For discussion: charging emerging writers $25+ to enter a contest, ESPECIALLY when they don’t get something in return like a subscription to a magazine (which they should have probably already subscribed to if they wanted to publish in it — but that’s for another post…), is shitty and chintzy. ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY when the nation’s public broadcaster and the Canada Council for the Arts, both of which everyone already funds with their taxes, are running it. See you in the yelling box! (translation: comments section.)
Bookninja 
My take here is that people being mad at entry fees for contests is just another iteration of people being mad about having to support (financially, with their labour, etc etc) the creative community from which they draw. The CBC example is less defensible obviously because they are still ostensibly a public good but if, say, some CanLit Journal didn’t actually give you a subscription for their $20 entry fee, and the entry fee just went to pay for the prize and the judges, I’d be fine with that.
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