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Under the Influence

This Canadian politician rapped his way to the House of Commons

From the dawn of time, music has always had a way of gathering people, and giving large crowds a way to unify when the songs were sung together. That aspect of music was not lost on politicians.
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Standing, a man waves to a crowd applauding him in the House of Commons.
New Democratic Party Member of Parliament Ed Broadbent (C) receives a standing ovation while standing to vote in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa November 28, 2005. (Chris Wattie/Reuters)
Under the Influence27:26Orchestrating Elections: Political Campaign Songs

There is a long history of political campaign songs.

From the dawn of time, music has always had a way of gathering people, and giving large crowds a way to unify when the songs were sung together. That aspect of music was not lost on politicians.

Even back in the 1700's, candidates knew that a good song could stick in people's minds. Campaign jingles were not only wrapped in emotion, they also had a slight "fight song" feel to them. Even the first president of the United States George Washington – elected in 1789 – had a campaign song.

Canadian politicians don't have the same long history with campaign jingles.

While every single presidential candidate had some kind of campaign song, the same can't be said for Canadian prime ministers. But that doesn't mean music wasn't a big part of elections.

Ed Broadbent stepped down as the leader of the NDP party in 1989. He had led the party since 1975, but he came out of retirement to run as an MP in the 2004 federal election. His party uploaded a video to the NDP website, and it kind of surprised everybody. Because 68-year-old Ed Broadbent was rapping.

Broadbent's campaign office said the hits on their website "went through the roof." It was downloaded as many times as the party's platform.

The video had originally been made by an independent production company for the CBC show, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, but it never made it to air, because there was no presence from the other parties in the episode, so airing the video would have constituted a "lack of balance."

The NDP asked the production company if they could put it on their website, but Broadbent's Conservative opponent in Ottawa, Mike Murphy, had a beef with the video. Murphy complained to the Chief Electoral Officer that Broadbent had received a gift that exceeded the campaign contribution limit.

As it turned out, Ed Broadbent had appeared in the video for free, so the production company gave it to the NDP for no charge. Therefore, no money changed hands.

Ed Broadbent easily won the seat.

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