Just over a year ago, Prime Minister Stephen Harper defended his government’s cuts to arts and culture funding by saying that, “when ordinary working people come home, turn on the TV and see a gala of a bunch of people at, you know, a rich gala all subsidized by taxpayers claiming their subsidies aren’t high enough, when they know those subsidies have actually gone up – I’m not sure that’s something that resonates with ordinary people.”
It was the kind of AM radio-ready, faux-populist red meat that Tories are very good at tossing out. Who wanted to be on the side of a bunch of rich, spoilt artists? (That rich corporate executives enjoy their own heavily subsidized spoils and come back demanding more, usually successfully, rarely gets mentioned.)
But Harper is a slippery guy. He knows that this year (and the possible coming election) is not about red meat. He has managed — thanks, in part, to the inability of the opposition to come up with a defining counter-narrative that sticks — to portray himself as a rational, steady-as-she-goes centrist, the perfect person to be at the tiller in these turbulent times.
Which is why he does things like this:
Prime Minister Stephen Harper tickled the ivories to the tune of The Beatles Saturday night at the sold-out NAC Gala held at the National Arts Centre in support of Canada’s next generation of performing artists.
Harper got by with a little help from cellist Yo-Yo Ma taking to the stage just prior to the intermission to sing and play the piano. He performed a classic Beatles tune - “With a Little Help from My Friends” - accompanied by Ma, one of the greatest classical musicians of our time, and members of the Ottawa band, Herringbone.
In other words, “what do you mean I hate the arts? I just played a Beatles song with Yo Yo Ma! And he played at Obama’s inauguration!”
[Top image is web editor's metaphorical interpretation of the encounter between PM Harper and Mr. Ma]
