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Sent:   April 26, 1997 12:23 AM
To:     'Ilse Hughes'; 'Monica Tapp'; 'Roxanne Smith'; 'Niagara Artists Company'; 'Roger Savage'; 'bill horne'; 'gallery 101'; 'CARO'; 'CCA'; 'CHRC'; 'gallery connexion'; 'Simon de Jong'; 'judy slivinski'; 'francine fralick'; 'Artspeak'; 'Gregory Elgstrand'; 'Meg Webber Crockford  c/o Hagen'; 'Angela Trainor'; 'Jean Bridge'; 'James Lindsay'; 'Struts gallery'; 'oboro'; 'OPen Space'; 'Pchristo - banff'; 'patrick close'; 'Sheila Jans'; 'sandra lewis'; 'Susan Cockshutt, red deer art gallery'; 'The New Gallery'; 'Tom Bauer'; 'Catherine Wright'; 'Susan Sax ,visual arts alberta'; 'Vox populi'; 'Zimmer'
Subject:        Federal Arts Policy -- Electronic Lobbying

Note: This e-mail bulletin is supplied free of charge to independent artists.
 Simply e-mail a request to be added to the list.  Associations making use of 
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maintenence. 
 
Today-- Electronic lobbying during election campaign

Many of you recently e-mailed the heritage minister after our bulletin 
published addresses. Of course we are now in a full election campaign
and so far precious little is being said about cultural policy. One can visit
each Parties web site and leave a query about cultural policy that requires a direct answer . For example "will your party support cultural exchanges between regions of this country, including exhibition exchanges, artist travel, and touring of original canadian performing arts,   and will it
insist on a financial commitment by the federal government to iniatiate and
help co-ordinate such activities which do not fall under any one provinces jurisdiction or responsibility? "
   Remember that many are talking of withdrawing from areas of provincial 
jurisdiction (read downloading), so it is important to indicate that the federal government has responsibilities in the cultural field and will be held accountable.

The URLs for federal party web sites are:

   Liberal   -- http://liberal.ca/cgi-win/core1.exe
   New Democrats -- http://fed.ndp.ca/fndp/
   Reform -- http://www.reform.ca
   Bloc Quebecois -- http://www.opposition.parl.ca/
   Progressive Conservatives -- http://www.pcparty.ca
   Green Party -- http://green.ca/
   Libertarian -- http://libertarian.ca/
   Marxist-Lennist  -- http://fox.nstn.ca/~cpc-ml/index.html
   Natural Law -- http://www.natural-law.ca/

Obviously some of these sites may be useless but at least you have a complete list of them to consider. Queries to major parties during an 
election campaign can raise an issue to a greater signifigance.  If the artists, cultural workers and the consumers of culture remain invisible
during the campaign, the will be cast into more invisibility afterwards,

    - greg graham


Queries or comments may be e-mailed to Balandis Graham Consulting at 
[log in to unmask] Our Fax is (819) 684-9227, our phone is (819)684-9227
And snail mail may be sent to 21 Forest, Aylmer, Quebec, J9H 4E3.