The CNCF, a little-known counterpart to the federal Canadian Television Fund, released a list of recipients for 2003 under its highly successful Newspaper Shakedown Program (NSP), largely financed out of public funds together with "contributions" from newspaper owners.

However, in a shocking and stunning development, many of the country's most popular and critically acclaimed columnists were left off the list.

"I'm shocked. And stunned," said an angry Andrew Coyne, one of several household names that were left off the list. Coyne noted that only one in three of those who applied received grants. "One in three!

Are they saying only one in three newspaper columnists in this country are deserving? Only one in three are excellent? After all, fully one in two are above the average. At least." "Few people realize how essential newspaper columnists are to this country's identity -- why, to its very soul," Coyne went on, using the space under his byline to browbeat the taxpaying public. "We're telling Canadian stories, to Canadians, at least when we're not writing about Iraq." "People say that newspaper columns are just another product, to be bought and sold in the so-called free market, like widgets. But they're not. They're not at all like widgets. They're made up of words, and sentences, and paragraphs -- unique creations of the human intellect.

How can you put a price on that?

"If it were just left to the so-called free so-called market, there would be no Canadian newspaper columnists, I promise you that. Okay, there would, but they'd be far less well paid. After all, we're providing original Canadian content. How can we compete, when Canadian op-ed pages can import American pundits like George Will at a penny a word? If we were to just sit back and let the big American feature syndicates dump their product in this country, we'd be wiped out. " Other famous and beloved Canadian columnists echoed his complaint.

"I know it looks like we're just indulging in special pleading, using our unique positions of access to the media to shill for our own interests," said an aggrieved Richard Gwyn. "But we're not. We're shilling for our employers. Without public funding, they'd have to pay us themselves.

Maybe that's how it works in the United States. But that's not how we do things in this country." "It's exactly analogous to the TV situation," explained an infuriated Allan Fotheringham. "We don't expect television programs to pay their own way. Why should we expect pundits to do so? Not that we ever have, you understand. You going to pick up lunch?" "We're not asking for special treatment," argued an apoplectic Don Martin. "We're simply asking for access to our own market. After all, this isn't just about culture. It's also about the economy. Studies show that for every job directly created or maintained by the newspaper columnist fund, four more jobs are spun off in support industries -- Starbucks servers, thesaurus compilers, newsprint recyclers, you name it. The multiplier effect is huge." Industry sources explained the fund is carefully designed to ensure that only bona fide Canadian columnists receive funding. Columns are assessed on a complex points system, depending on the national origin of the columnist, the place it was written, and the subject matter. Bonus points are awarded for the use of Canadian spelling.

The fund is credited with supporting a new generation of Canadian pundits. In 2002, more than 213,000 column inches were directly created with the help of the fund, with another 67,000 column inches indirectly generated in the form of outraged letters to the editor.

"It's a major public policy success story, if I may be so immodest," explained the fund's executive director, Henry "Hack" Need, formerly the Jeffrey Simpson Professor of Conventional Wisdom at Carleton University. "Before this program was available, there couldn't have been more than 50 columnists in the whole country. Now, there are hundreds. In fact, there's so many we can't fund them all. Or not at current levels of funding." He noted that the fund had been slashed in the most recent federal budget. "That's the real problem. We need stable, multi-year funding, allowing newspaper owners, columnists and their families to plan for the future. After all, this isn't just about an industry. This is about jobs, communities and ways of life." The Association of Thumbsuckers, Sages and Bigfeet, representing the nation's English-language pundits, vowed to fight the cuts. "These were some of the most influential, well-read and under-paid columnists in the country," the association said in a statement. "If they can do this to Andrew Coyne, what will become of Mark Steyn?"