“As Kevin points out we are left to guess as to the extent of the changes to the existing restrictions. This may be a tempest in a teapot.”

I disagree. Canada Council grants, for example, are currently juried by non bureaucrats – in other words, people who can’t be coerced by a supervisor; that’s a qualitative difference in the process.

‘Artists are always beholden to their patrons unless the artist has independent means.”

Sure. But some patrons give the artist carte blanche, and some commission portraits of their children, and some forbid the use of the colour red. In this case, I am the patron (and so are you), and I don’t choose to dictate subject matter to the artist.

“…the government shouldn’t be funding the arts at all outside of specific commissions…because this funding power gives the government control over what is deemed to be art.”

Naw. There are still artists who fund their own work, foundations that provide grants, or employment available. Art will never be defined by government (those that have tried have simply forced their artists to move elsewhere, or produced wretched art – I can’t think of too many masterpieces in any medium from the eras of Hitler or Mao). But government funding means more opportunities for both established and new artists.

However, unless all projects a funded equally or perhaps representatively, then “censorship” decisions will take place. It’s unavoidable.

There are no frictionless solutions. Like most things, it is a balance. You feel that censorship is the lesser evil compared to renovating the Canadian film and television industry.

I merely propose a general solution that reduces the number of times people need to live with the natural friction produced in a democracy.

Unfortunately that’s sort of what living in a parliamentary democracy means, isn’t it? I’m put in the position of having to support many things, including a war in Afghanistan, that I hold strong negative beliefs about. I’m also in the position of watching my government fail to support many things that I hold strong positive beliefs about.

Canada funds the arts. The idea is ideologically repugnant to those to who believe in minimizing the role of government wherever possible. That’s cool; that’s a perspective on the continuum that needs to be voiced, debated, and…once its impact on the reality of film and television production in Canada is honestly assessed…dismissed.

If it were to come down to an either or scenario then I could support that.

In the case of what is being proposed, I don’t agree that the government should be in the business of determining what content is acceptable for its citizen’s eyes from a religious or morality background. The CPC does not have that mandate.

What I found interesting was this:

Canadian Heritage officials confirmed yesterday they will be “expanding slightly” the criteria used for denying tax credits to include grounds such as gratuitous violence, significant sexual content that lacks an educational purpose, or denigration of an identifiable group.

It would have been nice if the journalist had mentioned what the existing criteria for rejection are. It seems possible that we already have an “Orwellian bureaucracy determining what kind of productions are ‘acceptable’”.

There are lots of films I don’t support. It’s unlikely that I would pay the $15 at a theatre to see Young People Fucking — and no, that’s not because other versions are free on the internet. While I respect and advocate for the film makers right to produce it I don’t think they have a right to state funding in order enable the economics of producing it. Nor do I think that people should be put in a position where they are forced to support something — even symbolically through tax credits — that they hold strong negative beliefs about.

The natural conclusion for me is that the state has no essential interest in funding the film industry in the first place. Simply stop all funding.