Canada summons its 'Inner Ninja' and elects the highest charting musician MP ever
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The song Inner Ninja, by Classified features newly-elected New Brunswick MP David Myles. The song hit number five on Billboard Canadian Hot 100, after its release in 2013 and has racked up 5.4 million views on YouTube.
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Myles won the Fredericton—Oromocto riding as a Liberal candidate in Monday's federal election, becoming part of a new minority Liberal government. Prime Minister Mark Carney's government is a handful of seats short of a majority government and will have to rely on the support of an opposition party to pass legislation in the House of Commons.
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Myles, a Juno Award winner, announced he would be running as a Liberal candidate in March 2025, two months after Fredericton's previous Liberal MP Jenica Atwinm said she wouldn't run again.
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The singer-songwriter also performed at a Liberal rally in Fredericton, N.B., in April, 2025.
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'Every single night when I'd get on stage, I'd start the show by saying 'Hi I'm David Myles, I'm from Fredericton New Brunswick,' and that made me so happy … and I'm thinking maybe someday … I'm gonna be able to stand in Parliament and say 'Hi I'm David Myles from Fredericton-Oromocto,'' he said before introducing Mark Carney to the podium.
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Myles isn't the first musician turned politician in the House of Commons. Charlie Angus and Andrew Cash were both NDP MPs. Angus and Cash performed in a punk rock band together in the 1980s, called L'Étranger.
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Angus was the MP for Timmins-James Bay, Ont. from 2004 to 2025. He announced his retirement in April 2024. Meanwhile, Cash represented the Davenport riding in Toronto, from 2011 to 2014. Cash won a Juno award in 1989 for Most Promising Male Vocalist of the Year.
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Vancouver Sun
an hour ago
- Vancouver Sun
This Day in History, 1947: 'Bellicose and irrepressible' mayor Gerry McGeer dies in office
At about 10:15 p.m. on Aug. 10, 1947 Vancouver Mayor Gerry McGeer finished up some work in his study and laid down on a couch. At 10 a.m. the following morning, his driver came to pick up McGeer to go to city hall, but he was dead. McGeer had had a fatal heart attack in his sleep. He was 59. McGeer had previously had some health problems — he was bedridden with appendicitis and peritonitis (inflammation of the belly) during the 1946 campaign for mayor. 'He underwent an emergency operation Dec. 2 and spent the rest of the campaign period in hospital,' the Province noted on Aug. 11. Discover the best of B.C.'s recipes, restaurants and wine. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of West Coast Table will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. 'He fought the same hard campaign he always fought, in spite of his illness, fighting for votes in radio speeches from his hospital bed.' He won in a landslide. The city was shocked at his sudden death eight months later — there had been speculation he was going to make a run for prime minister if Mackenzie King stepped down. Gerald Gratton McGeer was born in Winnipeg on Jan. 6, 1888, one of 13 children. The family moved to Vancouver two years later, where his Irish father Jim McGeer became well-known for his eloquence and political bent. He passed both traits on to his son. Gerry McGeer was an impatient youth: the Province said he quit high school at 14 because he thought the education system 'medieval.' So his father got him as job as an iron moulder. 'He was a cocky little squirt, but the hardest working little guy you ever saw,' one of his co-workers said years later. 'The description was prophetic of McGeer the politician and reformer,' said the Province. 'Bellicose and irrepressible, fond of his own eloquence, at times showy and bombastic, but with a fact-filled memory and a cool, calculating brain underlying all his fireworks.' In his political career he was a fierce opponent of the left. But the Province said in his iron moulder days he became a union official, and 'took a leading role in organizing several Vancouver strikes.' He attended Dalhousie Law School in Halifax and was admitted to the B.C. bar in 1915. A year later he successfully ran for the B.C. legislature in Richmond as a Liberal. After a stint in the army in the First World War, he ran for the federal Liberals in Vancouver Centre in 1920, but lost. He then thrived as a lawyer, being named a King's Counsel in 1921. But politics was his true calling. He became a Liberal MLA again in 1933 and in 1934 entered the civic arena, winning a landslide victory over Vancouver's longest-serving mayor L.D. Taylor. People had been arguing over whether to build a new city hall for decades but McGeer finally got it done, opening the city's current art deco city hall in 1935. But his term as mayor was stormy: he read the riot act at Victory Square after unemployed men occupied the Hudson's Bay store on April 23, 1935. He then moved the proposed city hall out of downtown to 12th and Cambie, which was heavily criticized. He was elected as a reformer, and in his first week in office fired the police chief and two magistrates. He declared war on vice and had the cops confiscate 1,000 slot machines. He was so ubiquitous in Vancouver, newspaper headlines often referred to him as simply 'Gerry.' He left both civic and provincial politics after he won Vancouver Burrard in the federal election in 1935. But he became obsessed with currency reform and what the Sun called 'monetary theories of his own devising,' and was never named to a federal cabinet. Still he was well-known across Canada because of his speeches. A wag once said McGeer suffered from 'inflammation of the vowels.' 'Ebullient, controversial, hard-hitting, voluble, and at times flamboyant, he never failed to capture the imagination of a public, which time after time gave him resounding, record-smashing majorities at the polls,' said the Sun after his death. He was re-elected as MP in 1940 and was named to the Senate in 1945. But he called it 'a mausoleum' and successfully ran for Vancouver mayor again in 1946. His nephew Pat McGeer kept the family name alive in the provincial legislature as a Liberal and Social Credit MLA and cabinet minister from 1962 to 1996. jmackie@
Winnipeg Free Press
9 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
The path to new purpose for conservatives
Opinion The lazy days of an August summer are upon us. Unless you're a conservative. If so, you are uncharacteristically unnerved. Having lost a provincial byelection in Quebec last week in a seat they hold federally, they are eying two more. A federal byelection on Monday in Battle River-Crowfoot, Alta. and a provincial one two weeks later in Spruce Woods, Man. Two reliable, deep blue seats are being watched as harbingers of those parties' future political fortunes. Federal Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre will not lose his bid to regain a seat in the House of Commons in the safest CPC seat in the country. His predecessor racked up 83 per cent of the vote in the April election. It's why he chose this seat – as sure a thing as you can get in politics – to smooth his way back into Parliament after his stunning loss in his long-held Carleton, Ont. seat. Spencer Colby /THE CANADIAN PRESS Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre speaks to reporters outside West Block on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Thursday, May 15, 2025. It is unlikely, but not impossible, that the Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba will lose its own safe seat in rural Manitoba. Even in the depths of the electoral meltdown wrought by former premier Heather Stefanson two years ago, their candidate won 62 per cent of the vote. Margins matter in politics. Which is why the margin of victory – or loss – will be watched first in both these byelections. In usual times, neither byelection would matter a whit. But these are unusual times for both parties. They are running against themselves as much as against their governing opponents who are proving durably popular and resilient to electoral challenge. Prime Minister Mark Carney and Premier Wab Kinew would win re-election in a cakewalk right now. Which raises a big question for each conservative party – who are you? Votes measure a party's appeal. But relevance to voters is what drives that appeal. These two conservative parties are relevant to a declining minority of voters. Federal Conservatives showed up late to the most important issue on voters' minds – Trump – in the last election, and they paid the price. They've since seen their policies snatched and repackaged by a newly centrist federal Liberal government. And the vituperative temper and tone they are used to is out-of-step for today's times. Manitoba Progressive Conservatives, meanwhile, are reeling from a deeper election loss than they understand. The NDP government didn't need to resort to stealing PC policies to boost their appeal. Offering a moderate, pragmatic government with a positive face to voters has done the trick. The PCs have since chosen a friendly-face leader too. But this will not paper over profound fissures in the party's brand and appeal, as the fractured leadership results showed with the losing candidate winning more votes but losing on constituency points. Plus, the party continues to fight a rearguard battle against their egregious leadership behaviour both during the campaign and after, during transition. Squaring their debit account with voters will not occur until they square their own account with themselves. In truth, both parties are warring inside. They may decry identity politics, but each is struggling with identifying what kind of conservative they really are. Poilievre is moving to the left, embracing nationalist and union doctrines once solely propagated by the NDP. In the past two weeks, he came out in favour of the Air Canada flight attendant union's demands and called for the rescinding of a contract given to a Chinese firm by B.C. Ferries to build four new ferries even though that would cost more and take longer. While this may be chalked up as fishing for loose left-wing votes from a flatlining federal NDP, the conservative response to Maritime provincial governments banning access to forests and woods to try to prevent more wildfires, shows the real conservative schism. A divide between libertarian populism versus conservative communitarianism. Weekday Mornings A quick glance at the news for the upcoming day. Community has long been a part of conservative thought and ideals. Former federal PC leader and prime minister Joe Clark once called Canada 'a community of communities.' The famously influential American conservative, Russell Kirk, set out 10 conservative principles including this one: 'conservatives uphold voluntary community, quite as they oppose involuntary collectivism.' He described this as flowing from local community decision-making. So long as these decisions are '… kept local and are marked by the general agreement of those affected, they constitute healthy community.' And are conservative. In Canada, that sounds a lot like federalism. But libertarian populists, hyperventilated by COVID pandemic rules and mandates, argue local decisions taken by local authorities are really an unabashed overreach by governments to trample individual rights. It is more than a little ironic when libertarian populism takes on the guise of centralizing authoritarianism in the name of protecting individual liberties. Classic conservatives seek balance in society. They are prudent, recognizing the value of permanence in key institutions and values, while recognizing and reconciling needed societal change. Conservatives understand there exists a public good. There is a greater purpose that transcends the individual even while promoting freedom for the individual to live and achieve as they see fit. Community, based on family, fits into this notion nicely. If conservative parties wish to regain purpose and trust with voters, they need to confront and expel the demon of libertarian populism, ravaging their parties from the inside out. David McLaughlin is a former clerk of the executive council and cabinet secretary in the Manitoba government.
Winnipeg Free Press
9 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Singer's upcoming performance controversial
As of this writing, Sean Feucht — the controversial right-wing and pro-Trump evangelical Christian worship leader — is still slated to perform in Winnipeg on Aug. 20. Originally, he was scheduled to play and preach in Central Park. But the city refused to issue him a permit after determining it was not feasible due to the large number of people (2,000) Feucht claimed would be there. In denying him a permit, Winnipeg joined other cities across Canada that either refused him a permit or cancelled previously-issued permissions to play in public parks and other settings due to his anti-COCID lockdown, anti-Black Lives Matter and anti-LGBTTQ+ rhetoric. Jose Luis Magana / The Associated Press files Christian musician Sean Feucht sings during a rally at the National Mall in Washington, Oct. 25, 2020. In those other locations, Feucht found private places to play and preach — which is his right, just as people in this country have a right to invite him to perform. He might do the same in Winnipeg, too. While his visit has prompted a lot of media attention, this is not the first time the controversial singer has been to Canada. He sang and preached in Edmonton in 2022 and Calgary, Vancouver and Ottawa in 2023. But his presence back then didn't generate much in the way of media attention. There are a number of worrisome aspects to Feucht's visit, including how some might be tempted to lump Canadian evangelicals together with his brand of evangelical Christianity. In fact, he is quite unlike the majority of evangelical Christians in this country. Although it's true that most Canadian evangelicals lean towards the Conservative Party, many others vote Liberal and NDP. They are not at all like their co-religionists in the U.S., where about 80 per cent of evangelicals voted for Donald Trump. In fact, I suspect most Canadian evangelicals would be very uncomfortable with Feucht's in-your-face style. That's not how the vast majority would conduct themselves in public. It's also worth noting that, as far I can tell, Feucht was not invited to Canada by any Canadian group. He says he was 'sent' to Canada to bring his message, although he doesn't say who sent him. He seems to have decided to come here all on his own. Before deciding to come, it might have helped if Feucht had done some homework about Canada. If he had, he would have discovered that Canada's culture and context is not at all like the U.S. While his Fox News style views may be acceptable to many in the U.S., they are not welcome by most people here — just like Trump's talk of Canada being the 51st state is off-putting to the vast majority of Canadians. What Feucht also gets wrong is assuming what's true for him as a Christian in the U.S. must be true all over the world. It's the worst kind of American hubris, the kind that drives the rest of us crazy. If he had done a bit of research, Feucht would realize his not being persecuted for his faith or beliefs. It's because of how he shares them. That's not how Canadians like to talk to each other over difficult and challenging subjects. For proof, consider that many religious groups are also opposed to abortion and have views on LGBTTQ+ that are different from the majority of Canadians. But nobody calls for their services to be cancelled or prevents them from holding public rallies, even though they might attract protestors. And why is that? It's because unlike Feucht, most religious groups in Canada that hold positions contrary to public opinion are respectful in sharing their views (even if a few on the fringe might be shrill in trying to force those minority views on others). So where does this leave us? First, the uproar over Feucht should remind Canadian religious groups about the importance of respectful dialogue and active listening when it comes to difficult and controversial issues. Everyone has a right to our opinions, as long as they don't venture into the area of hate, but we also have an obligation to hear each other and find ways to live together peacefully in this land. Sundays Kevin Rollason's Sunday newsletter honouring and remembering lives well-lived in Manitoba. Second, Feucht may believe he is coming to bring 'revival' to Canada, but the opposite will likely happen. Sure, there may be a few Christians who like what he says. But research consistently shows that one of the main reasons people leave Christianity is due to the harsh, judgemental, anti-LGBTTQ+ and pro-Trump positions taken by many evangelical Christians in the U.S. — the same ones that Feucht touts and represents. His coming, in other words, may cause more people to decide against Christianity than to be interested in it. But maybe Feucht's coming to Canada will end up being a gift to Christians in this country, in a backwards sort of way by causing them to reflect on the best ways to show faith to others. Is it to be loud and brash, or is it best to quietly be of service in their communities? I think most will choose the latter. And his visit could prompt Christians in Canada to ask if Feucht doesn't represent what faith looks like to them, then what does a Canadian version of Christianity looks like? If that happens, then maybe his visit, and all the negative media attention it produced, will be worth it. faith@ The Free Press is committed to covering faith in Manitoba. If you appreciate that coverage, help us do more! Your contribution of $10, $25 or more will allow us to deepen our reporting about faith in the province. Thanks! BECOME A FAITH JOURNALISM SUPPORTER John LonghurstFaith reporter John Longhurst has been writing for Winnipeg's faith pages since 2003. He also writes for Religion News Service in the U.S., and blogs about the media, marketing and communications at Making the News. Read full biography Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
