Iraq bombs
Kreviazuk not fooled by Saddam's propaganda ploy

On a recent humanitarian trip to the Middle East, singer Chantal Kreviazuk was offered an chance to interview Saddam Hussein.

Here was a grand opportunity for the thought-provoking, Winnipeg-born, Toronto-based singer-songwriter to come face to face with the infamous Iraq president.

"How do you pass up this amazing opportunity?" says Kreviazuk phoning in from New York on tour with the Barenaked Ladies, all of whom play the Corel Centre tonight. "I had a hard time saying no."

The offer, nonetheless, was turned down.

"It would have been a step backward if I did it," the 27-year-old explains. "(Saddam) has a propaganda station, he sends his (news) selections through the wires throughout the planet. And he'd have made propaganda out of the fact that these Canadians came in and we're supporting him, the Iraqi regime, the Iraqi people, and all that. In the end, it would've worked against me."

Kreviazuk, her husband Raine Maida of Our Lady Peace, Moist's David Usher and Vancouver hip-hop group the Rascalz trekked to Iraq, the Thailand/Burma border and Sierra Leone to explore the negative impact of war on the lives of children in sthose nations 10 years after the Gulf War.

Led by the Ottawa-based War Child Canada, those journeys were filmed by a MuchMusic crew for an upcoming documentary, War2Music, slated to air April 19.

Overwhelmed with stories of growing up under a cloud of instability and war, Kreviazuk grew conscious that her own life victories to date -- two platinum-selling albums (1997's Under These Rocks and Stones, '99's Colour Moving and Still), a pair of Juno Awards, a foray into acting on film (Century Hotel, co-starring Maida), TV (the music-industry comedy Big Sound) and stage (a brief run in The Vagina Monologues), significant by Canadian standards -- seem somehow insignificant compared to the day-to-day struggles Iraqi youth face.

'Beyond proud'

"This generation is beyond proud; it is determined, intense and passionate," Kreviazuk comments in her journal at www.war2music.com. "It will overcome all the adversity that has manifested here. It is strong and certain.

"While I feel proud of these young people for not being bitter or enraged, I feel sad and taken aback by the realization that when I was 16, I was thinking about getting my (driver's) licence and what to wear."

The life-altering trip hit especially hard when Kreviazuk returned to Canada just before hitting the road with her band on the Ladies' tour.

"When we were at the Al-Rasheed Hotel in Baghdad, we saw this big marble decor tapestry of George Bush. When you walk into the hotel, you step on this thing that says, 'Bush is enemy' or 'Bush is evil.'

"After I got back home I watched the news on CNN and in one clip of Iraq, that's all they showed. Like, come on! That's not representing Iraq. That's not Iraq! It's so sick and unfair. That's propaganda from our end."

By: Ian Nathanson