Cabinet minister's son rapped over softwood lumber rap
Last Updated: Friday, December 3, 2004 | 6:30 PM ET
CBC Arts
Baba Brinkman, the son of B.C.'s Minister of Management Services Joyce Murray, performed the song at a fundraiser last month for his mother's constituency association in New Westminster .
The song opens with a tribute to Mike de Jong, the province's minister of forests, and proceeds to call for a trade war against the U.S. over the ongoing dispute over softwood lumber exports.
"As American world police bully the planet," he sang.
"Mike is like a mouse fighting a wooly mammoth.
"When he gets hold of these thick-skulled thieves with their greedy mitts full of our money,
"He's not the type to let go,
"He's the Liberal equivalent of a pit bull."
Delivered on the same day that Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish was bounced from the federal Liberal caucus, news of the politically motivated rap only filtered out earlier this week.
Provincial opposition politicians criticized the song, which they pointed out was delivered in front of an audience that contained several American lumber lobbyists.
His mother was quick to defend the rap in face of the criticism.
"From my perspective, there was nothing offensive," Murray said. "It was a rap celebrating the tough fight minister de Jong has taken on."
Brinkman admitted in a statement released this week that his song may have "rubbed some people the wrong way" but he defended his right to sing it.
