MONTREAL: A downtown demonstration that drew some of the biggest names in Quebec arts and entertainment flies in the face of a recent poll showing support for the Conservative government is on the upswing here.

Roughly 3,500 people gathered to hear more than a dozen anti-Harper speeches by a cross-section of the city’s culture and business community, including film producer Denise Robert (Les invasions barbares), Montreal Chamber of Commerce head Isabelle Hudon, Spectra Entertainment’s André Ménard, and Michel G. Desjardin, director of the Institut national de l’image et du son (INIS), the budget of which was diminished by nearly a quarter in the government’s latest round of cuts.

‘[Harper] recognizes Quebec as a nation, but he’s just cut at the heart of a nation’s existence – its culture,’ Robert told the cheering crowd, echoing a sentiment repeated often by culture types since the government announced its $44.8 million in planned cuts to arts programs earlier this month.

The Alliance Vivafilm president Patrick Roy, who is also on INIS’ board, says he hopes the public will begin to realize how dangerous the Conservative government is for Canada’s cultural sector. ‘They say they cut INIS because it’s inefficient. But that’s not the case. It’s a success story. Cutting their budget was unacceptable,’ Roy tells Playback Daily.

Canadian Heritage minister Josée Verner has said the government cut programs that weren’t cost-effective, and that spending on culture in Canada is up. The federal investment in culture for the 2007-08 fiscal year was $3.4-billion, up from $3.2-billion in 2006-07, she has indicated.

Despite calls to defeat the Conservative government at Tuesday’s protest, a poll released the same day by CROP and Montreal’s French-language daily La Presse revealed that Harper would draw 31% of the province’s voters, the Bloc Quebecois 30% and the Liberals 20%, if a federal election were called.

But many observers, including NDP MP Thomas Mulcair (Outremont), believe the Conservative government’s recent cuts to arts will damage the party’s credibility in Quebec. ‘I think he’s trying to please his militant base of support in the west, but it won’t fly in Quebec,’ the NDP’s only Quebec MP told Playback Daily.

With a federal election imminent, Alliance Vivafilm’s Roy is waiting for the Liberals to come up with a clear cultural policy. ‘I’d like to know how they will defend culture,’ he says.

And while many in Quebec’s arts community traditionally tend to vote Bloc Quebecois, the mood at today’s demonstration was clear: the government must be defeated at all costs. Does that mean trading Bloc blue for Liberal red?

‘I’m moving back and forth. I don’t know how I’ll vote,’ said Yolande Racine, head of the Cinémathèque Québécoise. ‘But it’s clear that some kind of extreme gesture is necessary. I’m ready to vote strategically.’