Canada has a Conservative government for the first time in over a decade, and the effect of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s budget-cutting plan has been felt immediately by the country’s heavily subsidized arts organizations. “This week, Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs announced that it would slash $11.8-million from its ‘public diplomacy’ budget… Canada’s spending was already pathetic, [and] foreign tourists already think of Canada as Mounties, mountains, maple syrup, Molson’s and moose. So these cuts are painfully shortsighted.”