Lindsay Brown emailed this morning to ask if I might have something public to say on the provincial government's recent cuts to arts funding. This is what I came up with:

The BC Liberal government’s recent cuts to arts funding confounds at every level. Studies have shown that for every dollar spent on the arts, a dollar-thirty-eight is returned to the economy. As for the argument that the poor should be prioritized, that too is specious, given that many of our province's artists and art institutions live and operate near or below the poverty line. The only conclusion that can be drawn from these cuts is that the Liberals are concerned with the optics of funding something that will have voters voting against them. But if that’s the case, then they have alienated not only artists and art institutions but all British Columbians -- because nobody's that gullible. The facts speak for themselves, in Liberal-friendly economic terms. What more does this government not want from us?