1) Military historian and acclaimed film maker Gwynne Dyer is asked by Harper's government to go to Cuba in 2007 to give a lecture for $3000 in airfare and hotel expenses.
2) Unbeknownst to Dyer, DFAIT pays for his expenses out of ProMart funding.
3) When the Cons decide to axe ProMart, they publicly use Dyer as an example of what is wrong with the program, referring to him as :
"a left-wing columnist and author who has plenty of money to travel on his own," and
"not exactly the foot that most Canadians would want to see put forward."
Here is Gwynne Dyer's response :"When the Canadian government announced it was shutting down the PromArt cultural diplomacy program, it named me as one of the free-loaders who abuse the grant system - in my case, by going off to Cuba to misrepresent true Canadian values. The Conservative talking points said I am "a left-wing columnist and author who has plenty of money to travel on his own," and your editorial The Arts Belong In Foreign Policy (Aug. 11) said "those grants never should have been approved, and the criteria should be tightened to prevent such abuses."
But, in fact, I was asked to go to Cuba in early 2007 by the Department of Foreign Affairs."
continued...
Care to rewrite your bullshit editorial now, NaPo?
Jennifer at Runesmith has great background on the ProMart program.
Accidental Deliberations points out that the Cons appear to see all public resources as slush funds.
Update : HA HA HA HA
Meanwhile the crack(ed) editorial team at Western Standard stakes out the high moral ground for the Cons, just in case, you know, they had misplaced it :
Conservatives abandon White Man’s Burden and end funding for cultural imperialism
"Artificially injecting our culture into another nation like an imperial poison? No way.
Using millions of dirty petro-dollars taken from Alberta to displace the indigenous culture of a struggling developing nation? No way.
That’s not Canada. That’s Amerika.
Didn’t our Prime Minister just apologise to Canada’s aboriginal community for an earlier version of a White Man’s Burden program called Residential Schools?"
stop...stop...I can't stand it...must breathe...oh noes, there's more...
"In my judgment, these programs come dangerously close to promoting cultural imperialism.
It's a good thing the Conservatives canceled these programs before Canada’s international reputation was tarnished.
PMO staffer Kory Teneycke, a brilliant and principled newish addition to Harper’s team..."
.....make..it..stop...oh no.....too..late........I'm...melting.....
6 comments:
oh my gawd, the cons are such tricky bastards. this really is a 'wolf in sheep's clothing' tale. i guess the trick is not to accept a penny from them. ew, my coffee is tasting bitter.
Too funny. Talk about grasping at straws.
Their attempts at satire do not make me smirk or snicker, let alone guffaw.
Unfunny morons.
Comparing residential schools to sending artists et al. abroad? Oh lordy. It's a joke, right? ...right?
Not meant as satire, nor a joke either, guys. They are the perfect and intended audience for Harper's program cuts and the various nonsensical Con press releases that accompany them.
The other people slagged by the "brilliant and principled" Teneycke have also come forward to say they were personally invited abroad by the Con government, as befitting an industry that brings $5B a year into Canada.
Chris
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