Penticton poet waxes political in ‘The Cut’

PENTICTON – It’s Shane Koyczan at his political best.

Koyczan, who is from Penticton, takes Prime Minister Stephen Harper to task in this piece written for the Imagine Oct. 20 campaign, organized by Dan Mangan in association with leadnow.ca.

Likening the election campaign to a job interview, Koyczan says the Conservative leader's approach to avoiding interviews and refusing to answer questions from the press makes him think the press should “just ignore him” and only pay attention to those that show up for the interview.

“They stole the last election. They’re not even supposed to be in power right now,” he says, prior to launching his piece called “The Cut.”

“We remember the cuts – how could we not, most of them are still bleeding. You treat this country like it’s a yard sale,” Koyczan recites, as he discusses the many cuts to programs that provide benefits to mainstream Canadians.

“At one million dollars a year for a decade, you rent Pandas and pretend that they’re Care Bears,” he recites.

“You talk about fiscal responsibility, but launch the largest and most expensive election in Canadian history.”

“You are the result of our inaction, the abscess tooth of our apathy,” he says, concluding “making cuts is the worst part of our job, but even so, we’re taking back the country, and we’re very sorry, but you have to go.”

Leadnow.ca is a website devoted to running campaigns on major issues of our time, engaging people in participatory decision making and organizing in communities across Canada. It is currently running the  campaign “Let’s vote together to end 10 years of Harper rule.”

View Koyczan’s recital of “The Cut” on this YouTube video, below.

Language advisory: Not safe for work.

%%Embed1%%

To contact the reporter for this story, email Steve Arstad at sarstad@infonews.ca or call 250-488-3065. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.