Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain!

YOU WANT ABSURDITY? The Toronto Star's Martin Knelman breaks it down for you. Don't let ANYONE tell you that this was just an "innocent misunderstanding." They've been caught with their hands in the cookie jar and now they're trying to backtrack.

Keep the pressure on.

Call it the Mystery of the Disappearing Guidelines for Bill C-10. It's the latest dramatic development in a struggle in the land of cultural politics, featuring a head-on collision of tax reform and film censorship.

Matters took a turn into comic absurdity yesterday at a heritage committee meeting with a startling statement by Jim Abbott, parliamentary secretary to Heritage Minister Josée Verner.

Only days before, Abbott had undertaken to come back to the committee with the guidelines for implementing the proposed changes to the Income Tax Act, under which the heritage minister could deny tax credits to productions judged contrary to public policy.

In fact, it was the guidelines that started the controversy when a heritage bureaucrat described them to a journalist. And then the leader of a religious right group claimed credit for pressuring the government to adopt these guidelines, supposedly targeting any material that God-fearing moralists might finds offensive.

That nightmare scenario induces Hitchcock-like anxiety in those who care about the arts industries and the government funding that makes it possible for them to exist.

But yesterday, Abbott reportedly said the guidelines don't exist yet, claiming they won't be drawn up until the legislation is passed.

"It was just before the meeting had to adjourn because the bells were ringing and we had to go to the House for the vote on the budget," says Bill Siksay, the NDP heritage critic. "There wasn't time for anyone to react to what Abbott said. But I have trouble understanding how it's possible the guidelines don't exist when just a few days ago he undertook to produce them for the committee."

Abbott could not be reached for comment.

So what about the bureaucrat who referred to the guidelines? Abbott's explanation is the bureaucrat was mistaken. He misspoke.

That leaves some big questions.