A Look Back at the Campaign Trail
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ACTRA Maritmes member Bill Carr - widely known for his work on The Red Green Show and at the Atlantic Theatre Festival, recently assumed another role - as a candidate in the Federal Election.
He sent this look back at his introduction to federal politics...
Dear ACTRA friends,
In the recent Federal Election I ran to be a Member of Parliament for Halifax West here in Nova Scotia. I lost. The incumbent Minister of Fisheries and Oceans , the Honourable Geoff Regan was the victor. During the course of the election, I learned a great deal about myself, my province and my country. I also learned a lot about our democracy and the place of the media and the party system in a process that is often anything but democratic at its core.
It is a messy, messy business, Canadian politics, and I’m not sure it works very well. What I am sure of is that it doesn’t work at all if you don’t participate.
During the election when all the platforms were up and reified, the arts community rallied and cried foul for the lack of attention it was receiving. Rallies were held and covered or not. Debates were called, held and summarily ignored.
Here in Halifax, the Liberals didn’t even bother to send a candidate!
Which brings me to the point of this epistle.
Get up! Get out! Get active! This country must be run by more than accountants and lawyers. Don’t wait until the next election is called to be ignored again. Get in your M.P.s, your M.L.A.s and councilors’ faces now. Talk about the arts as money generators. Talk about the necessity of culture as a true exercise of sovereignty. Cry out about the lack of real Canadian Culture on the airwaves- Corner Gas and Red Green excepted!
The arts and culture community must provoke the parties and the politicians to become aware of the crisis of culture in this country. The currency of any party - after money - is the number of votes and party workers it can garner. Take a chunk of your freelance time and get involved with a party. Make sure the arts and artists and our issues are front and centre on their agenda.
We must become ardent, articulate activists for our profession, our culture, our society and our country's future. We must highlight the threat to all of us posed by the homogeneity of the post-NAFTA borderless commercial culture.
I encourage all of you to stand together now and commit to the exercise of our democratic and social responsibility. These are critical times and the opportunity to effect real change is here and now. It just needs you!
In solidarity,
Bill Carr
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