Below is the video that introduced Ryan at the NDP convention last weekend. I'm completely biased but Ryan easily had the best floor show of any of the candidates. I hope someone also uploads his speech because it kicked ass too!
And I can't help but take one last shot at Dwain Lingenfelter by observing that his convention video looked like an 80's corporate training video including, I swear to god, one person spinning and pointing at the camera in the most cheesy fashion imaginable! He also used a Jack Semple instrumental track which was a cool nod to Saskatchewan except that the track he picked sounded like a 70's porno song (er, at least I suspect that's what 70's porno soundtracks sound like. ) I didn't link to the actual Semple song he used above as I don't know the name of it – I just wanted to give you a sample of how talented Semple truly is. In fact, he won a cross-Canada guitar competition which is where the clip I linked to is from. Oh, and to top it off, Link used Bon Jovi's anthem, “Raise Your Hands” as his exit song. Yep, nothing screams party renewal like head banging 80's glam bands! Of course, I would've gone with “One More Time” by Streetheart for the Regina connection and the oh so appropriate title – but that's just me.)
Okay, that's it. I'm introducing a moratorium on cuts on Dwain Lingenfelter now that I'm slowly coming around to the fact that he's the leader of the party I believe in and, as long as he does a reasonable job of reaching out to the supporters of other candidates on the left of the party, I won't be voting Green or Liberal in the next election.
Nothing but positivity from here on in! Starting now…
I happened to be passing through the lobby during the last morning of the NDP convention today when I came upon Dwain Lingenfelter threatening to have a party member charged with assault while the member was being physically restrained by two other people.
I didn't see the start of the incident but from what I was able to glean, it sounds like the member had bumped into Link with his shoulder, possibly after having an exchange relating to this story where Link appeared to be contradicting the will of the party's membership almost immediately after winning the leadership.
I don't know if Lingenfelter feels that he's begun reaching out to the supporters of other campaigns as he promised to do in his acceptance speech. But obviously, they've begun reaching out to him!
(Bad joke, I know. But I share the frustration of many in that it appears that Mr. Lingenfelter's words are empty – both in terms of how he intends to be a leader of all NDP members and also in how swiftly he appears to be ignoring the will of the majority of the delegates at convention who voted for a strongly worded anti-nuke resolution.)
As I posted on Facebook, I'm not as disappointed as I thought I might be if Ryan lost and there are a number of reasons for this:
1) The enthusiasm I saw generated in the room today by Ryan's floor show, his speech and his supporters was amazing.
2) The fact that Ryan managed to come within a thousand votes of beating Link (where'd I hear that number before? ) is almost unbelievable when you consider where each of them started from. 3) The fact that the other two contenders came over to Ryan after being eliminated (Deb Higgins after the first ballot) and withdrawing (Yens Pedersen) and Ryan gained 1700 votes on the second ballot while Link gained less than 700 shows that Link won the immediate prize but that the platform and approach that Ryan put forward were the ones that are connecting with a wider range of people and will lay the groundwork for the party's long-term direction.
I don't know – I probably shouldn't be writing too much right now as I'm still trying to process what the Link win (and how close it was) means – for the party, for the future, for all of the young supporters like myself who are feeling some real mixed emotions right now.
Through-out this whole race, I've enjoyed the CBC coverage and especially the comments from readers since you'd get a real mix of Link supporters, Meili supporters, Sask Party muck-rakers chiming in. So here's a link to their story about Link winning the leadership.
Shea and I went
to the first day of the NDP convention today courtesy of our
constituency association. We were a bit late arriving, having to run
some last-minute errands for the Meili campaign (ah, the life of a
lowly volunteer! )
It was a very interesting day – surprising how many people we knew –
co-workers, former co-workers, colleagues, Shea's uncle (who's on the
conference planning committee or something) and so on.
Morning
was Resolutions and to be honest, the stuff they were discussing – from
anti-nuke stuff to legalizing drugs to who should serve on municipal
police boards – alternated from really engrossing to desperately
boring. Someone observed that “the problem is that you see the same
people getting up over and over and you know they're going to say the
same things about the same pet issue that they've been saying for 15
years.” (It made me wonder if there's some connection between people
who can't resist approaching an open mic and people who maintain blogs? )
Had
conversations with a couple people who explained why they were
supporting Link – one person said “Link knows money – how to raise it,
how to deal with it.” All I could think was “Really???” Because from
what I've seen, Link's skill with money basically extends to raising a
whackload of it (including from some companies that no one can find
record of – I can't find the link to that disccussion now but I think
it was on Jurist). His other skill with money includes how to spend
$11 000 in small bills to buy memberships for people who don't want
them and/or don't know they're getting them. It actually blows my mind
that “he knows money” of all reasons is why someone would say they're
supporting Link.
Someone
else made the experience argument to me which is maybe Ryan's biggest
weaknesses in the eyes of some NDP members – especially many boomers
who often have a very linear notion of what might constitute a career.
This person literally said to me: “Ryan should start by getting
involved with his constituency association then maybe run for MLA in a
few years then move into cabinet a few years after that then, when he's
paid his dues, he can run for leader.” I countered that, in my eyes,
Ryan not having long, deep party ties is a big part of his appeal. He
doesn't owe somebody a favour from the 1982 convention or still carry a
grudge from the 1993 one. He isn't yet completely burdened by internal
party politics of “who loves me, who loves me not” that might prevent
someone from actually being able to accomplish anything. Plus I think
he's proven himself in other arenas to be more than capable of leading
a provincial political party, especially if he surrounds himself with
experienced hands as I'm sure he would.
I'll give an example from libraryland. The National Library of Canada recently appointed their National Librarian who did not have a Master of Library Science degree. There were debates about this continually at CLA last week and many of the same arguments were put forward – if you don't have an MLIS, you don't know the issues. You don't know the history. You don't know the language. And as a professional, I tend to agree with those arguments. But then I think that the most famous recent National Librarian was author, Roch Carrier, who brought a huge amount of profile and a unique perspective to the position and I know that, when you're talking about a leadership role, not just a “typical” position, past credentials and history and connections aren't necessarily the most important things. Ability to lead and to get things done is.
Afternoon
was further discussion on those same resolutions (someone explained it
to me but I'm still not sure why they discuss these things then break
for lunch then come back and discuss them again! I think the morning
is supposed to be a chance to really work them over then they're
supposed to go away and someone picks which ones should be discussed in
the afternoon “for real” if they can't get to them all. Either that or
they're trying to encourage new members to never attend a meeting
again! )
The
day ended with a tribute to Lorne Calvert featuring Premier Gary Doer
of Manitoba and the other two living former Saskatchewan premiers,
Allan Blakeney and Roy Romanow as well as Mr. Calvert's daughter.
Great speeches by all – Blakeney's was probably my favourite – and I'm
man enough to admit that I teared up numerous times throughout all of
them. (I also briefly considered a plan to buy a Sask Party membership
and attend their convention the next time it happens, just to compare
and contrast, how things are done at each.)
After supper at home, went back to the hospitality suites at the Regina Inn tonight and it was great. Jurist has already detailed
how three of the candidates had theirs at that venue while Dwain
Lingenfelter had his at the Hotel Sask. Someone said that Link booked
his event first so I can't help wondering if this, like so many other
things in this race, reflects a real division within the party? Link
was quoted recently as saying that if he wins, it'll be like Obama and
Hillary with him and the other candidates – they fought hard but came
together to work afterwards. Only that there are a couple fairly major
problems with that analogy – by any reasonable measure, Meili is the
Obama figure (ie. the eventual winner) so it's speculation how things would've worked out if Hillary had won. Also, Hillary was willing to stick
around to work with Obama whereas Link is on record as saying he won't
stick around to run for a seat if he loses while all other candidates
have said that they would. So I guess he's not seeing himself as a Hillary figure in any way, shape or form – even though he is!
The
winner of “most people” in terms of the hospitality suites at the
Regina Inn? The hallway outside the Pedersen/Meili suites! That's
where the bar was and that was where a lot of people ended up
congregating.
Highlight
of the whole day? Listening to the replay of John Gormley Live
(well-known talk radio host in Saskatchewan) on the drive home and
hearing him say “auto erotic asphyxiation” about fifty times while
discussing the David Carradine death (he said his staff checked and
he'd done 14 000 topics in his time on the air and that phrase had
never been uttered before. He definitely made up for it!)
They
also had a clip of the new leader of the Sask Green party saying she
hoped Link didn't win because it would be a huge blow to the NDP's
credibility as an environmental party. I thought that was pretty cool
– the Green party stands to be one of the other winners if Link wins
since there could be an exodus of new and/or progressive NDP members to
the Green party. Yet, here was the young new leader of a
what is currently a fringe party in Saskatchewan saying they don't want
to gain members at a cost to our planet. Amazing to put principles
first and as one person who spoke to a really long resolution
re-affirming the NDP's commitment to all kinds of our core issues said,
(I paraphrase) “Why are we even discussing this?”
I always forget that people are actually reading this blog but heard
from a few people that they've been following my political posts. (I was keeping a
pretty low profile at the convention – not walking up to people and saying “Hi, I'm
Jason. I blog at Head Tale. Have you seen it???”)
Here's an “unrequested request” from one recent reader…
Finally, sometimes it's the little things and one other detail someone pointed
out to me was that all the campaigns had ads in the convention program
but Ryan's was the only campaign that took out an additional, small ad
just to say “thank-you” to everyone who's supported his campaign over
the past few months.
I've said it a
million times but it's those
little touches that show me what a sincere, aware, truly grateful
leader
Ryan would make. It's truly not about him, it's about us. What a
great feeling and no matter what happens tomorrow, I am so proud of the
decision I made to support his campaign.
When I recently told someone I'd just been to the CLA conference, he replied “So you're a nerd then?”
“It's worse than that,” I replied. “I happily spent the first day with the Emerging Technologies Interest Group. So I'm like an uber-nerd of the library world!”
Here are the slides for the presentation I gave at the ETIG pre-conference. A couple of them went wonky for some reasons – my best guess is that the file I was using got opened in Powerpoint (English version), Powerpoint (French version), NeoOffice on Mac and maybe one other program as well between the time that I designed the presentation and when I uploaded it. I'll replace the file when I get a chance to fix these errors…
Finally, here's a link to the ETIG wiki for their pre-conference with links to some of the live blogging that was happening, Flickr pics and post-conference blog posts from some attendees.
Since my earliest posts about Ryan I've compared him to politicians like Barack Obama and Tommy Douglas. But as I said when I began this latest series of posts with “#10 – He's Soft Spoken“,
I knew this wasn't literally the case – only that these kinds of
comparisons worked as a useful shorthand for the type of leader someone
might resemble in policy or strategy.
The comparisons can also be useful to provide some insight into the
type of leader a candidate had the potential to be. In fact, in some
ways, I think Ryan's best analogy might be a sort of hybrid of Tommy Douglas and Barack Obama –
a “21st Century Tommy Douglas” if you will.
The comparisons are useful to a point but in the end, should he become
the leader of the Saskatchewan NDP on Saturday, Ryan Meili won't be the next TC Douglas, the next Barack Obama or the next anyone else. Ultimately, he will be the first Ryan Meili.
Still, that's not such a bad thing when (with all due respect to the
other candidates who would each make a fine leader for the NDP in their
own way) Ryan is the only one I see with the potential to be a
transformative leader for the party – the party of Douglas that my
grandfather voted for and the party of Blakeney, Romanow and Calvert who are the
leaders I've known in my lifetime.
Ryan has his weaknesses, some real and some outright fabrications
that are being passed around as fact. But if you were creating the
perfect candidate for the Saskatchewan NDP at this point in its history, you'd probably have a hard
time doing better than Ryan.
There are some candidates who seem to treat the NDP, not as its historic precursor, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation but as the Competitive
Commonwealth Federation. I don't think Ryan operates that way. Time
and again, he's shown that he will cooperate with his leadership
opponents and can bring others together rather than dividing people (PDF – scroll to page 19).
In the end, it comes down to this. Against a group of leadership
candidates who were arguably all better known within the NDP than Ryan at the start of
the leadership race, Dr. Meili has vaulted from relative unknown to being a
strong second-place contender in a few short months. This is due to all of the factors I listed above plus the fact that he's drawn a strong team of party newbies and stalwarts to him because they also recognize Ryan's potential as a transformative leader for the Saskatchewan NDP at a critical juncture in its history.
If I'm being completely honest, when I first got involved with his
campaign, I probably thought it would take a miracle for Ryan
to win (but after seeing Obama overcome similar odds in the US, that's a miracle I was willing to believe in!)
After Lingenfelter's membership scandal reminded everyone that
this is as much a choice about doing politics in an old way versus
doing them in a new way, I thought there was maybe a chance that Ryan
could win.
Still, to win, Ryan needs votes. The election results are tabulated on Saturday but you can vote now (don't wait until the convention if you can help it!)
If you haven't already, I strongly encourage you to consider voting for
Ryan as your first choice (or your second choice if you prefer another
candidate.)
Take a look at this hypothetical timeline:
Coldwell -> Williams -> Douglas -> Lloyd -> Blakeney -> Romanow -> Calvert -> Meili
I don't know about yout but I like the way that looks!
I've mentioned in passing one of my first experiences when I chose to volunteer with Ryan's campaign. I went to a planning meeting for his volunteers a few months ago. When it was time to ask questions, I had a pretty important one.
“What's Ryan's big idea? What's his Medicare?”
Dion Tchorzewski looked at me and said, “Well, he's talked a lot about an idea he's calling SaskPharm…”
Dion and a couple others at the meeting went on to explain to me that Ryan's idea was to start a Crown Corporation to develop and manufacture genetic drugs that could supply both our needs here in Saskatchewan at cost. They could also be sold to other jurisdictions at a slight mark-up to generate revenue for the province.
As the campaign went on, more details about this program were released and the inter-connected beauty of the idea was revealed. This wasn't just a doctor advocating for a pet issue – this was a massive idea that could have a number of positive impacts – from the use of our own agricultural products in the productions of these medicines to the development of our knowledge economy via research and development at our two universities. It would increase the number of jobs and level of general economic activity in the province and yes, the good doctor's big idea would also have the enormous benefit of reducing our spiraling healthcare costs, especially timely given our aging population.
Ryan is obviously idealistic (and often gets criticized for this quality.) But what his critics don't acknowledge is that his idealism is tempered by a pragmatism and a political skill which both shine through equally, especially with an idea like this. Pragmatism because SaskPharm's a big idea that's easily doable yet has the potential to change our society in a fundamental way. Politically skillful because, as the Jurist observes, it's hard for anyone of any political stripe to come out as being against cheap prescription drugs (or increased funding for arts & culture in rural Saskatchewan – another idea Ryan has put out while no other candidate has touched arts & culture as an issue in any way that I've seen.)
Dreaming big is a bad thing if your head's always in the clouds and never back on the ground. But if you have a fully developed plan and a track record of making “impossible” projects happen, dreaming big isn't really dreaming at all, is it? (And to see how comittted Ryan is to making this idea happen, you might notice that SaskPharm is the only specific policy idea of Ryan's to get its own section in his “Issues & Ideas” menu whereas everything else in a bit more – no pun intended – generic – from Agriculture to Gender Equity to Seniors.) And of course you know which other social activist liked the big idea, right?
The final numbers for the Meili Money Bomb have been released and it appears that Dr. Meili's campaign earned over $12 000. That's 20% more than the $10 000 they hoped to raise (and I wonder if even the $10 000 figure was a bit of wishful thinking in some ways? To be honest, I suspect nobody knew *what* to expect since this was the first time a money bomb was attempted in a political campaign in Canada.)
The fact that it was Canada's first political money bomb (at least as far as I know – I stand to be corrected) made me think of a different way to put Ryan's money bomb into perspective. He raised $12 000+ in a province that has a population of one million people. If he were a candidate in the last US election, with their population of 300 million, that would be equivalent to a fundraising effort of $3.6 million dollars! ($12 000 x 300) On top of that, Ryan raised his money with a lot less media attention and viral attention than what was seen in the US (Ron Paul supporters, who did the first money bombs, set-up web sites with ongoing counters, promotional graphics and more.)
As I said elsewhere, whoever wins on Saturday, this definitely was a good test run for the types of techniques that will need to be used for the Sask NDP to be successful in the future!
This is where myself and two colleagues from Saskatchewan had supper tonight after the end of the CLA conference…
It's pretty amazing for a number of reasons. This restaurant is completely in the dark once you leave the reception area where you order your meal and leave all forms of illumination in lockers (cell phones, lighters, LED watches, etc.) Also:
1) it only employees vision-impaired or blind people as wait staff (a group which has one of the highest unemployment rates in society)
2) the lack of any light whatsoever in the dining area means that you focus more on the food and the conversation than might otherwise happen in a regular restaurant meal
3) there's also an environmentally-friendly message inherent since they literally use no lights or illuminated signs inside the majority of the restaurant (not that this is a green model other restaurants would follow!)
Here a summary of my experience… – As the video clip says, you form a “train” with your vision impaired
waiter leading the way to your table, giving instructions along the way
(“Please hold this curtain back for the next person”, “We are turning
left now.”)
– I'm not claustrophobic but when I first entered the dining area, that was the sense I felt. Once the door shuts behind you and you walk through a black curtain, there is a complete cave-like darkness that we rarely to never experience in our day-to-day lives.
– A quick stop at the restrooms (which were softly lit luckily!) helped me get my bearings after that first immersion of darkness and I wonder if they subtly encourage patrons to make this pit stop intentionally for that reason? (Or maybe the staff don't want to be walking us back and forth all night?)
– You are guided to your table over aisles that are carpeted while the table areas have regular floors (presumably so staff can help differentiate?)
– The waiter does a great job of explaining where you are and helping guide you right into your seat.
– You are brought fresh buns with butter on a plate and suddenly, something you've done your whole life without thinking about it is an incredibly awkward task (I think all three of us ended up eating mostly plain buns then getting huge clumps of butter, having thought we'd done a better job of spreading it than we apparently did.)
– the place settings are very minimal – a “grippy” placemat, two forks, a knife. Nothing else on the table – no salt and pepper, no other condiments and definitely no flower vase centerpiece. Oh, a napkin which I promptly tucked into my shirt, bib-style!
– At first, it feels like your eyes are straining to see some light,
any light, but eventually the feeling wears off and you adjust to the
complete darkness then later yet, you start seeing all kinds of weird
white “blobs” swimming in front of your eyes (at least all three of us
had this happen – and all at roughly the same time) which never really go away though you do get used to them.
– Next up, a round of water and it almost feels like the meal is structured to slowly escalate in how challenging it is (I'd ordered wine before entering the dining room but it was served with my meal, not when we were seated or shortly after.) The water is served in real, not plastic glasses which is what I thought we might get.
– We “cheated” a bit since one of our party had done an internship at CNIB so she was able to offer some insight that a “civilian” wouldn't have had. She later observed that this experience probably topped any simulation that they did for her training since that was always such a controlled environment.
– Exploration was a big part of the experience – feeling as if it was the first time you'd ever held a fork in your hands or reaching out to see if there was anything beside you (there was – a table beside us at the same distance as any other restaurant would be – but no one was seated at it.) I even stood up at one point and stood on my tippy-toes convinced the ceiling was really low. My colleague observed “Can you normally touch the ceilings in restaurants?” and I had to admit that no, that was not usually the case.
– Another big part was the constant sharing of what you were experiencing or wondering – “are you using your utensils or your fingers?”, “What color do you think the chairs are?”, “What about the napkins?”, “Did you take your glasses off?”
– I did sneak in my watch in a pocket – only the hands are illuminated, not the hour markers – so it's not very bright. But then, I ended up mis-reading it anyhow, thinking it was 9pm when it was really 8pm! Still, one of our party observed that being without a clock was, in some ways, the most disorienting thing after the lack of any sight at all.
– On that note, even though they had the room completely dark, you would occasionally (or at least we thought we did) see the briefest flash of a soft light on the ceiling. We suspected this was maybe from a kitchen door opening somewhere (or less likely, from the bathroom door or maybe even if the door to the entrance or exit happened to still be open when the curtain was pulled back?)
– Your eyes would play tricks on you. One colleague swore that there was a bar in the dining area when we first entered it and had that last glimpse of light from behind us. I actually blurted “Who's there?” at one point, thinking our waiter had come back to the table or someone else was wandering around!
– We wondered if they would end the evening by flipping on the lights at the end to “reveal” the room (there are two seatings per night and we were the early one) but our waiter said they like to keep the mystery. (My theory on that is that the restaurant was originally a Chuck E. Cheese and they didn't bother to re-paint the purple walls with cartoon mice on them!)
– Next up is the salad course (we all had avocado with lime dressing) and my main memory of this is that my strategy was to hold my face about two inches above the plate then try to shovel food in with the fork. Still ended up using my hands to get some of it.
– The main course was the scariest part – I'd ordered filet mignon and wondered a) if I'd have to wield a steak knife and b) if I'd make a huge mess. Surprisingly (?) the steak came pre-cut into strips that I could fit in my mouth in one bite (someone who doesn't have quite as big of mouth as me might not have done this! But there was no steak knife either so who knows?)
– Oh, this article says the food is sometimes pre-cut to lower the risk of choking. It also says soup isn't available due to danger of burns but we were all a bit surprised to be offered tea or coffee at the end of our meal (one of each being ordered.) The restaurant's “Press” page has lots of other articles and reviews including a story from Up! by one of my favourite writers from my time in Calgary, Marcello di Cintio.
– our drinks were served (with the salad course I think) and so we now had to keep track of two glasses which we'd been instructed to keep at the top right of our placemats. Again, surprisingly, it didn't take long to get to the point where your motion reaching for the glasses was almost as natural as it would be in a fully lit room – definitely not as slow and cautious as when the first water glass arrived. But we did have one water glass knocked over anyhow, luckily it was nearly empty and even luckier, it didn't hit the floor. (We asked after and they said they probably don't lose any more dishes than a regular restaurant does since most customers are being so cautious.)
– there were at least two birthday parties in the room somewhere – so we heard “Happy Birthday To You” once in English and once in French. (The first time, the entire restaurant joined in. The second time, there wasn't perhaps as much enthusiasm though we did join in again.)
– I think we were told afterwards that they can seat up to 87 people at maximum capacity. At one point, I observed that our waiter didn't come around very often and wondered if this was due to some sort of traffic-management the wait staff utilize to not bump into each other or if it was just reflective of that slow-paced service you get in some pricey restaurants? Turns out it was a more prosaic reason you'll find in any restaurant in the planet – someone hadn't made it into work so our waiter was the only staff member on the floor, managing all the tables by himself! (Needless to say, he got a much larger tip than the one I'd already planned to give him!)
– the price was $30 for either an opening course and a main course or a main course and a dessert or $37 for all three courses. You had a few choices in each of the three categories plus could opt for a “surprise” in any of them. (I had avacado salad, filet mignon main course and surprise dessert which turned out to be a chocolate mousse cake. Passing that around so my two dining companions could have a bite was another interesting experience.)
– Their web site says another location in opening in Toronto at the end of June so if you get a chance to check it out in either city, I'd highly recommend it. The librarian I heard about it from (thanks to Terri T. for the tip!) suggested it'd be even better to go with people you don't know very well or had just met (a conference being the perfect opportunity for this) although I enjoyed the comfort of being with people I knew a bit better.
Brought up on the family farm in a small town south of Moose Jaw before going to high school in the mid-sized city of Moose Jaw then moving on to our largest city of Saskatoon for his undergrad and medical training, Ryan has experienced a variety of the ways that people live in this province.
He has worked to expand that knowledge by choosing to live in Saskatoon's inner-city and also for extended periods in Saskatchewan's north where he felt his medical training would be put to its best use (with the side benefit that he has direct experience in dealing with people living in these communities rather than seeing them as a philosophical abstraction like so many people – those sympathetic and not – do.)
Unlike many Saskatchewan-born and trained doctors, Ryan didn't choose to leave for the greener pastures of Calgary, Vancouver or the United States. Instead, he went the opposite direction, choosing to work as a rural relief locum giving doctors in small communities around the province badly needed time off. I think he had an ulterior motive with this choice – he's sincerely interested in the people of rural Saskatchewan and how he can help them and this was the way to do it.
The final demonstration of his commitment to Saskatchewan for me is contained in his policies. Something that's not even on the other candidate's radars – our vital arts & culture sector – becomes a policy that Ryan utilizes to discuss not only this sector in general but to connect with the strengths and challenges of rural Saskatchewan. His anti-nuclear stance reflects a deep understanding of the costs – financial and otherwise – that this ill-guided path would hold for our province. His take on the future of agriculture is the most innovative of any of the candidates (and as a slight tangent, Ryan is the candidate best positioned to prevent a bleed of young progressive NDP members to the Green party should Dwain Lingenfelter win the leadership.)
I will discuss his most exciting policy proposal and its implications for our province with my next post.
) I didn't link to the actual Semple song he used above as I don't know the name of it – I just wanted to give you a sample of how talented Semple truly is. In fact, he won a cross-Canada guitar competition which is where the clip I linked to is from. Oh, and to top it off, Link used Bon Jovi's anthem, “Raise Your Hands” as his exit song. Yep, nothing screams party renewal like head banging 80's glam bands! Of course, I would've gone with “One More Time” by Streetheart for the Regina connection and the oh so appropriate title – but that's just me.)
