Betraying the Future

Margaret Atwood on Canada’s Anti-Arts Conservative Government

Part of Political Art is going public. Margaret Atwood is one of the few Canadian artists willing to engage the powers-that-be in a national newspaper. Here are her theories on why the current government has made the biggest cuts to the arts in Canada’s history:

1) Ignorance. The Harperites have no idea how much money the arts generate.

2) Willed ignorance. They’ve seen the figures, but have labelled them “junk economics” in the same way they once labelled global-warming statistics as “junk science.”

3) Hatred. The Harper Conservatives think artists are a bunch of whiners who don’t have real jobs, and that any money spent on the arts is a degenerate frill.

4) Frugality. There’s lots of arts around. We can get them cheaper from across the border than it costs to make them here, and if you’ve seen one art, you’ve seen them all.

5) Stupidity. They thought they were gassing a hornet’s nest, not poking it with a stick.

6) More hatred. They tried to slash local museums, until too many people screamed. They’ve cut the Canada Council top-up proposed by the Liberals down to a sixth of its size. They’ve stuck the knife into the National Literacy Program, perhaps on the theory that they won’t be able to set up a working dictatorship if too many people can read. And that’s just for starters. If these things can be done in a minority government, lo, I say unto you, what things shall be done in a majority?

Typically, cultural money is arranged so that younger artists who need to build their audiences can piggyback on old poops like me who have already done that. That’s how you support the next generation, and the one after that. Not to do so is truly wasteful. Yes, you might save a lot of money by killing all the children: You’d cancel those pesky education expenses. But you wouldn’t survive long as a society…

• 28 01 2007 - 13:08