October 2011
6 posts
September 29, 2011 - Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi
When Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi walked in the room, we felt like we were meeting an Indian Mick Jagger. We had been told by many of our Calgarian friends as well as numerous mayors that we had already met that Nenshi was a rock star, yet still we were not prepared for charisma like this. He commanded the room, and before we knew what had hit us, we had smiles on our faces and white cowboy hats on...
A letter of support for Mayor Hobbs of Thunder Bay
A story about our meeting with Thunder Bay Mayor, Keith Hobbs, recently ran on CBC.ca. You can read the article here.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/story/2011/09/27/tby-hobbs-marijuana.html
We wanted to respond to our readers with a letter of support for Mayor Hobbs.
During our meeting Hobbs spoke candidly about his personal opinions on a variety of issues, one of which happened to...
September 25, 2011 – Cumberland Deputy Mayor...
In Cumberland we were really fortunate to hang out with 84 year old Deputy Mayor Bronco Moncrief. He served for decades on council and as mayor of the lovely village of Cumberland and is one of Canada’s longest serving municipal representatives. This video clip is a must watch. Bronco is a Mayor from another era and has the wisdom and charm to match. We quickly became friends and count him among...
September 2011
23 posts
September 24, 2011- Victoria Mayor Dean Fortin
We met Mayor Fortin for an 11am brunch at a place called Shine Café. Victoria has a radio station called The Zone, that actually plays good music. Pol and Jade from the station joined us and when they offered to pay for breakfast, we all immediately ordered Eggs Benedict (which after breakfast we would all agree was the best we’d ever had!). Mayor Fortin was a smooth talking guy who seemed to know...
September 22, 2011 - Nanaimo...
Well, turns out we are still a rock band and eventually we would mess something up and miss a meeting with a mayor. Mayor John Ruttan was cool enough to set up a meeting with us at 4pm at city hall. Then Dean got stuck in a shirt and we missed the meeting. We are very sorry and thank the mayor for making time to meet with us. We promise to try our very best to make sure that was the last meeting...
September 21, 2011 - Vancouver Mayor Gregor...
Vancouver was the first time that the meeting with the mayor took place on their turf, at city hall. It was a huge building with marble floors and flags and pictures of past mayors and even some Olympic torches. Even though we got dressed up for the occasion, the formal setting made us a little more nervous than usual. Fortunately, Gregor Robertson is a really cool guy that immediately put us at...
September 18, 2011 - Regina – Mayor Pat Fiacco
Mayor Fiacco showed up to the venue in a badass-looking jacket and training clothes.
We soon learned that he was a Canadian boxing champ in the 80s, and still works as a ref and organizer for our national boxing team. He runs a boxing club in Regina, as does his brother and many of his friends. They must have had some wild brawls as kids.
Boxing has taken him around the world, including to...
September 17, 2011 • Winnipeg
We think John K. Samson from The Weakerthans should be the mayor of Winnipeg.
Unfortunately, he is not, and neither the current mayor, deputy mayor nor the acting deputy made themselves available for a meeting. That’s cool though. After speaking with Mayor Hobbs in Thunder Bay we had a lot to think about (see below).
4 tags
4 tags
September 15, 2011 - Sault Ste Marie - Mayor Deb...
LopLop’s doesn’t look like much from the outside, but it is a wonderful place to be. The owner is a retired teacher named Bob, who runs it with his son Steven. When Mayor Deb arrived, Bob walked up to our table and chatted with her.
They clearly knew each other, and it felt great to watch the two of them have such a candid and friendly conversation. We asked her how she got into politics, and...
September 16, 2011 - Thunder Bay - Mayor Hobbs
Last night we stayed at the house of some relatives of our tour manager, Vince. It was a nice neighborhood where not a lot happens out of the ordinary, so when our hippy painted tour van was parked out front overnight the neighbors got curious.
Early this morning the police rolled by to investigate the reports of the “suspicious vehicle”. Now call me crazy, but if I was up to something sketchy, I...
5 tags
September 14, 2011 • Sudbury, ON • Deputy Mayor...
We left Toronto at 9am yesterday morning in order to get to Sudbury for our first stop on the Meet the Mayor Tour. Unfortunately, the Mayor of Sudbury was unavailable.
Fortunately, the deputy mayor, Joscelyne Landry-Altman agreed to meet with us. As this was the first meeting of the tour, we had no idea what to expect.
The deputy mayor arrived exactly on time (not something we are used to in our...
THE TOUR!
09/14 Sudbury, ON @ The Townehouse 09/15 Sault Ste. Marie, ON @ Loplop Lounge 09/16 Thunder Bay, ON @ Crocks 09/17 Winnipeg, MB @ West End Cultural Centre 09/18 Regina, SK @ The Exchange 09/19 Lethbridge, AB @ Tongue & Groove 09/21 Vancouver, BC @ Venue 09/24 Victoria, BC @ Rifflandia Festival 09/25 Cumberland, BC @ Waverly Hotel 09/27 Nelson, BC @ Spiritbar 09/28 Fernie, BC @ The Grand...
August 2011
3 posts
Hello!
This is a blog about our upcoming meet the mayor tour. The idea for the Meet the Mayor tour kind of started of as a joke. We were sitting around talking about how Rob Ford, The Mayor of Toronto, wanted to get rid of a bunch of bike lanes and public libraries.
We also thought it was pretty bad form that he skipped town during Pride Week. It got us thinking, there must be some cool mayors out there...
