Canada Live with Krista Erikson, June 1 2011
A video of Sun Media’s Krista Erickson browbeating dance legend Margie Gillis went viral last week. For context and a link to the video, click here. We have yet to notice discussion in Canada’s English papers, but journalists for La Presse and RueFrontenac.com have filed responses this week.
Translated excerpts and links to the complete original articles are available below.
(Translations by ELAN).
*****
Marc Cassivi, La Presse
La compassion de Sun TV News / The Compassion of Sun TV News
Marc Cassivi, La Presse (June 7)
“Why do you need grants for this?” asks the journalist, falsely earnest, mockingly miming Margie Gillis’ hand gestures [from the video clip]. “Because art in our country is not profitable,” the dancer responds, calm despite multiple provocations. “Why would taxpayers pay for something that isn’t profitable?” exclaims the journalist, as if revealing a self-evident fact.
She says this with clear disdain. With the short-term fiscal logic of those who can see no reason for art: Why would you get $1.2M in taxpayers’ money to make silly gestures with your arms?
Why, you ask? Because without public financing not only would there be no contemporary dance, but no theatre, literature, music or television as we know them in Canada. Even private television, which benefits from tax credits and other public supports, would be unrecognizable.
[...] At that moment I found myself wondering if Krista Erickson, in her frenzy of sophistry, would lead the same style of interview with Don Cherry, who never misses a chance to recall his support for the war. Don Cherry who, for his frequently contemptuous commentary between two periods of hockey on public television, takes home a salary estimated at more than $700,000 (and refuses to reveal the actual total of his contract).
[..] These details don’t interest Sun TV News. But an average $100,000 per year to support the activities of one of the most respected dancers in the country and the members of her troupe, well, that is fodder for a scandal.
[Click here to read the complete original article on www.cyberpresse.ca]
*****
Patrick Gauthier, Rue Frontenac
La maison de verre / The Glass House
Patrick Gauthier, RueFrontenac.com
In short, the two Quebecor commentators [Krista Erickson and Nathalie Elgrably-Levy] feel taxpayers’ money should stay in the taxpayers’ pockets and the free market will take care of the rest.
Here, we face a superb example of “Do as I say, not as I do.” As reported in Rue Frontenac two years ago, Quebecor pockets its fair share of grants every year.
A simple click on the Canadian Heritage site reveals that for the year 2009-10 alone, eight magazines by TVA Publications (a Quebecor property) pocketed $2,108,657 in grants under the Publications Assistance Program.
The same empire that denounces $1.2M given to one of the greatest dancers in history and her company over [13 years] pockets, with out laughing, more than $2M a year for MAGAZINES that sell ads and often do little more than publicize the empire’s own products.
For example, TV Hebdo alone received more than three-quarters of a millions dollars last year. Whereas 7 Jours (which just won the prize for best selling edition at newsstands, for the one with Celine’s twins on the cover) collected $48,380.
[Click here to read the complete original article on RueFrontenac.com]
Greyson says he has managed to shift much of his focus and energy in the past few years, due to his teaching gig in film production at York University. “There’s some security there, and it means I don’t have to worry about having to do episodic [TV], and I don’t have any more meetings with Telefilm story editors.”
