Both the former Liberal government and the present Conservative government have said they were in favour of this initiative. They say everything is going very well. That's also the case of the people from the Bloc québécois and the NDP. But I don't know whether it's because of the sponsorship scandal, but no one wants to take responsibility for it. What's more, the money is available.
After the sponsorship program was abandoned, no festival received any funding. The only program that was already supporting these events and is still doing so is the Canadian Heritage program. It offered relatively modest support for artists. Apart from that contribution, there's nothing. And yet everyone agrees that this is a good idea.