MONTREAL — Pundits have been quick to cite the culture issue, and in particular the boisterous efforts of Quebec film and TV stars, as one of the factors that denied the Tories their long-sought majority government in this week’s election.

Chalk it up to a surprise coming-together of circumstance and showbiz, says media watcher Jean-François Dumas.

‘An election campaign is a major public-relations endeavor. It’s like a big reality show,’ says Dumas, whose company Influence Communications tracked the media coverage given to various issues — such as justice, foreign affairs, the economy and culture — in both Quebec and English Canada during the federal campaign. ‘And in Quebec we love our performers. When they talk, they get a great deal of coverage. They are good with the media. They know how to put on a good show.’

According to Dumas’ survey of print, TV and radio campaign coverage in Quebec, culture was at the top of the list, occupying nearly 19% of media coverage. In English Canada, culture accounted for only 6.6%.

While culture wasn’t on the agenda of any of the major political parties, it was thrust into the spotlight after the Conservatives’ $45 million in cuts to culture programs were announced at the end of August.

‘It’s fascinating because it was the news, rather than the agenda of the party leaders, which set the tone of the campaign,’ says Dumas.

The cuts were met with quick and inescapable outcries from Quebec’s media-savvy creative community. A major protest in Montreal was organized. Singer Michel Rivard and actor Stéphane Rousseau (Les invasions barbares) put together a now-famous satirical YouTube video in which the Tories come across as unilingual religious fundamentalists.

At the Prix Gemeaux, some 1.5 million viewers saw TV personalities including Guy A. Lepage (Tout le monde en parle), veteran talk-show host Janette Bertrand and actor Vincent Gratton speak out against the federal government. For weeks, popular actors such as Raymond Bouchard repeated the same message in the media: ‘Don’t vote for the Conservatives.’

The prime minister’s mishandling of the culture file dovetailed with the then-weaknesses of the Bloc Québécois — giving a new lease on life to leader Gilles Duceppe, who had been fading into the background when the election was called. When Stephen Harper said that protesting artists, specifically TV stars, were out of touch with ordinary Quebecers, Duceppe pounced, accusing the Conservative leader of not understanding Quebec’s distinct culture.

‘The cultural issue gave the Bloc the emotion their campaign needed,’ the president of polling firm Segma Recherche, Raynald Harvey, tells Playback Daily. ‘Making those cuts to culture was a strategic error on the part of the Conservatives.’

While culture made headlines daily in Quebec, the coverage was much more subdued in English Canada, particularly at the start of the campaign, though the likes of ACTRA, the CFTPA, the DGC and the WGC pressed the parties to disclose their stance on arts support, and implored their members to vote in favor of culture.

Does this mean that Quebecers care more about protecting homegrown culture than English-Canadians? A poll published in The Globe and Mail last month found that 37% of Quebecers ‘strongly support’ funding to the arts; in Ontario, the number was 29%. According to Statistics Canada, in 2003/04, Quebec received more culture funding from Ottawa than any other province — $156 per capita.

What likely shifted the balance in favor of the Bloc, says Harvey, was that Duceppe shrewdly presented Harper’s views on culture as a threat to Quebec’s ‘distinct’ way of doing things within confederation.

In other words, a threat to its pride.