
Fantastic day today at Queen's Park in Toronto, the seat of the Ontario Provincial Legislature.
We were invited by Liberal MPP Kevin Flynn, who had his portrait taken with Voyageur at the Oakville Waterfront Festival in his constituency last year. We had done those portraits on Parliament Hill in Ottawa a couple of years ago and Kevin thought it would be great to replicate the experience at Queen's Park.
Doug and Gabriel Dube were to meet me in front of the building to load in our gear and I got there a bit early so I ended up talking with the security guards for a while at the front steps. They knew about the project already and one of them told me that he was pretty sure that there was a copy of the book in the legislative library. Sure enough, he went and found it and came to show us once we were all set up and ready in a conference room on the first floor.
MPPs and staff started drifting in around 1:00pm and we got some terrific shots. Then Kevin came to get me for a "special surprise". Doug and Gabriel continued doing portraits with Voyageur while Kevin escorted me into the legislative chamber. There, I was ushered into a special gallery for invited guests. I thought Kevin was just going to stand up and invite MPPs to come down to get their portraits taken but all of a sudden the Speaker, Stephen Peters, gets up and starts talking about the Six String Nation and gestures to me in my little box and I waved and then HE invited all members of the assembly to come down for their portraits.
Too bad the Premier wasn't in the House today but we got lots of MPPs and the Speaker as well (pictured). And THEN, the Speaker invited Doug and Gabriel and I to come to his chambers for a beer afterwards. It turns out, today was also the day when the Speaker invites all of Ontario's independent craft brewers to come and show their wares. There was a terrific spread of local cheeses and snacks and a great sampling of brewers from around the province. We hoisted a couple of ales with the Speaker and the other invited guests and headed home.
Thanks to Kevin Flynn, Glenn Hendricks and everyone who came for their portraits. Special thanks to Speaker Peters for giving us such a nice way to end the day.
Posted at 11:08 PM
A few months ago, I appeared on Dr. Peter Tongue's internet radio show Awakening to Conscious Co-Creation. That set off a bit of a domino effect and I just did two more interviews in the past week : one on Frankie Picasso's Mission Unstoppable show and one today on Robby Bradbury's Gut and Bone Show.
You can hear all three interviews archived online:
Peter Tongue
Frankie Picasso
Gut & Bone Show
Posted at 10:48 PM