OTTAWA — Liberal, NDP and Green Party representatives were there. Even Communist and Marijuana candidates made it to Ottawa's Cube Gallery last week for an all-party debate on arts policy. But there was no Conservative representation — and should we be surprised?

A couple of nights later, the Canadian Conference of The Arts, the country's leading cultural service organization, organized another such gathering in the national capital — and again, the Tories did not attend.

Meanwhile, in Montreal, more than 70 arts organizations from across the country unveiled a major election manifesto calling for a renewed commitment by all political stripes to support the arts. Arts leaders also requested meetings with party representatives to discuss the document. Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff was quick to oblige, as were NDP and Bloc Quebecois candidates. Again, there was no response from the Conservatives.

There's a pattern here, and it runs across the country. The federal Tories burned themselves badly during the 2008 campaign, thanks to Stephen Harper's ill-judged observation that "ordinary people" don't care about arts funding, and his innuendo about rich artists who attended galas to whine about their grants. Arts policy is normally not even a tiny blip on the radar of an election campaign, but this time, the prime minister's remark triggered widespread resentment. Powerful Tories who serve on boards of directors for cultural groups across the country were aghast. And Quebecers, goaded on by the Bloc Quebecois, were furious at this perceived insult to their province's cultural integrity.

Thanks to his comments, Harper lost votes in Quebec — and, possibly, seats there, as well. So the preferred damage-control strategy in this campaign is to try to pretend that the potentially volatile and dangerous cultural sector doesn't exist. Translated, this means: If you want to stay out of trouble, don't discuss the arts.

So the Tories don't really want to talk about culture, notwithstanding the fact that the sector employs more than 630,000 Canadians, who represent 7.4 per cent of the gross domestic product. They don't want to answer questions about culture. They boycott meetings devoted to culture policy. As for those Tory candidates who hate the principle of public funding of the arts and want to abolish the CBC (a Conservative creation), they're expected to keep quiet and not rock the boat.

This imposed silence is causing both exasperation and fear within an arts community concerned about looming problems on several cultural fronts. Heading this list is the Harper government's promise of a strategic review of all spending programs — and concern that federal cultural agencies such as the Canada Council, CBC and Telefilm will again be on the chopping block, or worse. Copyright reform — which could leave a creator's rights in jeopardy — is a major worry, along with the Harper government's ideologically motivated assaults on the independence of the Canadian Radio-Television Telecommunications Commission.

However, what has raised the sector's anxiety level several notches higher is the Conservative response to a detailed questionnaire on arts policy that was dispatched to all the major parties on April 5 by The Canadian Conference of the Arts.