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Des artistes se mobilisent
pour un candidat dans sa course au leadership.
La dernière course au leadership du parti progressiste
conservateur de l’Alberta a interpellé plusieurs
artistes qui se sont mobilisés pour appuyer Jim
Dinning, un candidat à la chefferie. Rappelons que
l’Alberta se range au 11e rang sur 13 des provinces
et des territoires en ce qui a trait au financement per
capita des arts et la culture. Une longue pente à remonter
pour les artistes qui travaillent dans la province la plus
riche du pays…
Alberta artists told to vote Tory
VANCOUVER — ‘The arts sector, in general,
is not inclined to support the Conservative Party,” says
Michael Hope, assistant principal bassoonist for the Calgary
Philharmonic Orchestra.
Certainly not in oil-rich Alberta,
where the Ralph Klein government has so severely and systematically
cut funding to the arts since coming to power in 1992 that
the province's cultural sector is now one of the poorest
in the country.
“That's why I felt it was important
to get involved and be strategic,” says Hope, a former
Liberal and now card-carrying member of the provincial
Tory party, who, like many in the arts community, will
be voting in today's final ballot for a new leader.
After
years of being ignored, the Alberta arts community is throwing
its support behind Jim Dinning, the moderate conservative
and front-running candidate who has promised to double
the budget of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts to $40-million
in the next two years.
“If there was ever a chance
for all of us to manage our own destiny it is now,” Tom
McCabe, president of Theatre Calgary, wrote in an e-mail
plea sent this week to leaders of arts organizations across
the province.
McCabe, a lifelong Tory, helped Dinning write
his arts policy, which also pledges to create a Premier's
advisory council comprised of artists and art supporters,
and provide a one-time grant of $12.5-million to the film
and television industry.
“We need to act quickly and
decisively by urging our staff, boards, friends and associates
to get involved this one time by buying a membership for
$5.00 and by voting for Jim Dinning on Saturday,” McCabe
continued.
Ted Morton, the runner-up candidate and fiscal
conservative, has mocked Dinning for his promise to the
arts, warning about “the danger of our party being
led by politicians who talk like conservatives but then
act and spend like Liberals.” He says he would honour
existing arts-funding agreements and would create tax incentives
to increase private-sector support for the arts.
“We
have two candidates who are extremely polarized,” says
Calgary playwright Eugene Stickland, who also bought a
Tory party membership and will be voting for Dinning today. “One
of them will move us 20 years forward and the other will
move us 20 years back. That's something to fight about.
That's vision.”
Alberta ranks 11th out of 13 provinces
and territories when it comes to per-capita support of
arts and culture, and has one of the worst wage gaps between
professional artists and the general population (surpassed
only by PEI). “We're
just behind the animals,” Stickland jokes, referring
to the fact that in the last budget, the Klein government
gave $45-million to support horse racing, and only $20-million
to the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. The AFA, an arms-length
granting body that supports 1,400 organizations across
the province, has received only two small increases to
its budget: $3-million earlier this year, and $3-million
in 2003, all of it from lottery revenues.
This week in Calgary,
however, the city council approved a 20 per cent increase
in the granting and programs budget for the city's arts
community organization: Calgary Arts Development will use
the money (about $502,500) to address critical shortfalls
in funding for the city's artists and arts organizations.
Stickland,
who was born and raised in Regina, has never voted for
a Tory candidate. “My grandfather was one
of the founders of the CCF party. He would be disgraced.
But this is a unique situation.”
As in the 1992 Tory
leadership race, the party is using a one-member, one-vote
system that allows any Canadian citizen who has lived in
Alberta for at least six months and is older than 16 to
buy a $5 party membership. Memberships can be bought right
up until the polls close at 7 p.m. Saturday.
“I think
it's great that a citizen can affect the outcome, unlike
[the federal Liberal leadership convention] in Montreal
right now,” says Hope, who recently made
an announcement before an orchestra rehearsal, explaining
the situation to his colleagues and identifying Dinning
as a progressive candidate who supports the arts.
“It's
really bizarre for a musician or artist to have a Conservative
membership,” Hope says. “But
this is a unique opportunity where we can make a difference.”
N.D.L.R. : Au
terme du congrès, c’est
finalement Ed Stelmach qui a été élu à la
tête des Alberta Progressive Conservatives.
Source :
ALEXANDRA GILL
Globe and Mail, December 2nd, 2006
www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/
RTGAM.20061202.wtory02/BNStory/Entertainment/home
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