts and Ubisoft pay ACTRA rates for their voice talent.

Yeah, right.

These people can voice their games in-house for free, so why on earth would they want to pay more for a professional actor that isn’t an internationally-recognizable star?

The more I think about this, the more I think ACTRA really needs to step back and rethink how to better help its members, rather than continue to hurt them.

In case you haven’t heard the leaders’ stance on the arts, it’s all here in a CBC report on their answers to an ACTRA petition — minus, of course, any input from the Conservative Party.

Of particular interest is an NDP promise for any artist making under $30,000 a year to be exempt from paying income taxes. The rest of you will still have to register for a GST number, unfortunately.

If you think the arts issue is of little import in the coming election, consider these facts, pulled from a Blogs Canada post:

1. Direct economic impact of arts and culture 1996-97: $22.5 billion (3.1% of total economy), $781 per Canadian
2. Direct employment in arts and culture 1996-97: 640,726 (4.8% of total employment)
3. Number of artists in Canada in 2000: 120,000
4. Culture spending by governments (all levels) 1999-2000: $5.9 billion
5. Federal culture spending 1999-2000: $2.8 billion, $92 per Canadian
6. Canada Council grants 2001-2002: $133 million (4.8% of federal culture spending), $4.25 per Canadian
7. Canadians’ total consumer spending on arts and culture events and activities 1996: $14 billion
8. Canadian families’ average annual consumer spending on arts and culture events and activities 1996: $1,121
9. Tourist spending on arts and culture events and activities in Canada 1998: $760 million
10. Growth in Canadian culture merchandise exports 1996 to 1998: 25%
11. Growth in Canadian culture merchandise imports 1996 to 1998: 18%
12. Number of Canadians volunteering in arts and culture organizations 1997: 500,000
13. Number of Canadians contributing financially to arts and culture organizations 1997: 560,000
14. Increase in Canada Council funding to the arts between 1996-97 and 2001-2002: 58%
15. Inflation-adjusted increase in Canada Council parliamentary appropriation 1992-93 to 2001-2002: 17%
16. Average annual employment income of a visual artist 1996: $12,633

Here’s the closest I’ve ever come to a personal response from a politician. It’s in reply to a petition sent to all party leaders in regards to increased funding for the CBC. The letter reads as follows:

Dear Friend:

Thank you for contacting the NDP with your concerns about strong, stable funding for the CBC.

Canadians want to hear each others' stories and see the world through our own eyes. That's why the CBC and Radio-Canada are so important as our public broadcaster; it's committed to telling stories about Canadians to Canadians, providing radio and television news and entertainment to citizens from coast-to-coast-to-coast.

But after 10 years of Liberal government, the CBC's budget has been slashed by more than 20%, and the Conservatives don't even mention the CBC in their new policy document. Instead of using budget surpluses to invest in the CBC and Canadian culture, Paul Martin and the Liberals have used that money to fund tax cuts for friends, insiders and big corporations.

We can use practical solutions to support the CBC and Canadian culture, and protect balanced news coverage of our country and our world. Today's NDP has a new energy and practical solutions for preserving Canada's identity:

We'll provide project-based grants and tax credits to support our visual and performing artists.

We'll increase and stabilize funding for the CBC and Radio-Canada, recognizing the importance of public broadcasting in a large country in a larger world.

We'll support the licensing of international, multilingual television on Canadian cable to allow Canadians greater access and insight to the world around us.

We'll protect domestic ownership of cable and telecommunications companies.

We'll ensure diversity of voices in media by preventing further mergers and acquisitions that provide media owners with more than 20 percent market share in a national, regional or local market.

The NDP is committed to building a green and prosperous economy in which no one is left behind. For more details, we would like to invite you to take a look at our platform by clicking here.

Sincerely,

Jack Layton and today's NDP.
New energy. A positive choice.

Last night I went to the Debate on Cultural Policy at The Gladstone Hotel, mostly hoping to hear Olivia Chow speak. Lately I’ve been hearing rumblings that her and hubby Jack Layton are little more than media sluts, spouting what NDP faithful want to hear only to get their mugs in the public eye.

Well, Dame Chow never made it, but this guy — local Green Party candidate Mark Viitala — did. And what did the Ska DJ-cum-politician bring to the table? Sadly, not much.

However, Beaches-East York NDPer Peter Tabuns pretty much said everything I wanted to hear. Some paraphrases:

• “We live next to the largest economy in the world, and we must take steps to protect our own culture from it.”
• “Where Canadian TV needs the biggest boost is prime time drama.”
• (re: Bill C-128) “We’re going to make mistakes, but it’s always better to err on the side of freedom of speech.”

So Olivia, your vote’s still safe with me!

Here are my thoughts on last night’s Leaders’ Debate — actually, more on the leaders themselves…

Stephen Harper was calm, cool and collected. But a convulsion went through me every time he tried to pass off his evil smirk as a geniune smile.

Paul Martin looked old, tired and beat up. History may prove me wrong, but I think he’s done.

This is the first time I’ve seen Jack Layton speak at length. The guy had some decent points to make, if he could only shut his mouth once he was finished. And the dude’s got the smallest hands I’ve ever seen!

Most surprising for me was Bloc-Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe. Despite a noticeable language barrier he came across as the evening’s most eloquent speaker, I thought. Too bad he wants to break up the country.

Oh, and one more thing: Can someone please explain to me why the fuck David Vienneau is on television? This man-munchkin hybrid makes me cringe every time he stumbles through one of his reports from Ottawa on Global National. Who exactly did he blow to get on panel for this debate?

“In its 46-page policy platform, the Conservative Party doesn’t mention art and culture. Not even in the appendix. The word art only appears once, in quotations, decrying the ‘artistic licence’ defence for child pornographers. Stephen Harper and other Conservatives have said they would cut finding to the CBC in whole or in part, and Heritage critic Jim Abbott supports lifting foreign ownership restrictions on telecom companies and broadcasters.”

Global National spent a good part of tonight’s broadcast talking about voter apathy in this country. If you’re feeling left out of the upcoming Federal Election I’ve got the perfect solution for you…

It’s unlikely that Canada’s Green Party will win a single seat in Parliament on June 28th. They have members in public office around the world (though not quite as many as the media might have you believe) but have been shut out of the upcoming nationally-televised debates next week.

My personal mandate for this election is to ensure that the NDP gets the minimum number of seats needed for official party status. If you find yourself stymied when it comes to making a choice, why not give the Greens a boost? If you do they’ll get $1.75 for their next campaign, and next time ’round you’ll have one more choice at the ballot box!

Elections are rare moments, even in a democracy, where common folk like you and I hold all the cards. Since it’s unlikely that Dalton McGuinty‘s budget will be an impeachable offence, denying the Liberals a Federal vote is pretty much our only means of payback. And if that’s not enough for ya, there’s also that sponsorship scandal…

Thing is, I’m not really that huge a fan of the NDP these days; their traditional support of organized labour seems particularly dangerous after Buzz Hargrove almost singlehandedly killed Air Canada — now there’s guy who deserves a pie in the face!

Despite this, I’m leaning towards an NDP on June 28th, despite the fact that all I’m hearing in the news this week are warnings of a possible minority government. Why is that such a bad thing? If the three (okay, four) parties have more equal representation in Parliament, and a single governing party can’t run amuck with its own mandate at the expense of other interests, isn’t that better, albeit slower, process of government for all of us?