With a Little Help from My Friends

There was a glimmer of hope there. You could see it for an instant. A surprising sight, the most unlikely of characters in the most unexpected of settings. The Prime Minister of Canada seated on the piano stool, tinkling the ivories, and belting out a creditable version of the Beatles song to The National Arts Centre audience.
Really, it was very surprising. The news was full of it for the next few days. Who knew, the editorialists exclaimed, that this cold, wooden, distant, robotic figure we have chosen for the Prime Minister of our country was halfway decent on the piano and could manage to carry a tune. People were shocked. The P.M.'s popularity started to climb. Not in this province certainly; his treatment of Newfoundland and Labrador makes us warier than most, but nationally the polls did begin to rise.
Personally, I was not all that interested in the P.M.'s performance, though it was certainly both unexpected and even OK. No, what caught my attention was the song he had chosen to sing and specifically the lyrics.
"I get by with a little help from my friends; I get high with a little help from my friends."
What do you make of that? What is the secret encoded in those words penned in a gentler era by the beloved Lennon and McCartney?
No secret, I thought, it is a closet socialist's plea to loosen restrictive drug laws. Get high with a little help from my friends. What else can it mean but societal co-operation to procure illegal mind-altering substances.
Harper seems to me to have abandoned entirely his Reform Party ultra right wingism and be praising co-operation among citizens to achieve common goals.
Socialism. It used to be a word this confirmed Reformer hissed between clenched teeth. He did just that when he referred to the growing public concern over climate change as a "socialist plot." But things are obviously different now. Before the last election, Harper slagged the arts community as a bunch of government-funded and pampered prima-donnas. Artists spending their time slugging back taxpayer-funded drinks and chowing down on publicly funded canapes at "galas". It cost him the crucial Quebec vote he had been courting so fervently. Without it he failed to get the majority government he craved.
Now here he was himself at a gala, the star performer, playing the piano and singing a socialist druggie ballad. And, if he is now praising socialism, maybe he has also become part of the "plot" that believes in the threat of climate change. Maybe he is getting set to do something significant to reduce greenhouse gasses and reverse global warming. Maybe he is signaling to true-believing right wingers that the future of the planet is more important than continuing to expand the world's most polluting tar pit, so huge it is visible from space. That the survival of future generations is more important than putting still more dollars in the bulging pockets of oil company shareholders.
At first our Prime Minister seemed reluctant to go to this week's Copenhagen conference to discuss climate change. He refused the requests of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to not just turn up, but to make a significant announcement. No, the Prime Minister still held back. Then Barak Obama announced he was going.
Now the P.M. could see his opportunity.
This could be bigger, much bigger than the gala at Ottawa's National Arts Centre. He could sing, possibly one of his own compositions, and maybe dance. The P.M. could visualize the whole thing.
He would be introduced by the Secretary General Moon, and stand next to Obama, the three of them smiling onstage as the crowd went wild. The Moon, The Star and himself dressed in a yellow bodysuit as the Sun. They could sing as a trio. The P.M. would get the other two to collaborate on his adaptation of the John Lennon tune "All We Are Saying, is Give Green a Chance!" They could go on a global tour, put out a CD, maybe get Bob Geldof to produce it, retail it worldwide and use the proceeds to reverse global warming.
It would be great. Maybe his wife would stop telling him how boring he was. Treat him like a groupie treats a star. Yes! He could hear her voice now. She's saying... She's saying...
"Stephen, Stephen,wake up! It's Preston Manning on the phone. He wants to know exactly what you mean by: I get high with a little help from my friends."

pickersgill@mac.com