The Canadian government is surprisingly good at funding artists. You'd have a tough time finding an indie film without the requisite Government of Canada or Canada Council logos somewhere in the credits. Even with music, a lot of funding goes through the FACTOR grants.

The thing with producing art is that there's bound to be a lot of failures, and a lot of 'wasted' time and money. Art is like research in that sense. You can't just magically pick the best artists who will make grand masterpieces - often the best artists are the ones who sucked at first, but stuck it through when others would have given up. We live in a socialist country, and for what it costs to feed and clothe an artist for a year we give them a chance to push the limits of their art. And that's not really a whole lot of money - probably about $20k/year.

I think that this bill should be passed only if another bill gets passed - the elimination of tax credits for religious institutions. The door should swing both ways.

Considering the inclinations of the previous Popes, I think you might want to reconsider that subscription. They weren't very nice men.