Stuck between a rock and hard place, Conservatives cancel funding to Montreal gay arts festival

Stephen Harper and the Conservatives can't win right now. They're stuck between placating their religious right base, and reaching out to more liberal minded urban dwellers.

Its pretty much a foregone conclusion that without the Bible thumping crowd, their chances at forming a majority in a future election is toast. Hence this news that Montreal's gay and lesbian arts festival was denied funding under the marquee tourism program should come as no surprise. Irrespective of the fact that they met all the requirements and had been led to believe the funding was in place.

Paul Girard, the festival's government relations and marketing director, is quoted in the above linked article as saying that when he phoned to check on the status of the funding, that he was told the program had received so many requests, 'the government simply had to make a choice'.

Uh huh. They had to choose between losing support from the evangelical crowd, or losing votes among French homosexuals.

The French queers lost...big surprise. Like the Tories were really going to score big with that constituency in any case.

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