The Arts of an Election

There's a federal election tomorrow and I'm going out early to vote in Hogtown-St. Paul's so I can spend the rest of the day sulking. Why? Because not one of the parties has said a word about arts and culture. Oh, there's money for fighter planes (or not); the need for new prisons (or not); the imperative of ever closer union with the U.S. (or not); but not so much as one thin dime or one short policy paper - if I haven't missed something - for books and art and the rest. Perhaps Harper has an excuse, after all he's a philistine. And perhaps Layton would rather wait until he's in or near power to unleash a wave of patriotic neo-socialist realism. But Ignatieff? He's as much an author as an academic so why the silence? Is he afraid of appearing soft in an election that has been no more than an exercise in elbows out macho nastiness? Fearful of being called a spendthrift? That he's disconnected from What Really Matters? Boy, I wish I knew. Then I wouldn't feel quite so bad about having to hold my nose May 2.