London-Two time Juno award nominee, and NDP MP Charlie Angus (Timmins-James Bay) is no stranger to whirlwind schedules. As a musician, as the NDP Critic for both Culture and Public Works, and as the representative for a riding the size of Great Britain, Angus is use to long days and dealing with a variety of issues on the fly. So it was no surprise that when Angus visited London last Friday as a guest of MP Irene Mathyssen, the two MPs packed a range of issues into a full day around our community.

Beginning at City Hall, Angus and Mathyssen met with Controller Gina Barber, Intergovernmental Affairs Officer Grant Hopcroft, Financial Planning Director Martin Hayward, and City of London roads chief Dave Leckie, to discuss the realities of municipal infrastructure needs. The City of London presentation highlighted the value of the federal gas tax transfer, but demonstrated--consistent with the recent FCM report--that municipalities are slowly falling further and further behind. Angus and Mathyssen committed to return to Ottawa to push for increased funding, including a promise that the NDP was developing a policy to exceed the municipality's request for an equivalent to 1% of GST revenues.

Angus and Mathyssen then met with students from Clarke Rd. Secondary School at Mathyssen's constituency office. Although it was a PD Day, a dozen students gave up their own time to meet with the two MPs, to hear from Angus directly about his Attawapiskat school campaign. Attawapiskat, an isolated First Nations community in Angus's riding, has been without an elementary school since 2000. The 400+ students in the community have been consigned to portables for the past 8 years, while 3 consecutive Indian Affairs Ministers have dithered on funding a new school. In December of 2007, Conservative Minister Chuck Strahl cancelled the school funding proposal altogether. Since the Conservative cancellation, Angus has met with students across Ontario, who are leading a grass roots effort to force Strahl to reverse the cancellation. Utilizing letter writing and YouTube campaigns, more than 35,000 students have joined the campaign.

After meeting with Angus and Mathyssen, the Clarke Rd. students have taken up the Attawapiskat cause in London, and will be leading the campaign among local students.

After treating the students to pizza for lunch, Angus then took time out to talk with LondonTopic.ca's Ross McDermott about "Internet Bandwidth Throttling". (for the LondonTopic article on this interview: Click Here)

The next stop for Angus and Mathyssen was a visit to the N'Amerind Friendship Centre to meet with First Nations leadership from around the region. A variety of issues were raised, including the Attawapiskat situation.

A working dinner consultation with members of London's arts and cultural community rounded out the afternoon for Mathyssen and Angus. Renowned author Joan Barfoot, Independent publisher Gavin Stairs, poet Penn Kemp, Johann Kinting from the London Musicians Association, actor Keith Dinicol, Fanshawe Pioneer Village curator Shanna Dunlop, and organizers of the annual Sunfest and Home County Folk Festivals were among those joining Mathyssen and Angus for dinner. From Conservative attempts to institute new censorship powers in Bill C-10, to changes in festival funding programs, a wide range of issues and concerns were raised with the MPs.

Finally, it was time to add some fun and entertainment to the Angus visit, as the London-Fanshawe NDP hosted a fundraiser for Mathyssen at the London Music Club. London's own Mean Tangerine provided the opening act with their reggae-funk blend, their second "political gig" following the December 8th performance at Covent Garden Market on the International Day of Action on Climate Change.

A poetic interlude featured Penn Kemp and Irene Mathyssen reading Kemp's "Poem for Peace In Two Voices", a piece which has been translated into more than 120 languages world wide. Then Angus picked up his guitar in support of Mathyssen, and entertained the capacity crowd in an hour long set of his music.

Keeping a schedule like that, it is no wonder Angus was voted one of Parliaments best MPs by his peers in MacLean's Magazine this year.