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Tories reject funding for Montreal gay arts festival


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There's no point in throwing money down the toilet.

Once again, however, you've avoided my question as to why would the Tories spend money there? Other than the 'criteria'....

Because many in Quebec are wary of the "redneck" factor as the Montreal Gazette wrote today. If it can be extended to one thing, it can be extended to many.

If the Conservatives ever hope to break the logjam preventing them winning majorities, they can't continue to appeal to their base by running interference on programs they designed to prevent that in the first place.

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It's easier to justify funding some events over others. Canada Day celebrations are something everyone can enjoy.

I despise parades, even Canada Day parades. I'd feel a lot better not having my tax dollars going to endless streams of gaudy floats and untalented pipers.

A celebration flaunting homosexuality, often distastefully, is something that's going to be VERY hard for a lot of Canadians to want to support with dollars from their pockets.

Ah look, and now bigotry and special pleading.

Of course there's politics involved with this sort of thing. There always is. What's your point? The Tories aren't out there actively attacking gays, they've just made it clear there's better things to do with money in a recession than throw it away at stupid 'parties' that the vast majority of the residents wants absolutely NOTHING to do with.

The issue is one of fairness. You know, where governments treat people equally.

I have nothing wrong with homosexuality or anything of the like, but I do find it offensive that I'm paying taxes to subsidize their partying.

"I hate fags, sorta, so I don't want my money going to them."

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Hey I don't disagree with anything you really said here. He's doing what the Liberals did and he criticized them for.

I just think he's being pragmatic about it.

As far as POLITICS go, if I was Stephen Harper I'd also be avoiding spending large sums of money in areas that were political wastelands for me. Why bother?

It's not like he has to worry about the gay Montreal vote. Montreal and Toronto have been on Liberal lockdown for 20 years now and that's not likely to change. Harper may have previously hoped it would and spent money there in order to foster the impression that we was a fair spender, but fair spending (and he did spend a ton of money in Quebec) clearly makes no difference to a Quebec voter because arts funding is clearly a lot more important. :rolleyes:

There's no point in throwing money down the toilet.

Once again, however, you've avoided my question as to why would the Tories spend money there? Other than the 'criteria'....

I find something a little disturbing about that. The Tories aren't just a political party, and tax dollars shouldn't be used as a political tool. Either fund cultural events based upon equitable criteria, or don't fund them at all.

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Dobbin, if you had bothered to read (or quote) the lead paragraph of the CTV article, you would find the Conservatives' explanation:

Industry Minister Tony Clement says his government had to consider "regional fairness" when doling out stimulus money to big tourism events -- and that's why a gay arts festival in Montreal didn't make the cut.

Even the CP article in your OP has this quote:

An Industry Canada spokeswoman said in an email late Tuesday night that a "significant amount" of the total funding available had been granted to events in Quebec.

"Due to the fact that so many worthwhile festivals and events meet the criteria in Quebec, not all applicants will receive MTEP funding," wrote Christiane Fox.

"We encourage all qualified events to apply for next year."

----

As I argue often here, regionalism - not ideology - drives Canadian federal politics. So, like it or not, federal government is doled out according to regional considerations.

What do you suggest? That the feds cut all cultural spending to your beloved Manitoba and increase it to Quebec? Then again, modern government is supposed to help the weak and infirm so extra subsidies to "Manitoba cultural" would seem to fit the "progressive" agenda.

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Dobbin, if you had bothered to read (or quote) the lead paragraph of the CTV article, you would find the Conservatives' explanation:

Even the CP article in your OP has this quote:

As I said, the Tories are going to great lengths to explain their decision but coming on the heels of Tories expressing misgivings about funding anything gay, it sound like they are trying to make excuses.

The regional aspect of the fund was never mentioned in the initial criteria. It is only being talked about now. If you had read the link, you would have seen that.

As I argue often here, regionalism - not ideology - drives Canadian federal politics. So, like it or not, federal government is doled out according to regional considerations.

Which was not in the original criteria if you continued to read the link you bring attention to.

What do you suggest? That the feds cut all cultural spending to your beloved Manitoba and increase it to Quebec? Then again, modern government is supposed to help the weak and infirm so extra subsidies to "Manitoba cultural" would seem to fit the "progressive" agenda.

Well, actually yes. I questioned the money for the Human Rights museum going to Winnipeg. It seemed an awful expensive project and as I mentioned here a few times, I believed the costs of it were being downplayed.

In short, the previous criteria for museum funding for Canada was museums in Ottawa since it was central to the country and likely to attract the most Canadians.

I wrote this month and months ago in these forums.

The criteria was changed without a proper debate. And now, Harper has done it again with another national museum in Halifax.

Harper had once made a big deal about politicizing how money in Canada was distributed. He made it important that criteria was set and that fairness, accountability and transparency was evident. The festival in Quebec met that criteria. Harper changed the criteria at the last moment since regional distribution was never mentioned before.

Edited by jdobbin
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It's easier to justify funding some events over others. Canada Day celebrations are something everyone can enjoy.

A celebration flaunting homosexuality, often distastefully, is something that's going to be VERY hard for a lot of Canadians to want to support with dollars from their pockets.

Of course there's politics involved with this sort of thing. There always is. What's your point? The Tories aren't out there actively attacking gays, they've just made it clear there's better things to do with money in a recession than throw it away at stupid 'parties' that the vast majority of the residents wants absolutely NOTHING to do with.

I have nothing wrong with homosexuality or anything of the like, but I do find it offensive that I'm paying taxes to subsidize their partying.

This is where we disagree. Either you fund everything equally or nothing at all. I don't care which it is just choose one. The issue as to whether or not the funding for cultural events is a good idea is beyond debate at this point. The money has already been allocated and in essence is already spent. It's a matter now of which events get funding and which do not. As noted in other threads I think the Calgary stampede is the most ludicrous of all celebrations known to mankind. That's my opinion however and there are those that enjoy it. The point I suppose is that the money is already spent so this is not the issue that is up for debate. As I said in my earlier post that the Tories did this is not at all surprising, I understand their reasoning, but it's still not right. This will likely cause their numbers in PQ to suffer even more than they already have. Talk about rubbing salt in the wounds of the arts funding cuts in PQ.

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Dobbin, if you had bothered to read (or quote) the lead paragraph of the CTV article, you would find the Conservatives' explanation:

Even the CP article in your OP has this quote:

----

As I argue often here, regionalism - not ideology - drives Canadian federal politics. So, like it or not, federal government is doled out according to regional considerations.

What do you suggest? That the feds cut all cultural spending to your beloved Manitoba and increase it to Quebec? Then again, modern government is supposed to help the weak and infirm so extra subsidies to "Manitoba cultural" would seem to fit the "progressive" agenda.

I think regionalism has become an ideology in and of itself, not to mention the fact that the conservative base is more or less regionally distributed. They can pander to both their western AND religious base by hating on the east and gays at the same time.

Also, in the end, what people are forgetting is that these festivals put this stuff on for free and private backers have already been found. You can't tell me that Pride, Caribanna and the Stampede DON'T already have corporate backers. The money is there to make up the gap and ensure that festivals with a reasonable chance of success and growth in the future make sure they can put on a successful show. The economic benefit is through restaurants, bars, touris shops and local business. If 150,000 in government spending, despite people's ideological rhetoric against government spending of this nature, boosts profits in business by a million or two the investment is completely worth it. I honestly wonder how much is recovered through tax revenue; I'm willing to be a lot. The fact that the Conservatives are using the programming politically isn't shocking but it sure is disgusting since it's supposed to help bolster the community's economy. I thought as government they represented ALL of Canada? Oh well, no votes lost anyway.

Edited by nicky10013
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I'd go along with no funding at all for cultural events, save perhaps things like Canada Day.

Aside from that the Industry Minister said that Quebec had already received a big portion of culture funding and that there were more worthy events.

As far as this is concerned, I once again acknowledge that this was possibly a political decision. Even with the criteria established, you have to chose some events over others. You get a budget, you get too many applicants that qualify and some have to be dropped.

It's a lot easier for Tories to drop events that anger a lot of their constituents than it is for something a lot less political.

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I'd go along with no funding at all for cultural events, save perhaps things like Canada Day.

Aside from that the Industry Minister said that Quebec had already received a big portion of culture funding and that there were more worthy events.

As far as this is concerned, I once again acknowledge that this was possibly a political decision. Even with the criteria established, you have to chose some events over others. You get a budget, you get too many applicants that qualify and some have to be dropped.

It's a lot easier for Tories to drop events that anger a lot of their constituents than it is for something a lot less political.

Oh, of course it's a lot easier for the Tories to drop gay celebrations than anger their constituents. But this isn't an issue of whether or not a government should make politically expedient decisions, but rather one of whether a government is a government of all citizens, or simply just a government of those citizens that vote for it, and everyone else can just get stuffed.

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The economic benefit is through restaurants, bars, touris shops and local business. If 150,000 in government spending, despite people's ideological rhetoric against government spending of this nature, boosts profits in business by a million or two the investment is completely worth it. I honestly wonder how much is recovered through tax revenue; I'm willing to be a lot.

The festival either succeeds or doesn't on its own. If the restaurants etc make so much extra money, they would be lining up to sponsor the events. They would also bank the proceeds to make sure they had money for next year. A subsidy, by its very definition, means that's not what's happening.

The fact that the Conservatives are using the programming politically isn't shocking but it sure is disgusting since it's supposed to help bolster the community's economy. I thought as government they represented ALL of Canada? Oh well, no votes lost anyway.

It's the way this crap has been done forever. The fact is that even if you set up criteria you still have to make decisions because there are often too many applicants that meet that criteria. In this event you make choices. A gay event in Montreal does is money out the window as far as the Tories are concerned and on top of that it makes a lot of constituents in the west unhappy. If someone hates me, I normally don't give them money either.

Realistically, politicians have pleasing as many people as possible as their main objective. They want to increase their consituency and make sure they have votes come the next election. Put naivety aside acknowledge this fact and you can come to a pretty simple solution.

"Hmm...nobody in Montreal votes Conservative. Gays don't vote Conservative. A lot of people who do or WOULD vote Conservative are either indifferent or openly hostile to funding gay festivals in Montreal.....Hmmm....Hmm....what on Earth should we do? Hmmm...."

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The festival either succeeds or doesn't on its own. If the restaurants etc make so much extra money, they would be lining up to sponsor the events. They would also bank the proceeds to make sure they had money for next year. A subsidy, by its very definition, means that's not what's happening.

It's the way this crap has been done forever. The fact is that even if you set up criteria you still have to make decisions because there are often too many applicants that meet that criteria. In this event you make choices. A gay event in Montreal does is money out the window as far as the Tories are concerned and on top of that it makes a lot of constituents in the west unhappy. If someone hates me, I normally don't give them money either.

Realistically, politicians have pleasing as many people as possible as their main objective. They want to increase their consituency and make sure they have votes come the next election. Put naivety aside acknowledge this fact and you can come to a pretty simple solution.

"Hmm...nobody in Montreal votes Conservative. Gays don't vote Conservative. A lot of people who do or WOULD vote Conservative are either indifferent or openly hostile to funding gay festivals in Montreal.....Hmmm....Hmm....what on Earth should we do? Hmmm...."

Well I can say one thing, I'm a Westerner, and I won't vote Conservative.

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But this isn't an issue of whether or not a government should make politically expedient decisions, but rather one of whether a government is a government of all citizens, or simply just a government of those citizens that vote for it, and everyone else can just get stuffed.

Governments are always for their constituents. You can never please everyone, so you please as many (net) people you can. If you don't do this then you're no longer the government. You're an election failure wishing you'd have been more realistic and pragmatic.

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The festival either succeeds or doesn't on its own. If the restaurants etc make so much extra money, they would be lining up to sponsor the events. They would also bank the proceeds to make sure they had money for next year. A subsidy, by its very definition, means that's not what's happening.

It's the way this crap has been done forever. The fact is that even if you set up criteria you still have to make decisions because there are often too many applicants that meet that criteria. In this event you make choices. A gay event in Montreal does is money out the window as far as the Tories are concerned and on top of that it makes a lot of constituents in the west unhappy. If someone hates me, I normally don't give them money either.

Realistically, politicians have pleasing as many people as possible as their main objective. They want to increase their consituency and make sure they have votes come the next election. Put naivety aside acknowledge this fact and you can come to a pretty simple solution.

"Hmm...nobody in Montreal votes Conservative. Gays don't vote Conservative. A lot of people who do or WOULD vote Conservative are either indifferent or openly hostile to funding gay festivals in Montreal.....Hmmm....Hmm....what on Earth should we do? Hmmm...."

But your first point proves mine entirely. There are companies and corporations donating money, just not enough. We know 1,000,000 people come to Pride Toronto every year. How can the government stand idly by and not give money that would go to security knowing that the sponsors won't be able to make up the difference in terms of cost? People might get hurt and less people show up the next year. For that little bit of money, the economic return is huge! It's an investment that comes back through tax dollars anyways. If Canadians are so tight that they can't see the economic benefit and only the fact that its tax dollars being spent, then what's the point of having a debate? Since when SHOULDN'T the government actually be making sound economic investment decisions? Is it going to have to come to the point where we get rid of all government spending to make conservatives happy?

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It's quite simple dobbins, we're in a recession. People are losing their jobs everyday. The stimulus package has already been voted on.

I love how the Tory critics lambaste the PM when he runs a deficit then cries when he turns down funding to something that the liberals happen to like...hilarious.

Either you liberals want spending or you don't. What you don't get to do is play both sides of the ball and expect us to all agree with you. Absurd.

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It's quite simple dobbins, we're in a recession. People are losing their jobs everyday. The stimulus package has already been voted on.

I love how the Tory critics lambaste the PM when he runs a deficit then cries when he turns down funding to something that the liberals happen to like...hilarious.

Either you liberals want spending or you don't. What you don't get to do is play both sides of the ball and expect us to all agree with you. Absurd.

You're clearly quite out of the loop on this one. This issue is not one of spending. There was 100 million dollars set aside for marquee tourist events. That is a done deal and is not at issue. What is at issue is how the 100 million dollars, which is already spent in essence, is how that money is allocated. No matter who gets the money for their event the 100 million is already gone. This is not a matter of conservative fiscal restraint, or a lack there of for that matter, but rather pandering to the religious anti-gay social conservatives. If you’re not going to spend money on festivals because times are tough fine, then cut off ALL funding to ALL events. You can’t use the fiscal restraint card and then turn around and give the Calgary stampede $2,000,000 the two are mutually exclusive.

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Like I've said MANY times already, if you have a BUDGETED amount of money to give away for events then you have to chose which ones are more worthy than others. There are likely more qualified events than there is funding.

INVARIABLY this will boil down to a political decision and it's not at all remarkable to me that the Tories chose not to throw money down the toilet at a group of people that almost certainly won't vote for them regardless of what happens and especially on an area that pretty much ALWAYS votes Liberal.

When you guys are saying a government should be for 'all' the people of Canada that's really naive. If politicians don't play politics then they don't get re-elected. It's as simple as that. You can whine and cry about it all you want, but if the Tories spent limited funds on people and areas that no matter what won't vote for them, and at the same time this angered the people that actually do vote for them, you can rest assured they'd go down in flames in the next election.

All the power in the world to you if you want to keep believing that the government should be trying to deal fairly with every single individual in the country. It's not going to happen and it's never been the case.

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It's quite simple dobbins, we're in a recession. People are losing their jobs everyday. The stimulus package has already been voted on.

And the Tories had already budgeted this in the stimulus and the group had met the criteria. The Tories have made noises about other reasons why the group didn't get money this time but it looks like being gay had a huge impact.

I love how the Tory critics lambaste the PM when he runs a deficit then cries when he turns down funding to something that the liberals happen to like...hilarious.

Either you liberals want spending or you don't. What you don't get to do is play both sides of the ball and expect us to all agree with you. Absurd.

They money was budgeted. It wasn't asking for more money.

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Like I've said MANY times already, if you have a BUDGETED amount of money to give away for events then you have to chose which ones are more worthy than others. There are likely more qualified events than there is funding.

INVARIABLY this will boil down to a political decision and it's not at all remarkable to me that the Tories chose not to throw money down the toilet at a group of people that almost certainly won't vote for them regardless of what happens and especially on an area that pretty much ALWAYS votes Liberal.

When you guys are saying a government should be for 'all' the people of Canada that's really naive. If politicians don't play politics then they don't get re-elected. It's as simple as that. You can whine and cry about it all you want, but if the Tories spent limited funds on people and areas that no matter what won't vote for them, and at the same time this angered the people that actually do vote for them, you can rest assured they'd go down in flames in the next election.

All the power in the world to you if you want to keep believing that the government should be trying to deal fairly with every single individual in the country. It's not going to happen and it's never been the case.

When you target a group like homosexuals and then say "We're not funding you", and then make up moronic post hoc excuses, then I'd say you're probably going to suffer for it.

And yes, governments should deal fairly. Governments are very much for all the people, and the issue of gay rights has been about the government (and the wider society) picking a group out for unfair treatment. Just because Harper and Co. are a bunch of loopy evangelicals doesn't mean they don't have an obligation to treat ALL Canadians fairly.

Of course, you clearly don't like homosexuals so it's easy for you to feel that ill treatment of them by the Tories is a good thing. That's the way prejudice works.

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When you target a group like homosexuals and then say "We're not funding you", and then make up moronic post hoc excuses, then I'd say you're probably going to suffer for it.

They're not going to suffer from it. If they go from owning 5% of the Montreal and gay vote to 1% of the Montreal Gay Vote, it won't make any difference. The only people crying about this are people that already don't like the Tories and thus it really makes no difference to them.

And yes, governments should deal fairly. Governments are very much for all the people, and the issue of gay rights has been about the government (and the wider society) picking a group out for unfair treatment. Just because Harper and Co. are a bunch of loopy evangelicals doesn't mean they don't have an obligation to treat ALL Canadians fairly.

It's not a 'right' to get funding from the government for a minority celebration. It's not 'fair' that I would pay taxes in Ontario to support gay tourism in Montreal when an already disproportionate amount of my tax dollars go towards Quebec.

As I said before, if $150,000 is going to make or break a festival in city of millions, then the festival isn't a success. If it was such a boon to tourism the community would sponsor it and the city would support it. If private enterprise (as people are saying here) are going to benefit hugely from it, they'd come up with the difference themselves. It's VERY BASIC math here. If '$G' investment returns '$G x 5' after the festival, people would support it. It shouldn't need to be subsidized.

Of course, you clearly don't like homosexuals so it's easy for you to feel that ill treatment of them by the Tories is a good thing. That's the way prejudice works.

You clearly don't have a clue what you're talking about. I'm pro-gay in pretty much every way possible. I'm happy with gay marriage, I'm happy with gay clergy and I've several gay friends and good clients.

I'm just not crying that Harper made a political decision to not spend money where it will do his party no good. Once again, you can naively assume that polticians shouldn't and don't do this, but the reality is that the general populace doesn't care what's fair and cares more for what's good for 'them'. This is how politicians gain votes and a politician that doesn't realize this soon finds himself kicked on the curb.

Edited by Moonbox
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The only reason this is even an issue is that it's a 'gay' festival rather than a typical music or jazz festival.

"The Tories Hate Jazz!" is just not as interesting a headline.

"Tories hate the arts" was certainly quite effective a short while back, however.

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I mean no disrespect to the gay community, in fact I support their rights. What I do NOT support however, is the segregation (sorry for my lack of word choice) that they receive because of their orientation. Is there a straight pride parade? exclusive straight only arts festival? no, because they'd be right-wing rednecks. What people do in their own homes, if its not against the law and no one is hurt, is their own business. The more down-to-earth gays and lesbians who keep their sex life their own private business, as it is common sense to, those are the individuals that I strongly support. When it comes to parading through the streets in a public orgy ... please, you can play on the other team, but still have some class.

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I mean no disrespect to the gay community, in fact I support their rights. What I do NOT support however, is the segregation (sorry for my lack of word choice) that they receive because of their orientation. Is there a straight pride parade? exclusive straight only arts festival? no, because they'd be right-wing rednecks. What people do in their own homes, if its not against the law and no one is hurt, is their own business. The more down-to-earth gays and lesbians who keep their sex life their own private business, as it is common sense to, those are the individuals that I strongly support. When it comes to parading through the streets in a public orgy ... please, you can play on the other team, but still have some class.

Why do you guys that so clearly hate pride parades seem so damned interested in them? It's a free country, if they want to have a Pride Parade, then damn it all, they can.

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I mean no disrespect to the gay community, in fact I support their rights. What I do NOT support however, is the segregation (sorry for my lack of word choice) that they receive because of their orientation. Is there a straight pride parade? exclusive straight only arts festival? no, because they'd be right-wing rednecks. What people do in their own homes, if its not against the law and no one is hurt, is their own business. The more down-to-earth gays and lesbians who keep their sex life their own private business, as it is common sense to, those are the individuals that I strongly support. When it comes to parading through the streets in a public orgy ... please, you can play on the other team, but still have some class.

There is a straight pride parade; it's called "The Calgary Stampede". There is more than enough testosterone to go around there. As for the gay pride parade being a public orgy, you clearly have no idea what the parade is about or what actually transpires there. You can criticize anything you like, but please ensure your criticism is based on actual facts rather than 3rd hand propaganda. If you truly support you down-to-earth gay friends/acquaintances you'd go to a local pride festival and see for yourself.

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