03.31.2012 01:29 PM

Um, no he didn’t

Listen, pal, when we’re all starting to wonder how education and health care are going to be sustained past the next couple quarters, a pretty light show for the super-rich in downtown Toronto doesn’t rank high on the priority list, kapiche?

13 Comments

  1. Tim says:

    Can’t say Martin Knelman sounds much different from anyone else I’ve heard on the subject of cutbacks this week. It’s a catastrophe if you’ve been affected by the cut, necessary prudence if not.
    Canadians have always been quite good at demanding Scandinavian level social services funded at American taxation levels.

  2. MC says:

    I’m in the arts and turned down a request to participate in Luminato a few years ago. No regrets. Luminato has little to do with “cultural innovation” as Knelman suggests. I find it hovers at the edge of the tacky and overly commercial, and when money is tight, it’s more responsible to maintain funding to proven institutions like bricks and mortar museums, concert halls, the Ontario Arts Council, or the host of other arts agencies funded by the province than to risk it on a flashy, temporary venture. Luminato reminds me of the kind of excesses of Garth Drabinsky – and we know how that turned out. Cutting their funding more than other arts agencies is a prudent and reasonable move given the economic circumstances. They’re heavy into commercial sponsorship. If anyone can scrape together the shortfall, Luminato should be able to.

  3. W.B. says:

    New Topic: Warren are you at all concerned that J Trudeau may get seriously hurt in this farce tonight? Have you seen this black belt military Mike Tyson type Senator?? Sydney Crosby result or worse? Conservatives/Reform take no prisoners. They want blood. This guy is apparently telling people, not part of hype, that he’s serious about a knock out. They’ll be gloating if they can really hurt him. Hope I’m wrong.

  4. ottawacon says:

    An unelected 37(!) year old thug of a Senator who has time to train devotedly in order to pound on an MP making a charity appearance is some kind of metaphor (and who ducked out of sexual harassment complaint by resigning from CAP after all) . I would dearly have loved to have three rounds with PET, but the son is not the father, for better or worse.

    As for Luminato, well in West Ottawa there is an elementary school (Broadview) on the edge of being condemned because of a lack of a capital fund to renovate it adequately, let alone replace it. The amount in question is less than Luminato’s funding.

  5. MC says:

    As stated above, if you have to cut arts funding (and as an artist, I’m all for doing our fair share of belt tightening), Luminato is a good choice. You won’t find many artists upset about it – the way they would be about more important bodies. With Luminato, it’s mostly high priced consultants and promoters who’ll be out a bit – not artists .

  6. Shaun says:

    Actually, you’re just making a generalization of a very context specific issue.

  7. storeboughthair says:

    What MC said (both times).

  8. Realist says:

    Aaand…Trudeau FTW.

  9. Terry Brown says:

    I didn’t react that negatively to Knelman’s column as I saw him less complaining about the cuts themselves than about the extent of the cuts relative to other publicly funded arts programs and institutions. If Ontario’s finances are so dire that we’re actually concerned about funding education and health care past the next couple of quarters then the operating budgets of the ROM etc should have been far more aggressively slashed one would think and the couple of million bucks saved by slashing Luminato’s budget is fairly irrelevant. Of course, if things are really that bad it does sort of beg the question what the christ the last election was about because this sure as he’ll wasn’t something any of the three spoke about. Btw, Trudeau beat the shit out of Brazeau. Suck it, Tories.

  10. DanO says:

    Despite not being “super-rich” I quite enjoy the Luminato festival and also Nuit Blanche.

    Yes, the funding was cut, but not eliminated. I hope some of the private sector step up and sponsor the difference in funding.

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