With the price of gas does this make sense?

The Globe and Mail has thrown a big bucket of high-priced gasoline on the whole arts funding cuts debate.

In what surely will get the "arts proponents" and their lefty allies all riled up, the Globe and Mail describes Stephen Harper's love affair with the arts.

But Mr. Harper flatly denied any ideological underpinnings, saying the cuts were made through a series of analyses, the bulk of which “the Department [of Canadian Heritage] itself” carried out.

He also disputed the characterization that his government has broadly “cut the arts,” saying that net spending on arts and culture has increased. But he said he is willing to accept criticism for deciding that $45-million in programs deemed not to be priorities be reduced or eliminated, launching a veiled barb at his political opponents.

It is interesting, so the Department itself carried out some of these cuts, will the protesters start picketing Heritage Canada?

He took the piano “very seriously” and eventually passed the Royal Conservatory of Music's Grade 9 examinations, demonstrating considerable proficiency at the keyboard, and said that although he “had a bit of talent,” he was held back because his hands shook when he was nervous, a trait he later outgrew.

That is not easy to do.

“I've always been torn on music and piano in a way because I actually get a great deal of satisfaction out of when I do it, but I get so wrapped up in it. I've always had that problem with the artistic things I've enjoyed doing – I've played piano, I've sung a bit, I used to write poetry – I've always found with these kinds of things that they draw me in and I can't let them go. I find it difficult to do it just on the side, a little bit here and now,” he said.

So, I wonder what the NDP, Liberal's etc will say to this? Likely call Stephen Harper a liar again.

The conservatory's president, Peter Simon, has seen the focus that compels a young boy to play a silent keyboard firsthand. When he met Mr. Harper at a fundraiser, he said the Conservative Leader quickly launched into a discussion of his studies and his frustration with the results of a Grade 3 musical theory exam on which he scored poorly, despite studying hard.

“It obviously meant a lot to him. It was the intensity of his feelings [that struck me], that to someone who is in effect a stranger he would be that intense about it,” Mr. Simon said.

The conservatory's board chair, Florence Minz, has also met Mr. Harper and said flatly, “This is no Philistine.”

Well, those are influential people in the arts community. I should say serious arts community, as opposes to the type of people who want federal money to help offset the cost of their soft porn movies, or their slashers.

Again, I wonder how the left will react to this? They will likely call the Globe and Mail a right wing ideologue newspaper, and a shill for the Conservative Party of Canada. They will call Stephen Harper a liar, and dismiss his love of arts as mere election pandering while completely ignoring Stephen Harper's long history with the arts.

We're better off with Harper.