The Ontario budget was announced last week and the big news is the new harmonized sales tax (HST) which merges the GST with the PST. Under the new tax, which would be implemented in 2010, books will be tax free to buy (in Ontario, they are currently subject to GST but not PST). Also in the budget, a new publishing credit amounting to 30% of the cost of publishing an author’s books or publishing electronic books. See the Quill and Quire summary for details.

Very flattering coverage of Edmonton Comic Fest. It attracts nerds and inarticulate fanboys, apparently

It’s a Right-Wing lovefest: Ezra Levant has written a book about his fight against the Alberta Human Rights Commission over his re-publication of the Danish Mohammed cartoons. Although the complaint against Levant was eventually withdrawn, the case served to highlight the dangerous power of these commissions to hamper free speech and silence critics. Despite Levant’s grandstanding and usually odious politics, this time he was on the side of the angels. Levant’s book (“Shakedown”) is now out, and conservatives are falling all over each other to help with the hype. He appears on the Michael Coren show here and is reviewed by Rex Murphy here and is given a handjob by Maclean’s blogger Andrew Potter here.

J. Torres is interviewed at The Pulse because he’s writing a Batman comic for kids. He will melt your heart with his love of old Superfriends cartoons and get you excited about his upcoming graphic novel, Lola: A Ghost Story.

Exhibits: Marc Bell is part of a group show at Magic Pony in Toronto. “Life Drawing” runs to May 10.