‘if’ backtracked to my post of yesterday on Art in Canada & CBC, so I made a first visit and browse.

A recent and particularly timely entry caught my eye, Wyman speaks linked to an interesting and currently very important site Our Public Airwaves. There is lots of reading here, and of course the article on Max Wyman’s book, The Defiant Imagination which “makes an impassioned case for why culture matters and why it matters in particular for Canadians”. A must-read!!

Max Wyman is well-known to Vancouverites as a critic, writer and supporter of Canadian dance, music, drama and literature. I haven’t heard much about his views on visual arts, and not too much about it is in the quoted texts in this article. But his views on the need for government to protect and support culture including multiculturalism come strong and clear, a message that our political leaders need to hear. Support of the CBC is one part of this.

This book is built on a belief in the paramount importance of creative activity in the fulfilled human life, a conviction that access to creative expression and the shared creative heritage should be universal, and a commitment to creative excellence. Central to the entire exercise is the unyielding idea that, in a world where profit and the bottom line assume a dangerous primacy, society has the responsibility to provide long-term support for culture in all its multiplicity: the making of it, the enjoyment of it and the sharing of it. Since uncertainty underpins all creative enterprise, someone must be prepared to underwrite the possibility of failure. That someone must be society itself, in large part through the funding processes of government.

To properly protect our culture, it is excellence in creativity that should be supported, not nationalism. Take care of the creators, and the culture takes care of itself.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, this subject ties in with Chandrasutra’s discussions* on the importance of Canadian culture and how CBC is part of it.

Again, if you are Canadian, please sign the support a stronger CBC campaign.

*expired link removed