Did Anyone Notice?
It was with great embarassment that I heard about the Tories' plans for the Portrait Gallery through an off-hand remark my non-artsy husband made:
"Did you hear that the Tories are planning to kill off the Portrait Gallery?"
"Um, no! What the hell is that about?!
I knew what it was about. Rumours have been circulating for quite some time, since Paul Martin became Prime Minister after Chrétien got the hell out of Dodge. So if people were nervous about what Paul Martin was going to do, I'm sure no one at the Portrait Gallery is surprised at what Stephen Harper has done.
I haven't spoken to the people I know who work at the Portrait Gallery, but I'm sure that they're pretty heartbroken. They've been pouring their hearts and souls into this project for years, the last five years being especially intense. However, I don't know why the hell they didn't already have the damn thing in place so that it would have been too late for the government to shut it down. It's very, very difficult to be tied so intrinsically to the politics of the day BUT there were some mistakes made from an administrative point of view as well.
Anyway, looks like that beautiful building isn't going to house a fabulous collection of art after all. It's too bad, because I likely could have gotten contracts to work there, having had to turn them down before. Don't you love how I've turned this into all about me? Drat - now another option of a downtown employer has vanished...
"Did you hear that the Tories are planning to kill off the Portrait Gallery?"
"Um, no! What the hell is that about?!
I knew what it was about. Rumours have been circulating for quite some time, since Paul Martin became Prime Minister after Chrétien got the hell out of Dodge. So if people were nervous about what Paul Martin was going to do, I'm sure no one at the Portrait Gallery is surprised at what Stephen Harper has done.
I haven't spoken to the people I know who work at the Portrait Gallery, but I'm sure that they're pretty heartbroken. They've been pouring their hearts and souls into this project for years, the last five years being especially intense. However, I don't know why the hell they didn't already have the damn thing in place so that it would have been too late for the government to shut it down. It's very, very difficult to be tied so intrinsically to the politics of the day BUT there were some mistakes made from an administrative point of view as well.
Anyway, looks like that beautiful building isn't going to house a fabulous collection of art after all. It's too bad, because I likely could have gotten contracts to work there, having had to turn them down before. Don't you love how I've turned this into all about me? Drat - now another option of a downtown employer has vanished...
posted by Melbine @ 5:58 PM
6 Comments:
At 7:10 PM,
Anonymous said…
Why are they killing it off?
At 9:47 AM,
Anonymous said…
They're cutting funding to several museums. They don't think it's government's job to promote cultural heritage sites. Government's job is only to create and fight wars - leave everything else up to the market.
At 10:44 AM,
Anonymous said…
Government's job is to settle disputes. But if they do things like create and fight wars, they may as well fund some museums too.
So why are they cutting funds to several museums?
At 1:08 PM,
Melbine said…
Sugarplum's right. There doesn't seem to be any particular reason except that any time a conservative government is in power, severe cuts to arts & culture funding occur.
Rick Mercer had a great bit about their cuts to MAP and how it's important to make sure all the small town museums don't continue on!
At 2:18 PM,
Anonymous said…
Did you see the cover of the Citizen today? http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=e1772334-c517-4ddb-8388-7720607eafd5&k=24472
The dude tells me my citizen story links don't work so I'm not sure if this one does. You'll be interested to read this article about the museum. I can save it if you want or you can pick up a paper if you can't read my link.
At 8:36 AM,
Melbine said…
Yes I was able to read it okay. Obviously I am in full agreement with the article. :)
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