the last place on earth you probably want to beart + space + audience

I went to the Town Hall Meeting regarding the Tory funding cuts to the arts. My heart was warmed to see so many people there, including the media and local MPs. But I have to vent my frustration about what function this Town Hall Meeting served, and how the meeting’s organizers are intending to deal with the $62.06 million in cuts.

The audience cheered, the audience jeered, the audience nearly melted in the sweltering, unairconditioned Theatre Centre on Queen St. W. Susan Swan, Lisa Fitzgibbon, Claire Hopkinson and Naomi Klein each shared how these cuts negatively affect them and the people and organizations that they work with.

Swan, former President of the Writers’ Union, shared her desire for the arts community to unseat Conservatives, calling them “mean-spirited, short-sighted, backward-looking and negative.” She highlighted the continued secrecy of Harper and his Conservatives, who couldn’t even decline her invitation to meet regarding funding with dignity, instead ignoring her several requests to begin a dialogue completely.

Fitzgibbon, Executive Director of the Documentary Organization of Canada, gave a pragmatic overview of all of the areas that will suffer (or disappear) as a result of cuts to her organization, including training and professional development, distribution, heritage archiving, and production.

Hopkinson, Executive Director of the Toronto Arts Council, raised the most important and overlooked aspect of all of this. These funding cuts are a “collective assault on the arts without consultation.” No consultation, no explanation. Just cut, that’s it, deal with it. She provided resources for the arts community to distribute: The Canadian Conference of the Arts, the Canadian Arts Coalition, and the Toronto Arts Coalition. Aside from being completely condescending in identifying 905ers as “unlikely ambassadors” to the arts, Hopkinson had the right idea, to “reach out beyond our own colleagues.” In other words, stop preaching to the converted, which this whole Town Hall Meeting was turning out to be.

Klein talked about her husband, Avi Lewis, and the fear-mongering induced by the Tories in calling him a “general radical,” using his post at Al-Jazeera as a scare tactic (because media in the Middle East is supposed to be scary, you see.) She provided a briefing of other political events in Canada that provided a wider overview of how the Tories are otherwise damaging the values of Canada — she mentioned universal healthcare, Tory attitudes toward war resisters (whom are being deported to the U.S., where they face jail time for desertion, and dishonourable discharge, the latter of which is a felony offense that could strip them of the right to vote,) and environmental matters. She suggested cross-function coalitions, where environmental groups get together with arts groups, agricultural groups — basically all groups marginalized by Conservative policy — and help shatter the number of Conservative seats.

I was waiting for the part where the community strategizes a solution.

Instead, the Department of Culture, an organization Gregory Elgstrand remarked has existed for “seven to 10 days,” strategized for us, and we all listened to their abysmal solution. I was properly confused, because the email I received, which I posted the same day I got it, said:

What will we be doing? Strategizing on how to get our voices heard in the next election.

But since they did all the thinking for us, the Department of Culture’s website now says:

What will we be doing? Talking about the issues and proposing a comprehensive strategy for unseating key Conservatives in the imminent election, both in the GTA and across the country.

So. The abysmal solution: to unseat Conservatives. To rally key ridings. Get them out. Let’s not vote for what we believe, let’s vote with strategy. Let’s forget democracy and integrity for just a sec, there are Tories to oust.

There is something fundamentally wrong with encouraging a community to vote in unison. And what good can this group do? How many people in attendance ever voted Conservative? And if they did, surely they did for reasons aside from their art policies. Surely this is allowed. Surely the Department of Culture was more eager to hear what the rest of us had to say.

I’m sorry, arts community. But I cannot get behind you on this one.

I oppose the cuts. I think they’re harmful to cultural values that a lot of Canadians believe in. They damage our global reputation as a country from which quality dance, theatre, music, film and fine art emerges. They put thousands of people at risk for unemployment. They reek of ideological decision-making and insult the intelligence of not only Canadians, but of the rest of the world as well. They stifle Canada’s ability to contribute to a global history. They silence heritage.

There isn’t any debate about whether or not this is a political issue. It is political. And it needs to be dealt with in a political way. But what is unseating Conservatives going to accomplish? The biggest problem here is NOT Conservative representatives, but the arts community’s complete and utter dependence on government funds. Why aren’t we looking at ways to make ourselves more sustainable? More viable in a capitalist, free market economy?

Artist-run centres are a Canadian invention. They started in the 1970s as a way for artists to break away from the tight grasp of large, public institutions. Trudeau stepped up and started supporting them, introducing grant programs and pouring tons of money into them. In the meantime, ARCs have become so rife with bureaucracy that they can hardly be called “artist-run” anymore. And so we’re bound. We’re bound to our Boards of Directors, we’re bound to the Municipal, Provincial and Federal funding bodies who pay our rent, pay our salaries, pay the artists we support.

And unseating a Conservative might make a difference?

The Department of Culture is on it. They’re hiring (and paying), collecting volunteers, accepting donations, rallying together a group of outraged community members.

Why not try for something a little more radical than that? Instead of taking eleven people who are already strongly involved with arts organizations and starting a new one, which costs more money, why not align all of your groups, who already have members, supporters, audiences, instead of extracting yourself to join a new cause? Stop raising money for a new coalition and start raising money to run your current ones. Let’s all get together and brainstorm ways to thrive within an economic system that does not inherently support us.

If the Conservatives’ problem is ideological, wouldn’t it really be something to be able to produce our work without their money and therefore, without their input on whether or not they’re appropriate Canadian contributions to the global village?

So, if I may reiterate after a lot of frustrated ranting:

I oppose the funding cuts.
I support unseating Conservatives.
I resent that the Town Hall Meeting was really an information session for a select-few’s solution.
I oppose encouraging community-voting strategies.
I question the logistics of such a campaign.
I wonder if there aren’t a hundred million better solutions.
I strongly believe that dependence on government support is the real problem here.
I reject that an NDP or Liberal seat will do too much to rectify these funding cuts.
I question why there is as much trust toward the government within the arts community.
I believe that arts in Canada have what it takes to be sustainable and financially viable.

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UPDATE:

Take a listen for yourself. Timothy Comeau uploaded an mp3 of the meeting.

Also, I’m very interested in hearing what other community members think about the meeting or the situation in general. If you know of other blogs that are publishing material on the subject, please let me know in the comments or by email.

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UPDATE II:

Please read another post regarding this one here.

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