Ordinary Artists defy Prime Minister of Canada

In response to Prime Minister Harper's sneering reduction of our nation's artists to an elite who whine about grants at expensive galas, the Writer's Guild of Canada and ACTRA co-sponsored and co-organized a rousing rally outside the CBC building in downtown Toronto today.

I videotaped the proceedings on behalf of the WGC and will hopefully have something posted to YouTube in a couple of days and will cross-post it here as well.

Speakers from across the cultural spectrum spoke out against the government's attempts at muzzling and emasculating this nation's cultural workers. Far from an elite, as one speaker said, we're just trying to be middle class.

As my friend Jack Blum said after the rally, "there were more soundbites than a single newscast can handle!" My favourite was when Mark McKinney wondered who the dancer was that dumped Harper in first year university motivating the poor guy's hate-on of artists to this day. He's a sad excuse for a man, let alone a prime minister.

So, as speaker after speaker exhorted the crowd of upwards of 600, next Tuesday, election day in Canada, vote for culture. (That would automatically eliminate the candidate for the Conservatives from one's voting booth options.)