Candidates I’d love to see win seats in the House of Commons

It was a nice surprise this weekend to discover in the NY Times a story on Tom King running for the NDP in Ontario. It was equally great to find that they included online a 20 minute excerpt from The Dead Dog Café Comedy Hour. My students here are about to read his The Truth About Stories, so it’s nice to be able to point them to that article and audio sample.

Listening to that segment from Dead Dog, it’s hard not to be struck by the delicious irony of Jasper Friendly Bear’s radio serial called The Band Councillor in which King plays the white sidekick “Ottawa Bob.” If he’s elected, King will be anything but. It would be GREAT to see him in the House and to see what influence this all might have on the direction of King’s future writings.

As usual, both the Liberals and the NDP have managed to recruit some pretty great candidates. Two of the people I’d love to see win are Tom King in Guelph and Michael Byers in Vancouver Centre. For my own selfish reasons, I might be happier if they stayed home and got more time in to do their own work (Byers’ book Intent for a Nation is well worth reading), but these are two smart, smart people who could do a lot for their ridings and for Canada.