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Liberals, NDP spar at Vancouver forum
By admin1 | October 7, 2008
Conservative defends cuts to arts as audience cheers other candidates
Peter Birnie, Vancouver Sun
Published: Tuesday, October 07, 2008 - [original]
Packed to its historic rafters, the Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage hosted a high-energy candidates forum on Monday that saw Conservative candidate John Cummins attempt to defend controversial arts cuts by the Harper government.
While the other three candidates who attended the forum sponsored by the Arts & Culture Alliance, incumbent Liberal Hedy Fry, NDP candidate Michael Byers and Green Party hopeful Adriane Carr, are all running in Vancouver Centre, their Conservative counterpart, Lorne Mayencourt, declined to attend.
Instead, Cummins, the incumbent for Delta-Richmond East, asked to be included in the forum because he feels strongly about the arts. Citing his own experience as father of a film actor in B.C., Cummins noted that previous Liberal governments had also made significant cuts to the arts and culture.
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The crowd listens to speakers in an all-candidates forum Monday evening at the Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage.
“Criticizing the Conservative government on arts and culture is like shooting fish in a barrel,” said Byers, to laughter and applause.
He was also critical of previous Liberal governments, accusing them of cutting grants to the Canada Council and drawing fire from Fry when he claimed Liberals also cut $2 billion from the CBC budget over 10 years, even before the Harper government committed what Byers termed “cultural sabotage” by eliminating the CBC Radio Orchestra.
Fry insisted that the Harper government has been far more damaging to the CBC, noting it was the CBC that had no choice but to cut its orchestra. She also derided the provisions of Bill C-10 that call for censorship of cultural programming deemed offensive, and promised that a Liberal government would not only boost the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit to 30 per cent, but double the Canada Council budget as well, to $360 million annually.
Carr noted her own experience as a piano teacher, which helped her pay her way through school, was typical of so many Canadians who have a personal connection to the arts. She took a swipe at the Conservatives for boosting funding for such things as the Olympic Torch Relay while cutting elsewhere, and said Greens support bringing back proper funding for arts programs in schools.
Most of the evening’s fireworks came not from or through Cummins, but in a pitched battle between Fry and Byers. Byers briefly spoke French to the applause of francophones; Fry followed suit, only to be bested by Byers speaking German - again to laughter.
Byers closed by citing his 12 years spent in the U.K. and U.S., returning about four years ago to find alarming changes to Canada. He laid the blame squarely on the Liberal government of Jean Chretien and especially on its finance minister at the time, Paul Martin.
Cummins stuck to his guns to the end, citing statistics indicating Conservative increases in funding. Fry finished with an emotional defence of funding programs encouraging Canadian culture overseas.
pbirnie@vancouversun.com
Topics: Election and the arts, Press About CBCRO, Press about CBC |
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