🚀 go-pugleaf

I tend to agree with Curtis Yarvin's hostility to government support for the
arts. As a Canadian writer working for the US (commercial) fiction market, I
don't get many breaks and don't expect them. I'm not a big fan of our Canada
Council, which is the de facto patron of a great many Canadian writers,
painters, and other artists.

But bear in mind that without the Canada Council we would be utterly swamped
by a tsunami of American crap. All it takes for an American publisher to
corner the Canadian market is to run the presses another 30 minutes. For a
Canadian publisher to compete is damn near impossible; the Americans can
underprice their product and drive the local publishers right out of
business.

As a Yanko-Canadian I am keenly aware that folks in the Old Country turn
stone blind whenever they look north. American narcissism (if not downright
solipsism) combined with enormous wealth makes it very hard for Canada to
maintain the separate identity which it does indeed possess. So we have
created institutions like the Canada Council and the CBC (both now under
steady attack by our Tory government) so we can get a word in edgewise in the
deafening uproar caused by our noisy neighbors. And institutions like those
are so much better than the market-driven equivalents in the US that most
Americans would be ecstatic to enjoy what we produce for ourselves in sheer
self-defence (note Canadian spelling!)


--
Crawford Kilian   Communications Department   Capilano College
North Vancouver BC Canada V7J 3H5
Usenet: Crawford_Kilian@mindlink.bc.ca
Internet: ckilian@first.etc.bc.ca