So I had the wonderful experience of volunteering and also doing some video with Island Media Arts Co-op and Radio UPEI to create ECMA Interactive. To view the content that was created by the colbration between the two groups please visit www.radio.upei/ecma

With having a full access media pass I got the chance to meet with a large amount of the award nominees and artists from all of the four provinces here on the East Coast. Which made me very proud to be from the East Coast since everyone is so friendly and the artists are down to earth even though they are popular musicians.

I also had the experience of attending the Awards Gal Show and had taken along my Pentax camera but not any recording equipment which ended up being a mistake. For anyone who had missed out on watching the national broadcast of the awards there was a presentation by the Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency the Hon. Peter MacKay in which he had messed up his teleprompter lines and instead of saying Halifax he said Toronto, then Ottawa then finally managed to say Halifax. While it is understandable to make some mistakes this is by far a huge slap in the face for anyone from the East Coast that an elected representative cannot even remember the city where the largest music event East of Montreal was taking place this year.

Here is the address to the article from The Toronto Star in which "MacKay was shrugging it all off yesterday" and "the foreign minister said he wasn't offended and he wasn't looking for an apology". I for one think that this is something that is even more of a slap in the face for anyone from the East Coast of Canada.

I would suggest that perhaps MacKay would be the one apologizing seeing as to how he had disrespected everyone that lives in four of the provinces on nation television not to mention the award recipient. To read the article check it out here http://www.thestar.com/article/183558