By Frank Moher Did I miss the part where Alice Cooper became a Canadian? Because otherwise, HBO Canada’s new doc Super Duper Alice Cooper appears to mark some strange turning point in Canadian film funding. And believe you me, this is a Canadian film — at least if its list of financiers is anything to […]
LPG cut, Summerworks restored: Is this any way to run a culture?
Update, June 14th: Moore reverses cuts to LPG. By Frank Moher Let us now consider the Department of Canadian Heritage, and the confusion that is its Minister, James Moore. As we reported on the weekend, the Literary Press Group of Canada, a 37-year old organization whose job is to sell the books of Canadian authors, […]
Literary Press Group loses funding; some questions for Canadian Heritage
By Frank Moher I have been pursuing the story of the Literary Press Group getting its funding yanked by the Department of Canadian Heritage. In concert with that department’s decision to restore funding to the Summerworks theatre festival in Toronto, having pulled it last year, the matter raises questions about its management under Minister James […]
Where is James Moore?
By Frank Moher Two weeks ago in this space I wrote about the Conservative government’s politically-motivated decision to withdraw funding from the Toronto theatre and arts festival, SummerWorks. To recap: Last year, the company presented a play, Homegrown, that the Prime Minister’s Office decided (in advance, without seeing it), glorified terrorism. So this year, after […]
The Conservatives’ Homegrown censorship
By Frank Moher (Update below: Jim Flaherty translated) We can now begin to see how the Conservative government intends to use its majority to chop arts funding in Canada, particularly to any artistic expression it doesn’t like or agree with. In the short term at least, it will be a death by a thousand cuts. […]