A number of bloggers who watch both politics and cultural matters closely have taken a keen interest in a fundraiser for Toronto Liberal MP Sarmite (Sam) Bulte, who has chaired the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage and the Interim Report on Copyright Reform. The $250-per-person event (which features a performance by Cowboy Junkies singer Margo Timmins) at Toronto’s Drake Hotel on Jan. 19 is being sponsored by a group that includes Canadian Publishers’ Council executive director Jackie Hushion. (Many of the other names, like Doug Firth, who heads the Canadian Motion Pictures Distributors Association, are similarly involved in cultural industry associations.)

Not surprisingly, some people have taken exception to this rather blatant endorsement. On his blog, University of Ottawa professor Michael Geist, who has criticized Bulte before for accepting donations from groups with a keen interest in the copyright issue, points out that everyone is acting within the rules of the Election Act and then lets her have it: “[W]ith the public’s cynicism about elected officials at an all-time high and Canadians increasingly frustrated by a copyright policy process that is seemingly solely about satisfying rights holder demands, is it possible to send a worse signal about the impartiality of the copyright reform process? At $250 a person, I have my doubts that many of the artists that Ms. Bulte claims to represent will be present. Instead, it will lobbyists and lobby groups, eagerly handing over their money with the expectation that the real value of the evening will come long after Margo Timmins has finished her set.”

In 2004, as Geist points out, Bulte’s riding association received donations from the CPC, the Association of Canadian Publishers, and Access Copyright. A couple of publishers, McArthur & Company and McGraw-Hill Ryerson, also chipped in some cash. The riding association for the Conservative Party’s Canadian Heritage critic, Bev Oda, also shows donations from the likes of Ted Rogers and Leonard Asper.

None of this is surprising, but it’s still problematic. Jack Kapica, blogging for The Globe and Mail – one of an increasing number of mainstream outlets, including the Hollywood Reporter, of all things, to write about this – offers a solution: “Should the outcome of the election be favourable for the morally besieged Liberal Party, perhaps leader Paul Martin should consider rewarding Ms. Bulte’s hard work and loyalty with a different portfolio entirely, if only to show that Canadians won’t dance to every tune the Americans wish to play and charge us for.”

Related links:
Click here for all of Michael Geist’s posts on this topic
Click here for a brief on this issue in the Hollywood Reporter
Click here for Jack Kapica’s blog (scroll down for item)