Stop Harpers Cultural Cleansing

Stephen Harper’s contempt for culture has already cost him his majority government. The voters in Quebec have abandoned the Conservatives largely due to their stance on culture. Stephen Harper’s position that culture is “a niche issue for some” exposes how little he knows (or cares)about culture in the country he claims to be most qualified to lead. The Conference Board of Canada estimates that the culture sector in Canada directly represented $46 billion of the overall economy, or about 3.8 per cent of GDP. When the indirect contributions are added the cultural sector made up 7.4 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product ($84.6 billion) in 2007. Culture employs 1.1 million Canadian voters. Yet Harper sees culture as little more that a hobby. Grants, tax breaks and incentives given in oil, agriculture and manufacturing are seen as investments and investment in culture are seen as handouts.

Harper’s Cultural Legacy

Harpers list of cultural funding and introduced bills indicate an indifference for artists, culture and freedom of expression.
“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.” The next day Laureen Harper cancelled her plans to attend the National Art Centre’s annual gala that evening.

Bill C-10 Amendments to the Income Tax Act

The tax bill in which the Conservatives attempted to change film and video tax credit eligibility. Until Bill C-10 the laws of Canada were used to determine what is acceptable content, acceptability under Bill C-10 would be at the discretion of the Minister of Heritage, determined AFTEr the Film is completed. In addition to issues of censorship, this bill has the potential to destabilize the entire canadian film industry. In a last ditch vote grab, the just released Conservative platform states that the controversial clause in C-10 will be dropped.

Bill C-59: An Act to amend the Criminal Code (unauthorized recording of a movie)

The anti cam-cording bill was rumored to have been drafted by the CMPDA (Canadian Motion Picture Distribution Association) under a campaign of rhetoric started by Ambassador David Wilkins, who claimed Canada was responsible for between 10 and 30 billion dollars worth of Camcording piracy annually.. The Bill places the right to authorize cam-cording of films with theatre managers (CMPDA members) not creators or copyright holders. There have been 2 arrests and no convictions under the new law. as a side note,Patricia Neri, the Director General of copyright policy at Canadian Heritage, testified before the Canadian Senate in defense of the bill, she has since resigned her position over conflict of interest had allegedly been in a relationship with one of Canada’s the head of the CMPDA. The bill has resulted in two arrests and no convictions.

Bill C47: The Olympic and Paralympic Marks Act

In March 2007 Stephen Harpers Government” introduced Bill C-47. The bill grants special rights and protections to the Olympics for their trademarks and copyrights. Bill C-47 makes it essentially illegal to reference the Olympics, Vancouver 2010 or anything associated with the 2010 Olympics in any form. The Senate added exceptions for artistic use and parody – the best exceptions in Canadian copyright however it is up to the Olympic committee to decide whether a work qualifies as art or not

Bill C-61 an Act to amend the copyright act

The culmination of Harpers contempt for culture.

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STOP BILL C-61

The Harper government have a clear agenda when it comes to culture, censorship. Culture ,at least in democratic nations is rooted in the notion of freedom of expression. each of Harpers cultural policies can be shown to