As you'll know, if you've ever spoken to a Canadian band who don't receive it, the Canadian government currently provide a great deal of funding for some bands in the country to tour internationally. However, the Canadian government have now announced that it is to cut the PromArt funding, because they don't like the bands who have been getting the money, in particular Toronto's Holy Fuck.
The prime minister's press secretary, Kory Ten-nike, said: "The [funding] choices made were inappropriate because they were ideological in some cases, or the money was going to fringe arts groups that, in many cases, would be at best, unrepresentative, and at worst, offensive". Foreign affairs spokeswoman Anne Howland went on to cite Holy Fuck as an example of such a band.
Holy Fuck bassist told culture show Q: "I guess more than anything it's a little bit annoying that we've been made the scapegoat when you consider how much money we receive relative to the budget for the entire program. I think our funding comes in at something less than 0.1 per cent of the whole programme. We've been nominated for a Juno award - that's as mainstream as you get for popular music in Canada. That argument falls flat in our case and from what I've read - for a lot of other people as well".
Despite these protestations, the Canadian government has said that the PromArts programme, which costs $4.7 million a year to run, will wind down by 31 Mar 2009, with another programme, the $9 million Trade Routes program, which helps promote cultural exports internationally, to be cut also.