The next election will be fought on censorship say Libs

Okay, everyone's back from a two week break and guess what's going to be on the agenda for the Liberals? Bill C-10 and the threat of cutting subsidies for filmmakers who produce material the government deems unacceptable. Oh those censorious Tories! (When of course as Andrew Coyne explained so well, Bill C-10 has nothing to do with censorship.)

Here's what Stephane Dion had to say in a scrum today when questioned why he had moved Denis Corderre to a different critic portfolio and whether it had anything to do with internal attacks on Dion's leadership:

The Hon. Stéphane Dion: Not at all. All this is speculations that have nothing to do with the reality. The reality is the following. The arts is under attack with C-10. Official languages going nowhere and it's my plan, the Dion plan that is in danger to disappear. I'm sending on these files one of my best fighters and I may say to the people of the arts and official languages, with Denis Coderre, you have a strong fighter and we will win.

As you may recall, M. Dion was not exactly forthcoming when it came to supporting freedom of speech, but when it comes to films like Young People F***** and other tax-sponsored crap, he's all for making you and me pay for it, whether we like it or not.

Oh, and more Cadman. Sigh. Liberal MP Dominic LeBlanc is making a video presentation on the Cadman "affair" tomorrow.

I'll close with an excerpt from Andrew Coyne's column on the C-10 artistic freedom issue.

Just so we're clear: absolutely no one would be forbidden by Bill C-10 from making any kind of movie they liked — violent, sexual, uneducational, whatever. They just might not be able to get public funding to do it. That's not censorship. It's judgment. The public has every right, through its representatives, to decide how its money is spent. If artists don't want to abide by the rules, no one's forcing them to take the cash. If free speech were really their thing, they'd go after laws that criminalize speech, including the obscenity and hate speech bans. But that kind of censorship they're okay with. It's only when their immortal right to reach into someone else's wallet is imperilled that they mount the barricades.

UPDATE:

Here's Denis Corderre in a post Question Period scrum today:

Question: Mr. Coderre, how do you feel about losing Defence?

Denis Coderre: I'm gaining Heritage and I think that you know, it's a privilege of a leader to define what's your, what's your position after a year and a half. Passionately of course, I took care of that issue, but C-10 and all the issue on censorship will be a key issue for the next campaign. And you know that Mr. Dion is very, very sensitive regarding everything arts and culture. It's a major industry and I think that we need to bring back more sensitivity at that level. There's the Quebec question of course, official languages, Radio-Canada, CBC. So I'm going to, I'm going to take care, I'm sure you're going to cut that on your (laughter)...

I wonder if somehow Keith Martin's message on the real censorship of human rights commissions, abusing human rights and fundamental freedoms, is getting garbled into a fight on artistic license at taxpayers' expense?