Should you have trouble concentrating, newly minted federal Heritage Minister and iPod junkie James Moore has just the prescription for you: baroque music.
The 32-year-old British Columbia MP - who's just made history in becoming Canada's youngest-ever federal cabinet minister - describes this era of music as though it were vitamins for the mind.
"I can't sit down and read for more than half an hour unless I am listening to baroque music," says Moore when pressed for examples of what sorts of culture Canada's latest arts minister likes to consume.
"Baroque's best for listening to when you study because it's layered music; it's intense; it's all about rhythms. You'll have a percussion section going and you'll have a string section ... and so what it does is it actually gets your brain going and thinking in ways that promote rhythm," he says.
"When you have rhythm - that's what you're looking for when you're studying."
Moore will likely require lots of Bach, Handel and Vivaldi in the days ahead.
He's got a big set of briefing books to absorb after taking over a file where policy missteps taken before the recent election was called resurfaced during the campaign to hurt Conservatives. Relatively minor cuts to arts programs - designed to play well with the party's red-meat conservative base - ended up damaging Tory electoral fortunes in vote-rich Quebec.
But Moore is unapologetic about the nearly $45-million in cuts, including PromArt funding for artists touring abroad, saying these were sound decisions in the name of fiscal responsibility that rival parties misrepresented. (All the money was redirected into other programs under Heritage's mandate, Tories are quick to note.) His predecessor, Josée Verner, told The Globe and Mail in August that she was working hard to find replacements for PromArt and Trade Routes, two of the programs eliminated. But Moore declined to say whether he would proceed to do that.
"I am not going to make any commitments at this time."
But while he defended the cuts, Moore left the door open to new initiatives.
"Those decisions that were made in the past are not going to change in terms of the funding side, but there's always opportunities in the future to work with these groups and work with arts and culture communities to ensure that we all go forward together."
Quick on his feet, with four years experience in broadcasting as a talk-radio commentator, Moore was first elected as an MP in 2000. He's taken on increasingly significant roles for the Tories since they took power and last June was promoted to minister of state - a post outside cabinet - responsible for official languages.
The Harper Conservatives like Moore because he's careful with his words, hard-working and utterly dedicated to the party's cause. This ambitious MP is also what amounts to a professional politician, having won his seat in the Commons a mere six years after graduating from high school.
One of Moore's most important duties for the Harper government in recent months was his able service as senior flak catcher. He deftly shielded Prime Minister Stephen Harper from political controversy surrounding an alleged financial offer to dying B.C. MP Chuck Cadman - fielding the bulk of the questions on the matter in the Commons.
The youngest of three children, Moore was born in the Vancouver-area city of New Westminster, B.C. and raised in neighbouring Coquitlam. Unusual for a British Columbian, he was schooled entirely in French immersion through Grades 1 to 12, an experience he thoroughly endorses with a grudging nod to Liberal bilingualism policies.
"I don't know if it was [my parents] sort of accepting the Trudeau sales pitch about the importance of having two official languages and investing yourself in them, but I think it was certainly part of it."
