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Pride Week, MP under fire after Tory outcry

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http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/662566#Comments
Pride Week, MP under fire after Tory outcry

Jul 08, 2009 04:30 AM
SUSAN DELACOURT
IN OTTAWA
ROBERT BENZIE
IN TORONTO

Toronto's Pride Week may have seen its last cheque from Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government after this year's $400,000 contribution provoked a backlash from within the ranks of MPs and Conservative supporters.

And Tourism Minister Diane Ablonczy appears to have been disciplined for the controversy, losing her power to announce handouts from the $190 million Marquee Tourism Events Program, which gave money to the event.

Brad Trost, a Saskatchewan Conservative MP, spoke out this week against federal support for Pride Week, arguing that the caucus and Harper's office were caught off guard by Ablonczy's announcement of support for the event.

"The pro-life and the pro-family community should know and understand that the tourism funding money that went to the gay pride parade in Toronto was not government policy, was not supported by – I think it's safe to say by a large majority – of the MPs," Trost said in an interview with LifeSiteNews.com, a website founded by the Campaign Life organization.

Darren Cunningham, a spokesman for Industry Minister Tony Clement, confirmed yesterday that future financial help for Toronto's Pride Week was "under review" but said that was not directly related to Conservative dissent.

"We're in the midst of doing a review of the program and that review is to ensure that the funding is providing genuine stimulus to the economy and we'll have to look at it in that light," Cunningham said, noting that federal support of the Calgary Stampede and the Vancouver International Jazz Festival, for example, faces the same review.

The Marquee program was set up by the Conservatives as a two-year fund to "stimulate the growth of tourism and contribute to the development of Canada's visitor economy over the long term."

However, Cunningham acknowledged that the moral outcry from social conservatives is being heard.

"I know that certainly there's going to be folks who have their concerns and they've raised those concerns with us about the program. We're listening."

Sources said the Pride Week grant sparked a crisis at the highest levels of the Harper government.

"It was seen as a poke in the eye" to social conservatives, said one senior insider, noting the Prime Minister is wary of alienating a key part of his base.

Trost, who refused further requests for interviews yesterday, also suggested in his discussion with LifeSiteNews that Ablonczy had been punished for the $397,500 grant and that she would no longer have responsibility for tourism announcements.

Cunningham insisted that Ablonczy's job had not changed, but the minister herself was not talking and her office referred all calls to the industry minister's office. The Prime Minister's spokesman, Kory Teneycke, also referred questions to the communications staff at Industry Canada, which is the senior department overseeing Ablonczy's ministry of state for tourism and small business.

Tracey Sandilands, executive director of Pride Toronto, said festival organizers accepted the federal contribution this year in the spirit in which it was intended – as stimulus money for the city and its tourism program.

She pointed out that the $397,500 went to items such as improved access for disabled people, infrastructure spending and "top-calibre" entertainment.

Nor is this the first time that Harper's government has set aside money to support Pride in Toronto. For the past two years, the event received $35,000 from Heritage Canada, as well as some smaller grants from Service Canada's summer jobs program, the Canada Council for the Arts and a sustainability fund at Heritage.

Ablonczy, the MP for Calgary-Nose Hill who famously introduced Harper to his wife, Laureen, was reportedly so impressed by Pride's "polished and professional" application that she insisted on coming to Toronto to present the cheque in person. A Conservative source said it was the media coverage that prompted the backlash against Ablonczy.

"The TV shots of her with transvestites inflamed some people," the source said.

Another Tory insider agreed the sight of drag queens with the minister caused Ablonczy "big-time" trouble because she had not cleared her attendance at the event with Harper's office.

"The pro-life and the pro-family community should know and understand that the tourism funding money that went to the gay pride parade in Toronto was not government policy" - Brad Trost

Ok, there's a thousand things wrong with this situation, but I gotta ask. Why would the "pro-life" community care about gays? Gay men don't have abortions. Doye.
 
"The TV shots of her with transvestites inflamed some people"


is that code for getting a hard-on while looking at some trannies?
 
"The pro-life and the pro-family community should know and understand that the tourism funding money that went to the gay pride parade in Toronto was not government policy" - Brad Trost

Ok, there's a thousand things wrong with this situation, but I gotta ask. Why would the "pro-life" community care about gays? Gay men don't have abortions. Doye.

Ha ha. You beat me to the punch! It reminds me of Sean Penn's line in Milk where after asked whether two gay men can start a family he says "No, but God knows we keep trying."
 
So apparently she was reprimanded and relieved of her funding responsibilities by Harper because of funding Pride Week. Not a surprise.

I think I'm going to donate money to Trost's opponent next election. He seems like the kind of person I don't want in parliament. In the States, well organized progressive groups flood the races of particularly odious conservatives with donations.

Ablonczy is one of the most capable, intelligent, and moderate people in the Tory caucus. It's not surprising that she didn't make cabinet on the first go, and was since grudgingly given one of the most minor portfolios while Peter Van Loan was given responsibility for the entire justice system.

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HAHA! Guilty boners!

they went from god fearin' to rod queerin'!



Trost, who refused further requests for interviews yesterday, also suggested in his discussion with LifeSiteNews that Ablonczy had been punished for the $397,500 grant and that she would no longer have responsibility for tourism announcements.

alot of times these religious news websites with the words "family" & "life" in their names are the ones who continuously talk crap about embryonic stem cell research. judging on how pissed off i get when i read their anti-hESC articles, i can imagine what gay people go through when they read crap like that. they keep saying how nazi-like hESC is but they seem to have no problem with their nazi-like persecution of gays.
 
I love when that grass-root spirit finds a hole in the blanket of control Harper has put over the party.
 
Too bad this was revealed in July instead of the Fall, but yet another example Harper's muzzled caucus and how backward many of them actually are.

i think there's a pic of that.....


747px-Folsom_2003_bondage_demo.jpg
 
"Tory Outcry" is a bit of a stretch. Four MPs spoke up and complained about the funding for Pride during National Caucus on the 26th... FOUR. Out of a caucus of 181.

When Bev Dejarlais broke ranks with 26 other NDP MPs and refused to vote for same sex marriage in 2005 I don't recall any threads on this forum entitled "NDP position on SSM under fire after MP Outcry". Give me a break.

Sue "Red Shoes" Delacourt I see is spinning the story in line with the Tor Star editorial board, that's predictable, but there's been no disciplining of Minister Ablonczy. End of story.

In fact one of the interesting fall-outs of this non-story has been to show how friendly the Tories have been to members of the GLT community. David Akin had a piece in today's Post that showed the Tories' generosity. The organizer of Montreal's pride parade also gave the Tories credit for providing stable and sustained support for that city's event which did not occur under Chrietien or Martin's watch.

It's not surprising that she didn't make cabinet on the first go, and was since grudgingly given one of the most minor portfolios while Peter Van Loan was given responsibility for the entire justice system.

Diane actually unofficially did make the first Harper Cabinet. She was the PM's first choice for Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, a good choice actually since Diane knew the file inside and out, I personally worked with her providing input into some detail for the Conservative's immigration and settlement policies leading up to the 2006 election. Ablonczy was on the initial list to join Rona Ambrose, Jim Prentice, and of course the Prime Minister as Alberta's representatives in Cabinet. Shortly before cabinet was to be sworn in, the PM accepted advise from his transition team that there was a need to have someone in cabinet from rural Alberta. There was no desire at the time to make a fifth seat in cabinet for Alberta, so Ablonczy was bumped in favour of Monte Solberg... who I don't think anyone on either side of the House has ever had a negative thing to say about and who did a fine job as Minister for CIC and HRSD before retiring from politics last year.

Deciding on who gets into cabinet is not always about merit or ability, it would be nice if it were so but it's horribly naive to think that's the case. The PM must weigh other factors, regional balances, rewarding friends, placating ambitious leadership rivals, add gender and ethnicity into the mix and you often have extremely talented people on the outside of Cabinet... see James Rajotte, Scott Reid, Pierre Lemieux, Kevin Sorenson to name just a few... and you also get some MPs elevated to positions of authority they probably were not suitably prepared for... Gordon O'Connor during his stint as MoD comes first to mind.
 
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Which one in that photo is/was David Carradine?

i'm not sure but i think there's a republican senator tapping his foot in one of those portable bathrooms in the background. ;)
 
Somehow, I have a feeling that the Montreal organizations won't be singing Harper's praises anytime soon - in fact, they might want to retract their previous assertions!

Montreal gay pride festival funding denied
Last Updated: Wednesday, July 22, 2009 | 9:37 AM
CBC News

The fate of this year’s Divers/Cité festival in Montreal was up in the air on Wednesday after the federal government said it would not approve funding for the event.

Divers/Cité, Montreal’s gay pride arts festival, was counting on $155,000 in new funding from Ottawa.

In an email from Industry Canada, spokeswoman Christiane Fox said there are just too many worthwhile events to allow government funding for all of them.

The directors of Divers/Cité in Montreal said bureaucrats told them their funding request met all the criteria, and that final approval was with Industry Minister Tony Clement’s office. But on Monday, organizers were told the Conservative government had rejected their request.

Suzanne Girard, director of Divers/Cité, said Wednesday the event's organizers are reeling from the news.

"To be told that there is no money, when there is. They have $100 million put aside; they chose not to give to Divers/Cité. The reasons … we don’t know. Is it we're gay? Is it we're Montrealers? We’re Québécois? It's incredible they would decide at this late date, five days before our event starts,†said Girard.

Girard said the Divers/Cité festival, in its 17th year, provides vital economic stimulus.

"Per capita, we bring in more tourism than any other festival in Canada. And you can ask any Montreal taxi driver, the hotels … about our impact on Montreal … we are a niche market, we are an extremely important tourism event," said Girard.

Girard said that without the funding, whole days of the eight-day festival might get cancelled.

Divers/Cité features gay and lesbian performers from around the world, and brings in 55,000 visitors to Montreal every year. It’s currently scheduled to run July 26 to August 2.

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/story/2009/07/22/montreal-diverscite-funding.html

AoD
 

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