Archive for the ‘Arts and Culture’ Category

In hot water for big spending ways, Canada’s top librarian quits

- May 15th, 2013

Hot off the presses ..

Not only did the French- and English-speaking Caron bill taxpayers more than $4,000 in 2011-12 so he could take one-on-one Spanish lessons, he signed a $10,000 contract last year for another year’s worth of lessons though a spokesman said no charges were ever actually incurred on that second contract.

Still, Caron appeared to enjoy the taxpayer-funded perks of the job.

Caron enjoyed dining, for example, at the swanky Rideau Club in downtown Ottawa, billing taxpayers more than $2,100 for his 31 visits to the members-only club over the last two years. And if he wasn’t eating at the Rideau Club, taxpayers still paid: He expensed more than $8,700 for 35 business lunches elsewhere over the last two years.

Researchers with the opposition NDP calculated that Caron’s total bill to taxpayers for his travel and hospitality was more than $87,000 last year alone, including six trips to Europe so he could meet with international archivists. By comparison, his boss, the heritage minister, spent about only half that – $47,755 – on travel and hospitality.

via Sun News : In hot water for big spending ways, Canada’s top librarian quits.

The opposition NDP is on to this:

Budget 2013: $8 million for Toronto’s iconic Massey Hall

- March 23rd, 2013
TS_004_Lightfoot

TORONTO – Canadian legend Gordon Lightfoot in performance in November, 2012 at Toronto’s Massey Hall, a venue he’s been playing every year in the fall for 45 years. The federal government, in its budget last week, promised $8 million to fix the place up. (Jack Boland / Toronto Sun)

From Budget 2013, tabled Thursday by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty: Read more…

Stompin’ Tom Connors: Icon of Canada, dead at 77

- March 6th, 2013

Stompin’ Tom Connors has passed away at the age of 77 in Peterborough, Ont. I just got off the phoen with Brian Edwards, Tom’s promoter of 25 years. Brian says Tom passed on at about 5 pm ET today, surrounded by family and friends. There was no precipitating illness at the end. “He just wore out,” said Edwards. On March 13, a memorial is scheduled at the Peterborough Memorial Centre, the same place where the Peterborough Petes play “that good ol’ hockey game”, but Edwards says it’ll be more of a celebration of life than anything else. “It’s very rare you can work with someone who’s got fans from 4 to 104,” Edwards said. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his wife Lena, his 2 sons, 2 daughters and his grandchildren. God bless.

You can read Stompin’ Tom’s dying letter to his fans and to Canada right here:

Read more…

Hockey: Invented by the British, now Russia’s national sport, says US writer

- February 3rd, 2013
Canadiens score

MONTREAL, CANADA – Lars Eller (#81) of the Montreal Canadiens celebrates after scoring his second period goal during the NHL game against the Buffalo Sabres at the Bell Centre on February 2, 2013 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. (Richard Wolowicz/Getty Images/AFP)

Are you kidding me, Joshua Keating?

Keating writes:

Hockey, the British-invented, Canadian-developed national sport of Russia…

British-invented? We invented it! Read more…

Tax breaks to save heritage assets? What about our national parks?

- January 24th, 2013
Conservative MP Gord Brown

Leeds-Grenville MP Gord Brown speaks to members of the Brockville and District Chamber of Commerce during Thursday’s MP Breakfast at the Brockville Country Club. (RONALD ZAJAC/The Recorder and Times)

MPs have and will continue to criss-cross the country soliciting ideas that might make it into Jim Flaherty’s 2013 budget. (If you’re in St. John’s, NL Friday morning, you can bend the ear of the junior minister of finance, Ted Menzies at one of these consultations) One thing we know for sure about Flaherty’s budget: There ain’t a lot money that can be spent on new programs.  But what about tax breaks that would spur spending on public assets, assets the government would normally assume financial responsibility but for which, in a time of austerity, it doesn’t necessarily have the ability to do so? Read more…