Arts and Culture: Everybody Gets a Cut

The video was brought to our attention today by Anna Maria Tremonti on the CBC radio show The Current. It's a hoot. Wouldn't it be nice if Quebec culture could help thwart the Richview Cowboy's oh-so-carefully planned quest for a majority government? Everything we see from Mr. Harper has been tried before. The Ontario Commonsensers (Flaherty, Clement and Baird) are Harper's inner circle. When they were in charge in Ontario, they always tried to turn Joe Lunchbucket against Karen Kain. It brings to mind a letter that the boss sent to the late Tom Jakobek in March 2000. Jakobek had distributed a householder with arts, culture and heritage in quotation marks. The boss pointed out his mistake:

I want to thank you for your persistence in getting "A Report from City Hall" to me. A second copy (surely a mistake by the Post Office) arrived today. In looking over the article, "Savings from amalgamation?" on page 2, I noticed something strange. In the table of amalgamating programs, the category of Arts, Culture & Heritage is listed in quotation marks. What kind of special emphasis are you implying? Around my workplace, it is understood that quotation marks are used this way to confer a sense of irony (Chicago 6.51). As someone who works in the field of "arts, culture and heritage," I would like to protest this treatment on behalf of the large number of people in East Toronto who work in cultural industries. In the book trade in which I work, a wide variety of service suppliers get a cut from every book we send out into the marketplace. This includes couriers, postal workers, printers, ink and paper manufacturers and suppliers, bookstore clerks, salesmen, and plate and film makers. Although some of these people may despise books and think of them as an unnecessary frill for the "great thinker" set, almost everyone with whom we deal is grateful for our business. As you might imagine, most of the people that I have listed do business indoors in local buildings on which property tax is paid. Let me close this by saying that it has been a privilege helping pay your salary, Councillor Jakobek. No need to say thank you."

Jakobek is history. We thought the Commonsense Revolution was too. Let's hope that their fate will be sealed by our good friends, les petits phoques québecois.