TORONTO, September 21, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Government funding of a video production company in Toronto that gives workshops on how to make pornographic movies has been sharply criticized by Progressive Conservative MPP for Thornhill Peter Shurman, who said he has “great reservations” about government funds being used this way.
Trinity Square Video offers a course called “Grow Yer Own Porn…2012 Style” in its workshop descriptions. According to a CTV News report, the company received $250,000 from the Canadian Heritage & Canada Council for the Arts; $150,000 from the Ontario Arts Council; and $150,000 from the Toronto Arts Council over several years.
“That’s not something that I think government money should be supporting,” said Mr. Shurman, the PC’s finance critic in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.
However, the video production company’s executive director, Roy Mitchell, defended the porn workshop, explaining to CTV that the government funding is not directed toward the production of pornography, but is instead being used to help those taking the course to “develop a critical eye when making pornographic films.”
“I think we live in a world now where pornography is there,” said Mitchell.
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The federal government is no newcomer to funding pornography. Earlier this year Canada’s state-funded broadcaster, the CBC, pulled a soft-core porn web show that it had been making available at taxpayers’ expense on its French language website in Quebec.
The program, produced in France by a private company, was purchased by the CBC for an undisclosed sum and was made available on a Radio-Canada website called tou.tv.
Although Heritage Minister James Moore and the office of Prime Minister Stephen Harper criticized the CBC for showing soft-core porn, CBC President Hubert Lacroix still defended the program saying, “This series is a web series that’s been very successful in Europe. Also, it’s a series that is in line with the mandate of tou.tv.”
Condemnation from Members of Parliament across party lines prompted the CBC to first move the raunchy show from prime time to overnight, then to cancel it.
Contact info:
Canadian Heritage & Canada Council for the Arts
Heritage Minister James Moore
Phone: 613-992-9650
Fax: 613-992-9868
E-mail: [email protected]