Time Immortal

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.

Canadians can be very complacent, especially where the threat of force is concerned. Perhaps as a function of our government-dependent, socialism-addled attitudes which disavow most notions of personal responsibility or obligation to the well-being of others, we tend not to want to risk our necks when an imminent danger to ourselves, or to others, emerges. When the man with the gun shows up, we tend to just do as he says — indeed, we’ve been taught to just do as he says — rather than make a stand against the would-be bully.

This was certainly true in Montreal all those years ago; fourteen women died there not because of the latent misogyny of society, but because of the cowardice and complacency programmed into the men who meekly obeyed the gunman’s order to leave their female classmates behind in those classrooms. And it might have ended up being true in Regina, Saskatchewan’s Luther College High School, but for the actions of school principal Mark Anderson. Because when a former student showed up with a firearm (which turned out to be an air-driven pellet gun) and demanded, at a school rally, that a list of grievances be read, the principal did what was right: he found a way to get close and wrestled the gunman to the floor.

A lot of modern folks might click their tongues at Mr. Anderson’s attitude: as the Shaidle notes, “those of us who praise such men [as Mark Anderson] are publicly condemned by lesser “males” who tremble at the implication that they should feel obliged do likewise.” And yet, at the end of the day, that was his obligation. As the principal, he was charged with the safety of the young students attending the school; their lives were in his care. And he acted in the only way that a moral man could have acted when faced with a threat to that which he is charged with keeping safe — he stood up to fight.

Would that his story were not newsworthy! Would that Canadian men and women could always, and readily, display this sort of courage, so that the truly surprising stories in the news were not stories of normal courage, but stories of shocking cowardice rightly condemned by all good people.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Looks like fallout from the decision to award Henry Morgentaler the Order of Canada is still floating lazily down from the sky. Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte, of Montreal, returned his Order of Canada after seeing dashed his hopes that, “in light of the large number of protests, the Consultative Council for the Order of Canada would revise its decision.”

I suppose the Cardinal was justified in hoping that sanity might prevail, and that this controversial and disgusting decision might be reversed. Evidently, the Cardinal forgot that the decision was made by Canada’s “betters,” who likely viewed the explosion of protest as confirmation that they had made a good decision. Still, the Cardinal’s was a charitable assumption.

At any rate: good on him.

I noticed this in my visitor logs from yesterday…

Number of Entries: 6
Entry Page Time: 2nd June 2008 13:33:16
Visit Length: 18 hours 50 mins 43 secs
Browser: MSIE 6.0
OS: Windows XP
Resolution: 1024×768

Returning Visits: 0
Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Hostname: alpha.cnsc-ccsn.gc.ca (205.193.97.2)
Entry Page: http://www.timeimmortal.net/2008/06/02/rehmatpedia-returns/
Exit Page: http://www.timeimmortal.net/2008/06/02/rehmatpedia-returns/
Referring URL: No referring link

It seems that someone from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission is taking an interest in a certain internet personality that I periodically make mention of.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

On the Left writes in to correct our thinking, O Reader.

Check your facts folks. Mark Steyn IS NOT A PARTY TO THE COMPLAINTS - therefore HE HAS NO LEGAL BILLS!! HE IS FREE TO WRITE WHATEVER HE WANTS - This proceeding has been initiated against Maclean’s Magazine for publishing Islamphobic material - 20 articles over a year and a half without a single counterview response - The issue is about targeted communities to have the right to respond.

Allow me now to correct On the Left’s thinking.

Yes, Mark Steyn might not be a party to the complaint — the complaint itself is filed against Maclean’s magazine — in the sense that he doesn’t have any legal bills to pay, but he is a party to the complaint in the sense that it is his article, The Future Belongs to Islam (October, 2006) which forms the core of the issue for the Canadian Islamic Congress, Mohamed Elmasry, and the Osgoode Hall law students that he uses as his sock-puppets.

Indeed, Mark Steyn himself spells it out rather well in this article, in which he explicitly states that the complaint is against Maclean’s, and that the key reason for the complaint is the “Islamophobic” article that he penned (which was really just an excerpt from America Alone, his best-selling book).

So while Steyn may not be on the hook for legal bills, he has a horse in this race all the same. After all, had Maclean’s not run his article, Mohamed Elmasry wouldn’t have had anything to complain about. Oh, sure, there are a handful of other articles, some of which (if memory serves) might even just be letters to the editor, but they’re all garnish. Steyn’s article is the main issue here, and without that there wouldn’t be enough material on which to base a complaint.

Now, as to the whole thing about “targeted communities to have the right to respond,” precisely where in the is the “right of response” outlined and detailed? I realize that leftists do rather enjoy inventing new and previously unheard of rights for those they deem to be minorities (since, in the soft bigotry of low expectations that most leftists engage in, those minorities need these rights because they would otherwise be unable to help themselves, the poor darlings), but no Western nation has ever enshrined in its constitution the notion that a person has a “right to respond” to a published article.
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