Nathan Cullen takes to the skies with Global's Tom Clark

MP Nathan Cullen was a guest (and
co pilot) for a segment of Global
Television's West Block program

Nathan Cullen had some time behind the controls during a sky high interview last weekend with Global Television's Tom Clark, host of the Global News program The West Block.

One feature of the program is Clark taking his guest on a flight seeing tour, in this case over the skies of the nations capital with Skeena-Bulkley Valley's Nathan Cullen his co-pilot and interview subject.

During the course of their air time, Cullen and Clark discussed a range of items everything from Cullen's favourite music (the Beastie Boys are on high rotation it would seem and may one day appear in one of his speeches to the House of Commons) to what the worst thing about politics is.

"intelligent people get together and do really stupid things for partisan reasons, or for ego or vanity".

On the topic of whether Mr. Cullen has ambitions to be Prime Minister some day, the NDP MP outlined what he says would be the personal cost equation he looks at, suggesting that he doesn't think that he has an interest in the job.

"If I were going to spin it a bit, I’d say, ‘oh who knows, maybe one day, it’s you know’ — but it’s got a personal cost equation for me when I look at — I admire people who pursue it. I admire people who are able to sustain any kind of sanity while doing it, integrity. But I think the cost of leadership is enormous and not just for the person, I think the family. I think for your friends."

Asked what his worst political moment was, he turns to the debate over the gun registry, noting that Skeena-Bulkley Valley was one riding that was not supportive of the registry, with Cullen originally planning not to vote on it, but wavering at times after Jack Layton asked him to switch his vote, noting that at that time he had considered resignation during that period of time.

 "I just made a private conversation with myself where I said I’ll do the switch, but I resign that night. And so I went into the House with my resignation letter and we didn’t know. We didn’t know how the votes were going to work out and they didn’t need my vote in the end, so I stayed voting the way I told my constituents I was voting and kept my resignation letter in my pocket. That was the worst moment. I felt sick. I felt like physically sick, which I’ve never felt that way before."

Other themes explored were leadership, what grates on him the most about the day to day events on Parliament Hill and which politician past or present he admires the most, to bring the segment to an end, Cullen takes to the controls and considers one fly by buzzing of the Prime Minister's Harrington Lake retreat.

Some notes on the discussion and the full twenty three minute interview with Clark can be found here.

The full archive of West Block video presentations can be reviewed here.

For more items from the House of Commons see our archive page.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review