timeimmortal

Full and fair disclosure: I’m still angry at Harper and the Conservatives for cutting the Telefilm new media fund. As a part-time gamer, part-time game historian, part-time game-maker, and technical officer for the Edmonton Game Convention, the loss of the Telefilm fund is, for me, something that stings…especially since we had hoped to draw funding for the Convention, in part, from Telefilm (who were really enthusiastic at the idea of a gamer-centric gaming convention).

Be that as it may, however, I do agree with Stephen Harper when he notes that much of the whining and pleas for money from the arts community in Canada simply do not resonate with Canadians. Much of the content that the arts community in Canada produces is, simply put, not worth the money spent on it. It’s just not that good.

That’s not to say it’s all crap, of course…but one notes that the best things coming out of e.g. Vancouver these days are not wholly Canadian shows. Things like Battlestar Galactica — an excellent series — make heavy use of Canadian talent and Canadian locations, because it’s the only way that a show with such consistently high-quality visual effects can possibly stay within its overall budget. And that Canadian talent is put to good use; many of the actors on that show are excellent or better. Likewise, the Canadian landscape has proven itself versatile and adaptable to the needs of a show that has involved a few instances of planet-hopping.

But in the end, BSG is still essentially an American show. Most of its funding flows from the Sci-Fi Channel, and its principal audience is State-side. The same can be said of shows like Stargate Atlantis — produced here, but mostly funded from abroad. Few wholly Canadian shows rise to match the quality of e.g. BSG, and fewer still enjoy any kind of comparable audience and popularity.

And in many cases, there’s a good reason for that. Even a cursory glance at the slate of programs that the CBC is running this season makes one scratch one’s head — the shows just aren’t that good. Hockey Night in Canada is still about the best thing the CBC has going for it, because it’s about the only show in Mothercorp’s lineup that doesn’t betray a leftward political slant (although, to his credit, Rick Mercer has come down on the right side of the freedom of speech/HRC debate).

And of course, this is just television we’re talking about. The arts community in Canada produces quite a lot of other stuff besides niche television shows…much of it of even lower quality, and lesser appeal, than Canadian television. There’s not a stage play that has been produced in Canada in…a long time…that I’d care to go and see, and even most Canadian “artists” (by which I mean painters, sculptors, and the like) produce material that simply does not resonate with me (and, I suspect, with many other Canadians as well). Some of it is disgusting, some of it is mediocre, and some of it is just damned odd…and the amount of crap sadly outweighs, and overshadows, what genuinely good stuff exists.

And we, the Canadian taxpayers, shouldn’t have to fork over dollars in support of things which we’ll never go and see, nor ever acknowledge as being something of substance and quality. Yeah, I’ll gladly pay to support Hockey Night, even if I don’t watch much hockey…but I’m not particularly inclined to support Little Mosque On The Prairie. I’d be okay with sending a few of my tax dollars to the producers of Corner Gas, but I’d rather not line the pockets of the people who work on This Hour Has 22 Minutes.

Canadian artists rallied to denounce the Harper government for its stance. Gordon Pinsent even stood up and said that Canadian artists “should be the landlords of [their] own industry, not the tenants.”

I actually agree. I think Canadian artists shouldn’t be government tenants, dependent on federal handouts. I think the art that Canadians produce should be able to stand up on its own merits, and generate revenue that doesn’t emerge primarily from federal coffers. I have no problem with the idea that the government might lend assistance to commercially viable artistic ventures…but in the end, I don’t think the government’s contribution should be the majority share of any particular art project’s funding.

Let’s come back to the Telefilm fund and computer games for a minute. If there is one thing that Canadian artists — new media artists, mind — do very well, it is computer games. Canadians make excellent games. And I’m not just talking about EA Sports out in Vancouver, which was for years the only decent EA studio. I’m talking about the various smaller developers who have produced a consistent string of excellent titles over the last few years. Relic (Vancouver) gave us Homeworld and its sequel. Ironclad Games (Burnaby) gave us Sins Of A Solar Empire, which I am told is just an astounding title. Edmonton’s own BioWare has produced a steady stream of hits, including Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Knights Of The Old Republic, and Mass Effect. And Ubisoft Canada (Montreal) gave us Assassin’s Creed, another critically acclaimed game.

Government funding went into some of these titles, but the government didn’t provide the lion’s share of the development money in any particular case. And it isn’t government money that let the games themselves turn a profit; all of these titles have been commercially successful, because they’re damn good. Because they were developed with the end user in mind, and offered something that gamers the world over were willing to actually pay money for.

It’s that last point that’s important: people wanted to support these games financially, by buying them. As Kateland at TLA notes:

In any given time, in any given culture, if patrons cannot be found who are freely willing to pay for the fare which is offered by the artistic community, is says something substantial about the fare which is offered, but apparently, not in Canada.

The government purse is not a finite resource. The purse is only filled by sweat of the brow of the taxpayers via the coercive arm of Revenue Canada. Life is about choices and so is government. The government cannot go on funding indefinitely and without concern to the cost of each program which it currently funds.

And so I find I’m torn. I agree, overall, with the decision of the Canadian government to restrict arts funding. I just wish they hadn’t killed the Telefilm fund in the process. In the end, though, that’s not a total loss either. Certainly, none of the above-listed game companies is going to be hurt all that much by it, and even the Convention will be able to find alternative sources of funding. That’s because they, and we, keep in mind the most important thing: the people. These companies, and our Convention team, intend to produce something that others will see as worthwhile, and not just something which will earn appreciative nods from a select handful of artistés and intelligensia.

Either that or this is the most tasteless statement of the year:

‘I’m like a newborn baby,’ Dr. Henry Morgentaler told the CBC’s Evan Solomon about surviving a recent stroke and heart operation. ‘I enjoy being alive.’

The irony wasn’t lost on Solomon, who then asked the Canadian abortion doctor ‘how does a guy who’s seen so much death (in Auschwitz and Dachau, where he was imprisoned as a youngster) fight for a cause which many people believe is a form of killing?’

‘I won’t deny there’s an inconsistency,’ Morgentaler answered. ‘Maybe I’ve deluded myself.’

Like a newborn, eh, good doctor? One that you didn’t manage to chop up into bits?

Delusion is, I suspect, just the tip of the iceberg.

At least, that’s what I can’t help but think when I look at BCF’s visitor history. The visitor was looking for information on two search strings: “warren kinsella” and “liar”…

…although of what interest such information might be to the CBC, I’ve no idea.

The guy just seems to get it, as evidenced by his response to the latest outrageous decision by a Canadian HRC (this time in Quebec).

The Quebec human rights commission has asked members of the Saguenay city council to stop praying before its meetings.

In a May 15 release, the commission said the city contravened its obligation to be neutral by starting its public meetings with the recitation of a prayer.

“The members of a municipal council are the representatives of the state,” said M. Gaetan Cousineau, commission president.

“They have the right to their personal beliefs, but, during the exercise of their public functions, they do not have the right to favour or give the impression of favouring one Religion more than any other.”

But Saguenay Mayor Jean Tremblay said he had no intention of stopping the practice.

“For me, God is much more important than the commission. When I arrive on the other side, maybe in 10 years, 20 years, they won’t ask me if I follow the commission, they will ask me if I follow God,” Tremblay told CBC News May 15.

Jason Kenney, federal secretary of state for multiculturalism and Canadian identity, found the order surprising.

“Freedom of religion is a foundational principle in Canada and communities, in my view, have every right to exercise it as they see fit,” Kenney said May 15.

“Elected local politicians are accountable to their voters, not to some unaccountable commission with quasi-judicial powers that doesn’t even have due process.”

That’s the sort of hardball position that we need to see the Canadian government take, at all levels, especially from the Prime Minister’s office. ’s government enjoys a not-entirely deserved swell of popularity at the moment, against which the Liberals struggle to compete — it’s as close to an ideal time as one could possibly imagine for the government of Canada to take the human rights commissions to task, and hard.

Jason Kenney, I think, gets that. One would hope that the person occupying the PM’s office would also get that. If not, perhaps someone who does understand should be given occupancy of that office.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Yesterday, in Ottawa, over 8,000 people turned up for the National March for Life — a massive pro-life rally.

Apparently, the CBC didn’t mention it at all, and the local news concerned itself with 2 broken water mains.

That crowd of people filling up four major roadways, creating massive traffic delays around Parliament? What crowd of people?

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

I heard only a snippet of a report about this while away on vacation, because Grace’s grandparents only listen to the CBC (and nothing else), and the news was playing over breakfast most mornings. Predictably, Mothercorp had some dial-an-expert come on the program to claim that the “breaking off” of a huge iceberg from the Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica was a sure-fire sign of the spreading influence of global warming-influenced climate change.

To his credit, the CBC reporter did mention (briefly) that parts of Antarctica seem to be cooling, while others seem to be warming — but any objectivity that statement might have given to the news piece as a whole evaporated (heh) when the dial-an-expert (sorry, I didn’t catch his name while I was passing the bacon) spoke up.

Predictably, though, this iceberg breaking off is not the harbinger of doom it was made out to be.

The full Wilkins 6,000 square mile ice shelf is just 0.39% of the current ice sheet (just 0.1% of the extent last September). Only a small portion of it between 1/10th-1/20th of Wilkins has separated so far, like an icicle falling off a snow and ice covered house. And this winter is coming on quickly. In fact the ice is returning so fast, it is running an amazing 60% ahead (4.0 vs 2.5 million square km extent) of last year when it set a new record. The ice extent is already approaching the second highest level for extent since the measurements began by satellite in 1979 and just a few days into the Southern Hemisphere winter and 6 months ahead of the peak. Wilkins like all the others that temporarily broke up will refreeze soon. We are very likely going to exceed last year’s record. Yet the world is left with the false impression Antarctica’s ice sheet is also starting to disappear.

Ice shelves breaking off to form icebergs is a pretty common phenomenon, or so I’ve heard. It isn’t the climate that has changed in an extreme and dangerous way — what has changed thusly is our ability to look at the normal dynamics of our environment in a rational and calm manner.

The CBC will show just about anything — nudity, swearing, extreme violence — and not just late at night. The documentaries on The Passionate Eye fall into two broad categories: anti-American or anti-capitalist screeds, or soft porn. I can’t remember the last time I heard a curse word “beeped” out. Photos of