Quote, unquote: Are we building a culture or what?

“It's not about cultural policy any more, it seems. Canadian Heritage is not functioning like a cultural body. The policy is bums in seats. How do you grow a culture that way?”

-- John Barton, editor of the Malahat Review, commenting in a Globe and Mail article on the new Canada Periodical Fund guidelines that, effectively shuts out his long-established magazine and quite a few other literary and cultural publcations. [disclosure: I am quoted in the article]