Source : Ottawa Citizen

The federal government plans to stop funding another program that promotes Canadian arts and culture abroad.

Yesterday, Canadian Heritage announced it will no longer provide financing to Trade Routes -- a program that helps organizations in the arts and cultural sector prepare to export and sell their goods and services in international markets.

The funding will stop at the end of the department's fiscal year, on March 31, 2009.

In a release posted on Heritage's website, the government said it is "committed to a more disciplined approach to managing spending in order to deliver programs that are efficient and effective and that meet the priorities of Canada."

An arts group called the decision short-sighted.

"Everything would be more efficient and effective if they just withdrew all the programs. Then they wouldn't have to worry about it, would they?" said Andrew Wilhelm-Boyles, executive director of the Vancouver-based Alliance for Arts.

"(But) governments have historically done this because it was good for the country. We live in a world in which culture and the way nations communicate that culture is a huge influence on the way that nations are perceived."

The announcement came just hours after it was reported that the government would also cancel PromArt, a $4.7-million program that sends artists abroad to promote Canadian culture, because Canadians would question the nature of some its grant recipients.

A Toronto band named Holy F--k received PromArt funding, as did former CBC broadcaster Avi Lewis, described in a Conservative memo as "a general radical."

© Ottawa Citizen