Globe and Mail September 25, 2008
A phalanx of actors and artists, led by veteran Gordon Pinsent, spoke forcefully yesterday against the Conservatives’ recent cuts to arts and culture, urging citizens who value culture to vote and press for a prominent place in federal decision-making.
Pinsent gave the longest and most emotional of 19 speeches as ACTRA organizers gathered 21 mainstays of stage and screen to launch a passionate appeal for leadership that values Canada’s cultural workers.
“We know about Mr. Harper’s master plan, we know about Mr. Dion’s big ideas, but it would be hugely comfortable to know that we have a seat at that table - and not just in the children’s section, not just below the salt, but right there, smack dab in the middle of the big meal,” Pinsent said.
“It’s going to bloody well happen in this country. We will sit at that table and state our interest in substantiating a viable part of this country’s thinking and government’s understanding and education. … So when that table is set, and our seats are there, noticeably there, don’t I think that we’ll have a terrific celebration, truly a gala, where all of us can enjoy ourselves for being Canadian in the first place,” he said.
Pinsent’s comments were a clear attack on Conservative Leader Stephen Harper’s Tuesday speech in Saskatoon in which he called the arts “a niche issue” that “ordinary Canadians” can’t identify with.
“I think when ordinary working people come home, turn on the TV and see a gala of a bunch of people, you know, at a rich gala all subsidized by taxpayers claiming their subsidies aren’t high enough when they know those subsidies have actually gone up, I’m not sure that’s something that resonates with ordinary people,” Harper said.
Though yesterday’s outcry, hosted by ACTRA, was billed as a non-partisan event lamenting 20 years of artistic hardships under successive governments, many artists launched pointed attacks on Harper himself.
“I heard it said from somewhere that ordinary people don’t care about the arts. Well I believe that ordinary people don’t care about politicians, who don’t care about the arts,” actor Art Hindle said.
Several others attacked Harper’s comments with sarcasm, including frequent quips that they had drifted down from ivory towers to speak.
“Mr. Harper made a statement yesterday. It wasn’t his fault - it identified his character immediately. And he should have stopped after, ‘Ordinary working people go home and watch TV,’ ” actor Chris Potter said.
Most speakers were careful to cast their arguments not as special pleading for their industries, but as fundamental to the identity and financial health of Canadians in every region and industry.
“To say, ‘Ah, they’re just a bunch of whiners who want more money,’ is so fundamentally ignorant, and it just betrays his lack of understanding of how the fabric of [various industries] all work together,” actor Colm Feore said.
Feore emphasized that he was speaking not only for current voters but for “our children and our children’s children.”
“We watch with particular interest those stories that are about us, that speak fundamentally to who we are as Canadians as differentiated from every other people in the world. And if we lose that, and lose sight of the value of that, it’s going to be gone forever,” he said.
Actor Wendy Crewson and several others cited recent Conference Board of Canada estimates that the cultural industry generates 1.1 million jobs and a total economic footprint of $85-billion annually.
“I think Canadians understand that it is a catalyst for prosperity, that it attracts knowledge-based workers. That means more teachers, more doctors in our communities. I am tired of being told it doesn’t matter,” Crewson said.
Political leaders also leapt on Harper on Tuesday. Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion said from Vancouver that Harper “wants to pit everyone against everyone: Canadians against their artists” - a sentiment echoed by Liberal Heritage critic Denis Coderre.
“He’s trying to qualify Canadian citizens, like the culture workers aren’t workers, like they shouldn’t be considered ordinary people. What is this definition of ordinary people? That’s truly bad, that’s indecent, and I’m totally outraged to have a Prime Minister acting like that,” Coderre said.
NDP Leader Jack Layton challenged Harper to repeat his comments in French, highlighting the issue’s primacy in closely contested Quebec. Montreal has been the site of thousands-strong demonstrations and concerts in support of the arts in recent weeks.
But Feore emphasized that culture is a nationwide issue. “Do [Quebeckers] have a very sharply defined sense of their culture? Absolutely. Are they examples to the rest of Canada about how to support your culture? Absolutely. Is it a distinctly French issue? Not at all,” he said.
At a separate event yesterday, Ontario Culture Minister Aileen Carroll said Harper’s comments in Saskatoon “just completely leave me flabbergasted” and said that the Harper government is trying to use its policies to dictate what is and isn’t good art. “That keeps me awake at night,” she said.
With a report from Steven Chase.