Minister's subjectivity replaces jury selection.
by Barry Grills
Small book publishers, their authors, and staff connected to the small press publishing organization Literary Press Group (LPG) are celebrating the reinstatement last week of a sustaining grant of approximately $270,000 that had been cut a couple of weeks earlier by the Harper Government. But their jubilation should be tempered by the implications of the initial cutting of the grant and the way the grant was restored.
In fact, a closer look at what happened should trouble all of us deeply.
The LPG is one of Canada's three book publishing associations. It serves 47 of Canada's smaller book presses, by acting as their collective voice and by collectively distributing the books they produce to a wider market. While larger book publishers in Canada publish bigger name authors, the smaller presses (generally speaking) discover the newer Canadian writing voices and help them find a receptive audience.
A couple of weeks ago, the LPG issued a news release outlining some alarming news: that, for reasons never fully explained (beyond an assumption that this was merely more Harper Government cutting) the LPG's federal grant — an essential part of its operating budget — had been eliminated. At stake were a half dozen full-time jobs and the LPG's ability to sell and promote the fall and spring lines of books by its small press membership.
A social media campaign was launched to pressure Conservative MPs asking them to, in turn, pressure Heritage Minister James Moore to reinstate the grant. People — many of them already exhausted by their opposition to the odious Budget Bill C-38 — responded to the challenge. Shortly there was verbal confirmation from the Minister that the LPG grant had been restored.
In view of the intransigence of the Harper Government on Bill C-38, there was jubilation over this small victory for the LPG and its crusaders.
But viewed in context, the victory is Pyrrhic and reflects a much larger problem with our federal government and the criteria used to award grants, not only for the arts, but for all grantable Canadian disciplines.
At the same time as all of this activity to restore the grant was taking place, news reports confirmed that the Harper Government had targeted Franke James, an independent artist and environmental advocate, who could now prove she had been blacklisted in 2011 for art deemed by the Harper Government as antagonistic to their environmental view.
James obtained more than 1,500 pages of internal government documents from a year ago that describe her as "an inconvenient artist." With her work slated for a tour of 20 cities in Europe and the Middle East, Franke's grant was withdrawn. She alleges that the Canadian Government brought pressure to bear on her corporate sponsors, who also withdrew funding. Some of the documents Franke obtained, where not redacted, display a paper trail confirming there was "bullying" from the Canadian government to prevent the tour from going forward.
The element that ties this situation together with the LPG grant cut and subsequent reinstatement is the subjectivity behind the government interference in both situations.
By now, most informed Canadians are aware that, more and more, the Harperite Cabinet is superceding the normal democratic, arms-length processes of dealing with scientific research, with scientific information, with approving grants, arts or otherwise — namely a jury of skilled peers and experts. The LPG grant was not reinstated by publishing experts or peers, by a skilled or informed bureacracy, but by the Minister of Heritage… subjectively.
Brutally put, Canadians must deal with the fact that, increasingly, prescribed and unskilled dogma at the Cabinet level is becoming the new sole criterion for awarding grants. We have long relied on skilled, arms-length, unbiased juries of experts who would normally provide grants and indirectly enable a public audience for new ideas in a wide range of essential disciplines, without the restriction of ideology. Freedom of expression is at risk, in many aspects of Canadian life.
In future, if this approach by the Harper Government is not curtailed, we will all be subject to the whims of an uninformed, biased, and apparently vengeful Cabinet, instead of the arms-length panels of experts that are qualified to move Canadian human endeavour forward.
This subjectivity will impose a fundamental loss of freedom of speech and opinion. It will mean we are being controlled by a handful of ideologues who have anointed themselves our thought police. Such subjectivity is dangerous for our democracy, regardless of the ideology that inspires it.
About BarryGrills
Barry Grills is former Chair of the Book and Periodical Council of Canada. His memoir, Every Wolf's Howl will be available from Freehand Books this fall.
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