| July 19, 2010 After more than a year off the air, Ken Rockburn is back at CPAC with a new show, because "retirement is really boring as it turns out."
Mr. Rockburn, an engaging interviewer, told HOH last week that CPAC president and general manager Colette Watson offered him a gig that was too hard to turn down: a half hour show airing in the summer when the House was not in session, all pretaped in the winter, and he could talk to whoever he wanted to about anything he wanted. Voila, Rockburn Presents, a 12-part series of one-on-one interviews featuring comedian Mary Walsh, film director Paul Haggis and former U.S. presidential candidate Ralph Nader, among others.
He also interviewed director David Steinberg, writer Joel Cohen, and Inuit activist Sheila Watt Cloutier. He also interviewed singer and CBC Radio host Randy Bachman, designer Bruce Mau, and photojournalist Peter Turnley, whose interviews he said were produced into one-hour shows because there was so much interesting content.
Mr. Rockburn said he's had fun shooting the series, and that there's already plans for a second season next summer. Although he's tried to stay away from politics, Mr. Rockburn said it keeps coming back. "I said I didn't want to talk to politicians anymore because I was tired of that, but the irony is that most of the interviews we've done, even with musicians and stuff, there's an element of politics in all of them," he said.
"We shot high, we said what the hell? We went after a lot of people, and I said to Dan [Fonda, CPAC producer], 'Let's just see who we can get,' " Mr. Rockburn said last week. Some of the people he asked for interviews included Lou Reed, Patti Smyth, Malcom Gladwell and Norman Jewison. Mr. Rockburn said he was disappointed that the interview with Mr. Jewison didn't work out because he had originally agreed to do it, but then ended up cancelling at the last minute.
"I got his autobiography, I read it, I own all of his good movies, none of his bad ones, but all of his good ones, and we had it all arranged, and then, oddly, at the last minute, he put so many restrictions on it that it was impossible to do," Mr. Rockburn said.
"He said he wanted it done on a certain day of the week, he wanted done in his office in Toronto, he wanted it done between 10:30 and 11 in the morning, and he was only going to give us half an hour to set up and half an hour to strike, and you'd think for somebody who works in film that they would know that it takes like two hours to set up and another hour to strike everything. ... So we couldn't do it, which was kind of disappointing."
He said that Mr. Gladwell, a bestselling author, also cancelled the interview last minute as did a few others and by the time he got to interview David Frum for the last part of the series last week, he stopped buying books about or by the people he wanted to interview. For Mr. Frum's interview, Mr. Rockburn signed out two of his latest books from the Nepean Public Library. "He said, 'Oh you've got my books,' and I had to admit, 'You know, it's not that I'm a cheap bastard, but I have actually been burned so many times this year by going out and buying books on people who've bailed at the last minute that I decided I'm not going to do that anymore,' which he thought was kind of funny."
The show began airing on July 4, and continues on Sundays until Sept. 19.
Thibeault wants Canada to win FIFA World Cup
NDP MP Glenn Thibeault, his party's sports critic, says the government should invest more in professional Canadian soccer so that one day Canada can be a strong competitor in the FIFA World Cup tournament.
"One day, I would like to take out my Canadian flag and wear a Canadian jersey to support a Canadian team in the World Cup," he said in a press release. "It's time to invest in the most popular sport in the world here at home."
He congratulated Spain for winning the world championship title for the first time in its history, and said that Canadians want a more competitive team. The last month's tournament in South Africa was "fantastic," Mr. Thibeault said, but "all of the excitement makes you wonder about Canadian soccer."
Mr. Thibeault, who represents Sudbury, Ont., called for more investments in training coaches, providing better infrastructure, improving coordination of competitions, and investing more in soccer generally.
Trudeau has 30,000 Twitter followers
Liberal MP Justin Trudeau thanked his Twitter followers last week when the count hit 30,000. "Wow! 30,000 followers: thanks to all of you for your interest, thanks to the vast majority of you for your support!" he wrote.
The top five MP Twitterers are Prime Minister Stephen Harper who has the most followers at 46,747, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff who has 37,790 followers as of last Tuesday, and NDP Leader Jack Layton has 36,282 followers. Mr. Trudeau has the fourth highest number of people following his tweets, followed by Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe who has 26,031 followers.
bvongdou@hilltimes.com
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