PunBB

Not hip, but it's not tragic
By Jane Taber

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Tragically Hip guitarist Rob Baker doesn't think Stephane Dion is “hip,” but he doesn't care.

“I don't care whether the leader is hip. I don't care whether the leader is a snappy talker or snappy dresser. I care whether they have content, something to back it up.”

Mr. Baker was one of about 100 people (yes, the crowds are getting bigger as Mr. Dion heads into Ontario) at a corn roast and burger rally this afternoon in Napanee, Ont., for Liberal candidate David Remington. Mr. Baker, all long hair and long beard and wearing a blue Pierre Trudeau t-shirt, doesn't live in the riding but his band has a studio here. He was extremely critical of the Tory government's cuts to arts and culture. “They have no respect for culture,” he said.

Mr. Baker's band was honoured this year with a Governor General's Performing Arts Award. He said MPs from three parties were at the black-tie gala event but there were no Tories in sight. He criticized the Heritage Minister for not attending.

“The Conservatives couldn't see fit to send a single minister … the Minister of culture and heritage, isn't that the person's job to go to the Governor General's awards to support the arts in this country? The opera? The ballet?,” he said. “They did nothing. They could have cared less.”

NegPhil Wrote:“The Conservatives couldn't see fit to send a single minister … the Minister of culture and heritage, isn't that the person's job to go to the Governor General's awards to support the arts in this country? The opera? The ballet?,” he said. “They did nothing. They could have cared less.”

No accident. They were playing to their base.

There is a joke about playing base floating here but I need to be serious for a moment.

Who is the "base" they were playing to?

I know ya'll don't like political talk around these parts but what is going on up there? I know Harper has forced a National election in an attempt to secure party dominance in the parliament. Yes?

up here we just have a guy who is hoping to win a majority so he can further his "americanized" agenda. where everyone owns a gun and its much easier to buy some crack cocaine than it is to find a little weed. i have not participated in the electoral process for some time now and at least i have mr. harper to thank for changing that. i thought the vote wasn`t supposed to happen until oct. 2009 as per an election promise the last time around of fixed election dates. a flip flopping politician....shocking :censored

thedarkcanuck Wrote:up here we just have a guy who is hoping to win a majority so he can further his "americanized" agenda. where everyone owns a gun and its much easier to buy some crack cocaine than it is to find a little weed. i have not participated in the electoral process for some time now and at least i have mr. harper to thank for changing that. i thought the vote wasn`t supposed to happen until oct. 2009 as per an election promise the last time around of fixed election dates. a flip flopping politician....shocking :censored

And the alternatives are just as horrible. One guy wants to spend spend spend and turn us into a Socialist country, and the other wants to shit on us with a useless carbon tax among other things. I don't think I'll be voting this time around. I've never in my life had a federal respresentative that was worth voting for. I've voted, but it was just voting for the lesser of the evils. We need to do away with parties in politics altogether.

The Canadian Press
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Strange and funny tales from the campaign trail

4 hours ago

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper found himself momentarily speechless Tuesday when faced with an unexpected question in a Winnipeg produce warehouse.

"If you were a vegetable, what type of vegetable would you be and why?" came the query.

Harper grinned and then looked at the vegetable stands around him quizzically.

"Um, I, um, you know, I really don't know how to answer that one," he said, finally.

He thought another moment.

"I've never been asked that question before and I have a feeling that I can't win by answering that question."

He then found his answer:

"Let me say this: I would choose, if I had to, instead to be a fruit. Just what I am, sweet and colourful."

While Liberal Leader Stephane Dion has often been portrayed as a pale policy wonk, he's fighting that image with a new website showing him snowshoeing with his dog Kyoto, fishing and playing in a rough-and-tumble ball hockey game.

The site (<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.thisisdion.ca">http://www.thisisdion.ca</a><!-- m -->) shows him as an active, outdoorsy family guy.

"I love the winter," Dion says on one of several on-site videos. "I love the snow. I love to go with my snowshoes and my dog in the bush."

His wife, Janine Krieber, attest to her husband's love of hockey - which he shares with Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

"I'm very lonely on Saturday nights in winter," Krieber says.

The Liberals found a little unexpected star power when they made a whistle-stop at a campaign office Tuesday in Napanee, Ont. And no, it wasn't native daughter Avril Lavigne.

Rob Baker, lead guitarist for the Kingston, Ont.-based band The Tragically Hip, was schmoozing around the office of local candidate David Remington when the Dion tour pulled in.

Reporters quickly spotted the long-haired rocker in his bright blue Pierre Trudeau silkscreen T-shirt and interviewed him on his politics, prompting Liberal staffers to ask who he was.

By the time Dion took the podium 15 minutes later, he was welcoming Baker like a long-lost son.

"One of your beautiful successes, Rob, is 'Ahead By A Century,"' said Dion, referring to a Hip hit. "Don't you think it's the issue of the campaign?"

Baker had told reporters that he wants Stephen Harper's Tories out of office as much as he wants the Liberals in.

"The Liberal agenda, particularly this time around, is something I strongly support. And I strongly oppose the Conservative agenda. So I'm seeing very few options."

Baker conceded, however, that he has considered casting his vote elsewhere.

"I'd probably vote Green if I thought it wasn't a vote thrown away or a vote for the Conservatives, but I will definitely vote Liberal as I have the last few times."

NDP Leader Jack Layton likes to talk about families sitting around their kitchen tables figuring out ways to make ends meet during these tough times.

The reference is in every stump speech.

Reporters travelling with Layton have already heard it so often during the opening three days of the campaign that they've decide to name the NDP campaign plane Kitchen Air.

The NDP ended up with the relatively modern Airbus A-319 after apparently outbidding the Liberals for the same aircraft.

Any fan of Trudeau is a fan of mine. The man was a genius.
Now, Dion is not Chretien, and he certainly isn't Trudeau. I don't think he's the best the Liberals have had in the past couple of decades, but he's a gentlemen, and he's learning how to play the media. He at least tries to get across some of his agenda. The conservatives don't talk about what they're gonna do to fix the economy or clean up the environment. They just talk shit about the other guys, including an ad of a puffin pooping on Dion ( http://news.sympatico.msn.ctv.ca/abc/hom...ion_080909 ). I'm tired of this playground BS. I like what Gord Downie said: He got the power, and now he doesn't know what to do with it. Harper almost shits himself every time Bush mentions him, and he hides his cabinet from the media. Doesn't sound like a leader to me.
As for the war, I'll quote Gord Downie again: war is organized murder, and that's exactly where Harper has led us.
I admire and respect our soldiers for what they do. However, they're fighting a battle that just can't be won.

But, I do live in Alberta. And when you're in Alberta, they'll vote in a pitbull terrier, as long as it's conservative.
Vote Liberal, and Canada will be a better place.

NegPhil Wrote:Who is the "base" they were playing to?

The Conservatives perceive that a large portion of their voting base consists of people who
- believe the arts community are nothing but pretentious snots, or
- believe the arts should follow free-market principles, or
- believe any Ottawa arts gathering is a boondoggle, or
- believe Canadian music, film, literature etc. is inherently second-rate, or
- all of the above.

In the weeks leading up to the election, the Conservatives have slashed 40 million dollars in arts funding. They "accidentally" leaked a position paper on these cuts, detailing how the money was being spent to send left-wing writers on junkets to Cuba or to help underwrite Holy Fuck's European tour (with emphasis on how inappropriate the band's name is). Of course, that paper was leaked to please their supporters.

This is why Baker is complaining about their attitude towards the arts. They have been deliberately hostile to the Canadian arts community over the past year.

Thanks Skippy!

Err, how is it a good use of taxpayer money to underwrite a band's European tour? That just boggles the mind. I could see the government underwriting a string quartet or an orchestral tour (or something along those lines) but a rock band that has a record label that presumably can help pay for a tour of Europe? I suspect that the Conservatives are hostile to the arts community because the arts community likes to take government funding and deride right of center political and cultural thinking as racist, wrong headed, or really any denigrating adjective you can think of. Talk about biting the hand that helps feed you. cratch:

As if I didn’t have enough to worry about with American politics I now find myself fascinated with the Canadian election.

Robs appearance with Stephane Dion at a political rally showed up on the google yesterday. I read half a dozen articles about the meeting and I must say I’m shocked at how rude and condescending the Canadian press has been to Mr. Dion and Mr. Baker.

Is it uncommon for celebrities to openly endorse political candidates?

VioletlightHeron Wrote:Err, how is it a good use of taxpayer money to underwrite a band's European tour?

How is it a good use of the taxpayer's money to subsidize any business?

It's just another business, VLH. Government subsidizes businesses in various ways. For example, Export Development Canada helps manufacturers of widgets to develop foreign markets for their widgets. This is considered to be a good use of the taxpayer's money because people are employed in the manufacture of widgets, and more jobs in widget manufacture is meant to be good for the economy. The conservative base in this country has no problem with this, because widget manufacture is something they can wrap their minds around. They simply want to limit government subsidies to the businesses they think matter, i.e. more widgets, fewer books.

In this case, the government defrayed the touring costs of several then-unknown indie bands trying to establish a fan base in Europe, to the tune of a few thousand bucks. Because one of the bands in question was Holy Fuck, and because the conservative base incorrectly perceives the arts sector as a drain on the economy and the taxpayer, Harper used this as an example of the misuse of taxpayer dollars under one of the programs he axed.

That one was easy. Why don't you ask how it was a good use of the taxpayer's money to send a left-wing writer on a speaking tour of Cuba? Go on. I dare you.

I think you ignored the second part of my question, Skippy. I'm presuming that Holy F**k had a music label at the time, why didn't the music label underwrite the European tour instead of the Canadian government? I'll be the first to admit I know nothing about Holy F**k or their music, but it seems to me that the music label should be the one underwriting the trip to Europe because they will get the benefit of more CD/merch sales and the Canadian government gets exactly what??

NegPhil Wrote:


The Canadian Press
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Strange and funny tales from the campaign trail

I had to stop reading when I go to the part where Dion's wife opined on his love of the bush.

ct

VioletlightHeron Wrote:I think you ignored the second part of my question, Skippy. I'm presuming that Holy F**k had a music label at the time, why didn't the music label underwrite the European tour instead of the Canadian government? I'll be the first to admit I know nothing about Holy F**k or their music, but it seems to me that the music label should be the one underwriting the trip to Europe because they will get the benefit of more CD/merch sales and the Canadian government gets exactly what??

I did answer the question. It's no different from subsidizing any other business.

Who gets the benefits of exporting widgets? Shouldn't the shareholders of the Skippy Widget Co. underwrite our costs to develop new markets? Why should the government provide grants for this purpose?

The Canadian government didn't pay for the tour, VLH. They provided a few thousand bucks to help cover travel costs, as part of a program that provided grants to cover costs of Canadian cultural enterprises promoting themselves abroad. The label would have shouldered most of the costs. Show me how this is materially different from developing new widget markets.

And kindly explain why it's legitimate for the government to axe the program because they disapprove of the name of a band that received money, and the politics of a grantee. These programs are supposed to be operated at arm's length from the government, not politicized by every passing partisan hack.