Layton stands by tough attack on Harper arts record

By Janice Tibbetts and Mike De Souza
Canwest News Service

New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton launched a new ad campaign in Quebec describing Stephen Harper's Conservative party as "culture killers." (Allen McInnis/The Gazette)

QUEBEC - NDP Leader Jack Layton says that Prime Minister Stephen Harper deserves to be on the receiving end of an aggressive new campaign launched on Tuesday that describes the Conservative party as "culture killers."     

Layton, who announced he would put $125 million into new arts funding, directed his attack at Harper while campaigning in a province where the arts community is livid about $45 million in Conservative cuts.     

"He's grabbing ahold of the aorta of the creative process and putting the squeeze on it," Layton told supporters at a small Quebec theatre, surrounded by NDP candidates from the area.    

When questioned about the nature of the new French-language ads running in Quebec newspapers and the Montreal subway system, Layton said he would not apologize for attacking Harper's record on arts and culture.     

"He's going to get some strong language pushed back against him because he's going to throw artists out of work, he's going to deny us access to our own stories as a country and I make no apologies for using strong words against strong and negative deeds on his part," Layton told reporters.

The New Democrats' $125-million plan includes new income averaging for artists over a maximum of seven years, an annual federal tax exemption of $20,000 for earnings from copyright and residuals income, reforms to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to boost Canadian content in prime time television, stable funding for the CBC, and new funding for Telefilm Canada and the Canadian Television Fund.

The New Democrats would also restore the $45 million in Conservative cuts to a variety of programs that sponsored the arts.     

Layton denounced the Conservative move as a threat to Quebec's unique cultural identity as he promised to protect artists who have "kept the flame of French culture strong in this city, in this province, and right across Canada."     

Layton, himself a musician who plays guitar, started his day with an early-morning radio interview, in which he played and sang the Quebec folk song Gens du Pays, which has been adopted as a nationalist anthem but it is also sung at birthday parties.     

Layton was to spend the day focusing on the arts, including attending a concert against the cuts Tuesday night at a Montreal night club. Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe was scheduled to attend the same event.