Force Canadians to pay for what they won't buy

When subsidizing the arts where does the government spend our money?

Tales From the Tax Trough, put out by the National Citizen's Coalition , contains examples of how the government supports Canadian 'culture'. Here are just a few tidbits from Tales II:

$32,000 - to artist Mendleson Joe, who said he was planning to paint a picture of the Pope as part of his "Liar" series. Ever the grateful artist, Mendleson Joe called his grant "peanuts."

$8,000 - to Janice and Lynn Andrews for the book Bloodlines: A Collection of Writings by Lesbian Sisters."

$3,300,000 - Montreal's Museum of Humour.

$250,000 - to Hurtig Publishers Ltd.
('nuff said?)  

The following article is pure fiction. Any resemblance between it's characters and real people is coincidental.

I read a posting to Libernet Digest about the new U.S. Telecommunications Bill which referred to the politicians who passed it as having the intelligence of pond scum. Isn't it funny how once in a while you will encounter, in one day, more than one reference to something that you ordinarily never think much about. I mean.... pond scum of all things.

Well, the same day I was reading the Hamilton Spectator and lo and behold, right there on page three is yet another reference to pond scum. "Pond scum compounds used to fight cancer" the heading said.

So now I've encountered two references to pond scum in one day. Will there be more? I don't know but sometimes the Spectator really gives me a chuckle because right beside the article on pond scum is a report about a new way of supporting Canadian culture and article comes fully equipped with a photograph of the smiling face of, none other than that shining example of Canadian politics, Sheila Copps!

"Copps thinks Canadians will be willing to pay an extra 25 to 50 cents every time they rent a video, see a movie or pay their cable-television bill if they know the money is going to support Canadian programming and culture."

Mr. Copps is obviously lying. You've got to hand it to him though.... I guess that's how he has gotten as far as he has in Canadian politics... he really has balls. It takes balls to tell such a bald faced lie. If Canadians were 'willing' to pay the extra 25 to 50 cents for Canadian culture then they would pay it.... in the marketplace. The fact that Mr. Copps is thinking of 'asking' Canadians to pay a reveals that he has absolutely no confidence whatsoever in the 'willingness' of Canadians to support Canadian programming and culture.

"`If people rent a video and are asked to pay, say, 25 cents for Canadian culture, I don't think they'd object to that,' Copps, a major consumer of videos himself, said Thursday in an interview."

I don't think Mr. Copps is suggesting here that Canadian videos should rent for 25 cents (not that this would help in a lot of cases). No, it seems rather clear that Mr. Copps thinks Canadians should pay 25 cents over and above the price of whatever video they are actually renting. In other words, not only should they pay for the video that they want to see, but they should be 'asked' to pay for a video they have no intention of seeing. That really makes a lot of sense Mr. Copps!

"He said it's important to establish a clear link between any new tax and cultural spending, something the recently released Juneau report on the future of the CBC, the National Film Board and Telefilm didn't do."

Spoken like a true liberal. Nothing is important to a liberal unless it is 'linked' to taxation.

"`The public will support, financially and otherwise, Canadian culture if they feel there is a direct relationship between spending on culture' and a new levy."

What a hoot this remark is! What exactly does Mr. Copps mean by "otherwise," ? Does he mean that the public might actually watch some of the tax supported crap he's talking about?

What if there were a distinctly Canadian food item which Mr. Copps thinks Canadians would be willing to support.... say some kind of salad made from pond scum? And what if, in the unfettered marketplace, Canadians just don't buy enough pond scum salad to provide the pond scum producers with a decent income?

Can you hear Mr. Copps, perhaps as minister of AgriCandianCulture, saying, " I think the public will support, financially and otherwise, the pond scum business if they feel there is a direct relationship between spending on food and a new levy." Mr. Copps would also, no doubt, claim that he thinks Canadians are willing to support the pond scum industry.... even if they don't like the salad.

"He also said 7.5 per cent is ``too high to be palatable.''"

Perhaps Canadian culture itself could be made more 'palatable' if, instead of taxing people for spending money on things that they do like the government offered a tax credit for spending their money on Canadian stuff. How high these credits would have to be to make Canadian 'culture' more palatable is anyone's guess at this time.

I watched a couple of great Canadian flicks years ago when I had a subscription to First Choice. One of them was about some guy trying to murder his wife near some farm. What a great movie! It made Golan-Globus look like quality producers.

Then there was the one about two teenage girls living in Barrie or something who wanted to go to Toronto to see a Bruce Cockburn concert. Did anyone see that gem?

Yep... the thought of paying extra taxes to subsidize these paragons of Canadian film is enough to motivate one to see whether they can come up with a palatable gourmet application for the guck that accumulates in road gutters.

"``[The Juneau recommendation] was presented to Canadians as a $9 increase on their monthly cable bill, so naturally they go crazy,'' Copps said. His Hamilton constituency office received ``a lot of calls from people upset by a cable tax.''"

Hmmm. Strange behaviour from people who "Copps thinks will be willing to pay an extra 25 to 50 cents every time they rent a video, see a movie or pay their cable-television bill if they know the money is going to support Canadian programming and culture."

"The minister hopes an entertainment tax would become an accepted part of the fiscal landscape and ``a growth mechanism for Canadian culture.''"

In the same way, no doubt, that a food tax would become an accepted part of the culinary landscape and a growth mechanism for that green stuff that grows in swamps.

last modified:Wednesday,March 19, 2008 at 04:40