A Conservative majority would gut arts funding

Some new cuts were announced for 5 federal programs funded by the government, you can read about it here. The Conservatives, in my view, cannot be trusted any longer. I was never a fan of Stephen Harper, but I felt that all the warnings of a secret Conservative agenda were hyperbole. I would prefer a Liberal government, but at first the Conservatives seemed relatively harmless given the constraints placed on them in a minority government. Now it appears that the Conservatives do harbour an agenda, though it is not so secret. These latest cuts to arts programs come after the Conservatives already attempted to allow Heritage Canada to decide what film and television productions were wholesome enough to qualify for government tax credits. Though not related to the arts, the Conservatives also rammed through important immigration changes on the back of a spending bill. Sneaking such important changes through was disingenuous and could set a dangerous precedent. To get what they want, the Conservatives seem prepared to tack controversial measures onto confidence votes, or in the case of the film and tv tax credits, to bury important issues in what are otherwise routine bills that are necessary in such vast areas like banking.

If the Conservatives are willing to make changes like those I mentioned about in a minority situation I do not want to imagine what they would do if they secured a majority government. If Canadians want to keep their country on the right path, a path that supports arts and culture, then the Conservatives are going to have to be replaced. Maybe one day a Conservative government can be trusted to protect the institutions and programs that matter to Canadians, but the Harper Conservatives appear to harbour an agenda that would mean little to no funding for the arts, abandonment of programs like Insite, law and order policies that do nothing to stop crime, and immigration policies that allow bureaucrats and politicians to discriminate at will.