theBreaker.news Podcast: D.O.A.'s Joe Keithley talks pipeline, politics, punk and puck

Talk Minus Action Equals Zero.

The trademark credo of punk legend Joe Keithley.

Last year, after multiple attempts, the D.O.A. singer/guitarist was finally elected to public office: city council in his hometown, Burnaby, B.C., with the Green Party.

He is getting involved in the federal election, with his non-partisan Punk the Vote Festival on Sept. 21 at the WISE Hall in Vancouver.

“I know people do take all sorts of points of view when they consider who to vote for, but this is what I’m pushing: vote for the candidate that would try and fight climate change,” Keithley said in conversation with theBreaker.news Podcast host Bob Mackin.

Keithley grew up near the Trans Mountain Pipeline tank farm at Burnaby Mountain. He is an outspoken opponent of the pipeline expansion, which the Liberal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau approved the day after declaring a climate emergency.

“When you sell yourself as the harbinger of truth and virtue and you’re going to do things differently and then you turn around and do things exactly the same way that politics has been done forever, then you kind of lose that credibility with people,” Keithley says of Trudeau.

Keithley reflects on his first year on city council, says he will boycott the Chinese government reception at the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention later this month (“The People’s Republic of China is not interested in helping anybody but themselves”) and boldly predicts the Vancouver Canucks will return to the Stanley Cup playoffs next year.

Plus commentaries and headlines from the Pacific Northwest and Pacific Rim and host Mackin awards a virtual Nanaimo bar to a B.C. charity that is making a difference.

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