Federal Member of Parliament Charlie Angus spent a couple of busy days in Kingston. The NDP MP for Timmins – James Bay was on hand to support a couple of area provincial candidates running in the upcoming election.
He played a gig in town on Friday night with his band known as “Grievous Angels”. And on Saturday afternoon Angus spent a couple of hours at “Novel Idea” on Princess Street signing copies of his new book — “Cobalt: Cradle of the Demon Metals, Birth of a Mining Superpower.”
“We have this thing in Canada where we think our history is nice, quaint, something that maybe the local tourists will come by and see”, Angus said. “But we have a very complex, sometimes very wild and sometimes very dark history and Cobalt the town fits that bill a thousand per cent.”
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Angus, who lives in Cobalt, says the book traces the history of the Northern Ontario town, a history not a lot of Canadians know about.
“This is a place that was connected to what was happening in New York. There were plays in New York about Cobalt,” said Angus. “What was happening in Paris with the art scene — this is happening in Cobalt. This is a place that was literally dancing on the stage of the world and when all the wealth was taken out, this town was left on its own. That too is the story of Northern Canada.”
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This is book number eight for Angus who was first elected to Parliament back in 2004.