Arts and Culture on the Campaign Trail

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UPDATE: Tory platform indicates Harper is willing to re-consider the controversial eligibility requirements for film tax credits found in bill C-10.
UPDATE: The Liberals release details of their arts platform: would raise total expenditure on the arts to $530 million over the next five years, Heritage critic Denis Coderre says.
UPDATE: Canadian artists have joined together to record a song, titled "You Have a Choice," to mobilize Canadian voters to let their voices be heard in support of strong, concrete action on climate change. The song is sponsored by Avaaz, a new web movement with over 300,000 supporters across Canada.
Sept. 24 2008: Support for arts creation and the culture industries has made a splash in the Canadian federal election campaign this week. It's great to see all the parties talking about arts and culture and to have these issues of valuable and value-added support for culture on the table as an election promise.

The Liberals have called for a reversal of recent arts cuts and have pledged to increase funding to the Canada Council and the CBC, according to the Globe and Mail and CBC news.

The NDP also promised to reverse the cuts and announced a tax exemption for artists on up to $20,000 from copyright income as reported in by CBC news.

Jian Gomeshi contributed an opinion piece to the National Post on why public funding for the arts matters to all of us.

The Toronto Star is reporting on Stephen Harper's recent comment that the arts don't matter to "ordinary" Canadians. The conservatives point to their record of recent increases to the overall Canadian Heritage and Canada Council budgets.

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