Stephen Harper: "When ordinary Canadians come home and see a rich gala all subsidized by the taxpayers complaining that their subsidies aren't high enough, when they know that their subsidies have gone up, I'm not sure that's something that resonates in ordinary people."
Um... excuse me? First of all, what's that even supposed to mean? Second of all, rich gala's aren't that only thing that represents the arts! Most "ordinary" artists are also "ordinary" Canadians and most of them wont be going to any rich gala any time soon. So, Mr. Harper, I think that you're generalizing a bit when you say stuff like that.
I recently participated in an event with Edmonton artist Todd Janes at Mile Zero Dance Studio. Todd and all the people who participated and came and saw his performance were probably pretty ordinary too. The arts aren't something for the rich and privileged anymore.
Staying on the topic of "ordinary" Canadians. What about those Canadian autoworkers in Kingston who seem pretty ordinary who wanted to get into that Stephen Harper rally, but couldn't because they weren't invited. Meanwhile, they were being kept out by the RCMP! I'm sure that Stephen Harper wont be getting those Canadian's vote anytime soon. And is that really something that Stephen Harper can be proud of?
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Layton Comes to Edmonton
On Saturday, NDP Leader Jack Layton made a stop in Edmonton on his election campaign tour. While Layton was in Edmonton, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper was in Iqaluit and I do not believe that he is even coming to Edmonton this election. (Please correct me if I`m wrong on this fact.) This makes me kind of mad because I think that he is just expecting Alberta to be all Conservative again, which I do not think is true. There are two NDPs and one Liberal in Edmonton who I think could possibly break through the Tory blue. Those are:
Linda Duncan (NDP) for Edmonton - Strathcona http://www.electlindaduncan.ca/
Ray Martin (NDP) for Edmonton - East http://raymartin.ndp.ca/en
Jim Wachowich (Liberal) for Edmonton - Centre http://jimwachowich.ca/
Everyone waited at the Winspear Centre for Jack Layton to come walking down the isle formed of tape as they listened to a band play to open the speech up. When Layton finally did come, he was accompanied by two bodyguards and a ring of television camera as he tried to shake everyones hand.
He then got up on his podium and began to speek. At the beginning he talked about the environment and the northern Alberta oil sands. Then he jumped into an unexpected topic. He spoke long about taking a stand against gang violence and banning weapons. For me I found this a bit unusual as he took up almost the whole last half of his speech with this topic. This dissapointed me because, while he was talking about this, he didn`t say one word about the arts, which I think is another important topic to talk about! But I guess he was just trying to appeal to maybe the more Conservative people who were listening to his speech on the radio or watching it on TV.
If you would like to see pictures of the event, please look at the side column.
Linda Duncan (NDP) for Edmonton - Strathcona http://www.electlindaduncan.ca/
Ray Martin (NDP) for Edmonton - East http://raymartin.ndp.ca/en
Jim Wachowich (Liberal) for Edmonton - Centre http://jimwachowich.ca/
Everyone waited at the Winspear Centre for Jack Layton to come walking down the isle formed of tape as they listened to a band play to open the speech up. When Layton finally did come, he was accompanied by two bodyguards and a ring of television camera as he tried to shake everyones hand.
He then got up on his podium and began to speek. At the beginning he talked about the environment and the northern Alberta oil sands. Then he jumped into an unexpected topic. He spoke long about taking a stand against gang violence and banning weapons. For me I found this a bit unusual as he took up almost the whole last half of his speech with this topic. This dissapointed me because, while he was talking about this, he didn`t say one word about the arts, which I think is another important topic to talk about! But I guess he was just trying to appeal to maybe the more Conservative people who were listening to his speech on the radio or watching it on TV.
If you would like to see pictures of the event, please look at the side column.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
OK OK, I Know, Finally
As the title says: OK OK, I Know, Finally.
Here is the long awaited first one of the last 2 interviews that I had at the Edmonton Folk Festival.
My first interview, and my most exciting interview, yet I wouldn't say my best, is my interview with Michael Franti. I said it was my most exciting interview because I had only 10 minutes notice that I would have an interview with Michael Franti to actually come up with some decent questions. Another thing that made this interview really exciting, was that it was an exclusive interview. Yes, EXCLUSIVE!!!!! Only me and Jian Gomeshi from Q on CBC were able to interview Michael Franti. I say that this isn't my best interview because my interviewee for some reason didn't seem that interested in the interview and wasn't as engaged. But I can't complain, I did get an exclusive interview after all!
So, here it is, the full interview with Michael Franti, no edits:
http://isaac.wurmann.googlepages.com/MichaelFrantiInterviewFINAL.mp3
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
votesolution.ca
If you look at the polls, the Conservatives don't really have then many supporters. It's just that they have just that little bit more than the next most possible candidate in each riding (whether it's the Greens, the NDPs, the Liberals or the Bloc Quebecois). So really in all, the Conservatives could have 30% of the vote in a riding, the Liberals could have 25% in that same riding, the NDPs could have 20%, the Greens could have 15% and the rest could be Other. So, really the Conservatives would only have 30% of the support in that riding, and still win.
Still thinking about that, if everyone in that riding who wasn't a Conservative really had a desire to have another MP elected for their riding, and then everyone in that riding voted for the next possible candidate for that riding, then everyone would, together, overthrow that Conservative.
Someone has even made a whole blog about that, possibly trying to convince people to break that Tory blue that is cursing Alberta, or maybe even trying to elect a whole new government.
Whatever their purose, the blog is votesolution.ca and you should check it out.
Still thinking about that, if everyone in that riding who wasn't a Conservative really had a desire to have another MP elected for their riding, and then everyone in that riding voted for the next possible candidate for that riding, then everyone would, together, overthrow that Conservative.
Someone has even made a whole blog about that, possibly trying to convince people to break that Tory blue that is cursing Alberta, or maybe even trying to elect a whole new government.
Whatever their purose, the blog is votesolution.ca and you should check it out.
Monday, September 15, 2008
An Election's Coming! An Election's Coming!
Yes, the third election in only 4 years has been called and will be held mid-October.
This blog has been asked to participate in many political coverages of the election including on CityTV and on the Current on CBC.
I think that this is a great idea but I realized that I haven't excactly been writing on this blog a lot lately, let alone about politics. So now I will get started.
First of all, what will this election bring to Canadian politics? Will we elect another Conservative Minority Government, or even a Conservative Majority. Or will the Liberals pull off a Minority? Probably not, but hey, everybody's got to fantasize once and a while.
But one thing that I hope will change after this election is how Canada is seen throughout the rest of the world. I heard that in Europe, Canada's election isn't very widely known, in Europe all the talk is about the US election. This is understandable because the President that the US chooses will probably have more of an impact on the Europeans. And of course, this is probably because Canada is known to be a peaceful (or rather boring) country. All that was changed though, when Stephen Harper came to power. First dismissing the Kyoto Protocol which was recently signed by Paul Martin before Stephen Harper was called to power. And then Canada was also known to be a sort of ambassador to the arts, which now with Stephen Harper, we are losing that ammbasadorness.
All this will hopefully change after this next election. But now, we'll just have to wait and see.
The information for this post was gathered from the article: North America's Other Election.
This blog has been asked to participate in many political coverages of the election including on CityTV and on the Current on CBC.
I think that this is a great idea but I realized that I haven't excactly been writing on this blog a lot lately, let alone about politics. So now I will get started.
First of all, what will this election bring to Canadian politics? Will we elect another Conservative Minority Government, or even a Conservative Majority. Or will the Liberals pull off a Minority? Probably not, but hey, everybody's got to fantasize once and a while.
But one thing that I hope will change after this election is how Canada is seen throughout the rest of the world. I heard that in Europe, Canada's election isn't very widely known, in Europe all the talk is about the US election. This is understandable because the President that the US chooses will probably have more of an impact on the Europeans. And of course, this is probably because Canada is known to be a peaceful (or rather boring) country. All that was changed though, when Stephen Harper came to power. First dismissing the Kyoto Protocol which was recently signed by Paul Martin before Stephen Harper was called to power. And then Canada was also known to be a sort of ambassador to the arts, which now with Stephen Harper, we are losing that ammbasadorness.
All this will hopefully change after this next election. But now, we'll just have to wait and see.
The information for this post was gathered from the article: North America's Other Election.
Sunday, September 07, 2008
Rock and Roll Without Sound
Latitude 53 has a really cool exhibit on right now and me and my friend Becca decided to make a podcast about it for our blog Circle of Music. To read more about and to listen to the podcast please follow this link: Rock and Roll Without Sound.
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