by Kevin Fournier - December 6, 2007
To Whom It May Concern:
I have long held to the belief that the Canadian Arts Council system should be dismantled, and the Canadian government get entirely and perpetually out of the nasty and avuncular habit of funding the arts. But after some reflection, I would like to propose an alternative solution.
Let the Canada Council stand, and continue to issue grants to support good art; but let this be counter-balanced by the legislated authority to mulct fines and penalties from writers and artists for putting out absolute crap. Given the state of Canadian art & lit, the Council would not only be self-funding, it should rack up a huge surplus in no time – which money can be funneled into, say, our disintegrating school system.
And who could possibly object to the principle? If the Council is qualified to judge art as good, it must be qualified to judge what is bad.
If good art is of value to society, bad art must be harmful to society; and if good art can be quantified as worth this or that amount of public money, why can not we put a dollar figure on the damage caused by bad art as well?
Lists and schedules of offenses and charges would be all too easy to devise, starting with $75.00 for each and every use of the words or phrases ‘marginal,’ ‘liminal,’ ‘self-expression,’ ‘crafted,’ ‘vaginal,’ ‘dichotomy,’ ‘bone,’ ‘trope,’ ‘exploration,’ ‘luminous,’ ‘deeply felt,’ and so on (actually, let’s make ‘crafted’ $150.00 and ‘finely crafted’ $200.00, we’ve just gotta stamp that fucker out); $200.00 for any writer, artist, composer or film-maker who appears on the CBC to talk about his or her ‘art’, or who makes contact with Eleanor Wachtel or Gian Gomeshi under any circumstances; $250.00 for any art project referred to as an ‘installation,’ ‘spoken word,’ or a ‘performance piece’; $500.00 a piece for every person involved in staging a poetry reading; and wading downer and deeper into the shit from there.
Personally, I would go even further, and suggest jail time for repeat offenders. I can think of dozens of Canadian writers whose work would benefit immeasurably from spending a year or two in prison. (*cough* Atwood *cough*)
To those who would argue that this regime would discourage young men and women from pursuing an interest in the arts, well, I agree – indeed, I consider it one of the most concrete benefits of the scheme. Anyone who would be dissuaded from their vocation, by the possibility of fines or jail-time, never had a real vocation to begin with. He or she would be much better off getting a real job. The rest of us would be better off for it, too; but God forbid I should be suspected of a personal motive here.
sincerely & cheerfully yours,
Kevin Marc Fournier
Kevin Fournier is a Winnipeg-based writer. His first novel, Sandbag Shuffle, is published by Thistledown Press. He also blogs at Who Put Back the Clock? and writes The Back Page column.