{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Is Canada's Democracy Underfunded?","description":"Reading this on Library and Archives Canada\u2019s website: Amid the threats to Canada\u2019s nationhood in recent months and in the global context of social division and eroding democracy, Library and Archives Canada (LAC) has a unique and critical role to play in asserting Canada\u2019s identity, promoting national unity and championing democratic principles. then seeing this further down the page: LAC is planning the following spending reductions: 2026-27: $11.1 million 2027-28: $14.7 million 2028-29: $22.1 million It is anticipated that these spending reductions will involve a decrease of approximately 161 full-time equivalents by 2028-29. (my italics) put me in mind of this   Dr. Dolittle\u2019s pushmi-pullyu How can you assert, promote, or champion anything when your budget is being slashed? How can Canadians - historians, bibliophiles, citizens - understand, learn and write about their own country when they can\u2019t access the historial record in a timely fashion? If these cuts are for real, then the Carney government is talking out of both sides of its mouth, happier when Canadians don\u2019t look at their own history. This, in fact, is exactly what some of Canada\u2019s top historians are saying. To get to some kind of truth, I figured the time was right to go back in and talk with Leslie Weir, Canada\u2019s national Librarian and Archivist, in hopes she could set me in the right direction. Leslie was appointed head of LAC in 2019 (we first talked shortly after her appointment. Listen to that conversation here). Prior to this she was Librarian at the University of Ottawa, from 2003 to 2018. A past president of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries, Leslie is, in addition to her currently duties in Canada, President of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), until 2027. We met at her offices in Ottawa at 395 Wellington Street. I reference Voltaire briefly during our conversation. Voltaire revelled in pointing out gaps between rhetoric and reality. How, for example, could a church that preached love and forgiveness, at the same time condemn innocent people to be torn limb from limb in the public squares? I end off the interview with three quotes from him: \u201cIt\u2019s dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong\u201d \u201c To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.\u201d \u201cDoubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.\u201d Here\u2019s another to end off this introduction: \u201cThose who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.\u201d   ","author_name":"The Biblio File hosted by Nigel Beale","author_url":"https:\/\/thebibliofile.ca","html":"