Commuting With The PM

Reading the paper on the GO bus, as I do, is sometimes a distracting experience. This article I had to read twice, then one more time to make sure it wasn't a belated April Fool's prank:


Author Martel to send PM a book every two weeks to increase arts funding
CanWest News ServicePublished: Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Award-winning novelist Yann Martel isn't starting a book club to rival Oprah Winfrey. No, Mr. Martel will be content if he attracts just one loyal follower: Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Upset with the level of arts funding in Canada, Mr. Martel plans to send Mr. Harper a book every two weeks for as long as he is Prime Minister. "I hope it's a very short-term project," Mr. Martel said with a laugh, "but assuming he wins a majority or stays on, it's a long-term project." The Saskatoon-based author mailed his first recommendation yesterday. The Death of Ivan Ilych, by Leo Tolstoy, ought to arrive in Ottawa by mid-week.



You had me until the end, Mr. Martel. (Which is slightly ironic, since the only book I've read by him, Life of PI, had me only at the end). I've always been a bit conflicted about arts funding in Canada. We live in a country where if you sell 300 copies it's considered a smash hit, so the idea of the government shelling out some money to support writers seems like a good thing. Especially if they want to give me some of that money. The right-wing fiscal conservative that lurks inside me, however, thinks that since government money is our money, that it should be spent on projects that are beneficial to the most people. A highway, for example, or a bridge. Or a highway with a bridge. There should be fiscal responsibility when it comes to government spending and true art can't be fiscally responsible. It can't appeal to a everyone, nor should it.

I also think that if the government pulled art funding (the little that it does supply) Canadian art will get better. You could go down the list of writers who never received government grants (Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Richler, Atwood) and somehow made great books. If the government took away funding, then people who really wanted to write (paint, sketch, dance, etc) would still find ways to do it and still find ways to make great art. I'm sure they will find ways to make not such great art, but so it goes.

Tolstoy? What is he, joking? As we all know the young and struggling Tolstoy received his Canadian Arts Council grant just at the right time, which allowed him to complete his work on War and Peace, that classic book about Quebec separatism.

That's one way to convince Prime Minister Harper to dole out more money for arts: have him read realistic Russian literature. Martel's next tactic is to get Prime Minister Harper to pony up more dough for Canadian visual arts by sending him copies of Picasso's late works.

Mr. Martel didn't have a more approriate book lying around? Say, oh, I don't know, something published by a Canadian? Or even better, something published by a Canadian who recieved Canadian arts funding?

And, anyway, doesn't Mr. Martel know that Steven Harper doesn't read, he consumes information by downloading it through a USB port located at the back of his head?