Sup­port­ers of Con­ser­v­a­tive Indus­try Min­is­ter Tony Clement deny that the Min­is­ter refused to fund Toronto’s Gay Pride Parade and Toronto’s Carib­ana because of homo­pho­bia, racism, or a clever com­bi­na­tion of the two.

Speak­ing on the con­di­tion of anonymity, the party insider made the Minister’s moti­va­tion very clear.

“The Mar­quee pro­gram is designed to sup­port large fes­ti­vals in Canada that draw an inter­na­tional tourism audi­ence; and while Pride and Carib­ana are big­ger than most Cana­dian fes­ti­vals and are respon­si­ble for mil­lions of for­eign tourism dol­lars enter­ing the city, the fact is gays don’t vote Con­ser­v­a­tive and blacks don’t vote in large num­bers. Also, both events are in Toronto and we are in the process of pun­ish­ing vot­ers there when­ever we can.”

The insider went on to point out that many pro­gres­sive fes­ti­vals across Canada did receive fund­ing includ­ing “Canada’s largest Ribfest”, which is expected to draw tens of  for­eign vis­i­tors, and “Whoop It Up Days” in Leth­bridge, the peren­nial favourite of many dozens of peo­ple.  The Cal­gary Stam­pede, a large gay event in Alberta,  also received funding.

Some Party work­ers are insulted at the sug­ges­tion of ram­pant homo­pho­bia in the Con­ser­v­a­tive Party of Canada.

“It is absurd to sug­gest the Con­ser­v­a­tive party of Canada is homo­pho­bic”, whis­pered one deeply clos­eted gay Con­ser­v­a­tive. “Homo­sex­u­als play key roles in the Party –   it is gay men that sched­ule the minister’s lives, advise them on pol­icy, explain to them what a Lady Gaga is and act as a com­pan­ion to the Prime Minister’s wife when she insists on attend­ing cul­tural events.”

“Tony is very nice to me and I’m gay” said the party insider.  “Just because he doesn’t think I should have the right to get mar­ried or donate my kid­ney to my sis­ter who is dying doesn’t mean he’s not awe­some to work with!”

The issue of cut­ting fund­ing to the annual Carib­ana fes­ti­val is no less con­tentious.  It is North America’s largest street fes­ti­val and draws hun­dreds of thou­sands of vis­i­tors from the United States. Unfor­tu­nately for Carib­ana orga­niz­ers, data shows that the major­ity of tourists who come to cel­e­brate this Caribbean fes­ti­val are black.

Clement has a long rela­tion­ship with Ontario’s black com­mu­nity. In 1985, while a stu­dent at the Uni­ver­sity of Toronto, he cre­ated a club solely for the pur­pose of bring­ing South African ambas­sador Glenn Babb to speak on cam­pus. None of the estab­lished uni­ver­sity clubs, includ­ing the cam­pus Pro­gres­sive Con­ser­v­a­tives, would spon­sor Babb because he was a pas­sion­ate advo­cate of Apartheid.

One of Clement’s sup­port­ers sug­gested that this was a very spe­cial deci­sion for Tony.  “Tony worked very hard to ensure that that advo­cates of Apartheid were heard in this coun­try. For Tony to be able to deny fund­ing to the largest event in Canada that cel­e­brates black cul­ture shows that he’s consistent.”

There is some good news in the Mar­quee débâ­cle.  With eli­gi­bil­ity cri­te­ria changed to exclude many gay and black ori­ented events, the gov­ern­ment spent only 39 mil­lion  of the 50 mil­lion dol­lars bud­geted for the pro­gram. The eleven mil­lion dol­lars in sav­ings will be redi­rected toward the con­struc­tion of a Gazebo in Tony Clement’s rid­ing in prepa­ra­tion for the upcom­ing one-day G8 summit.

Yes­ter­day, URNews mis­tak­enly reported than Min­is­ter Clement “is into Greek” .  The item should have read that Min­is­ter Clement, who was born Tony Panayi, “is Greek”.   URNews apol­o­gizes for the error.