Share[<a href="//storify.com/theglobeandmail/too-soon-should-torquil-campbell-have-criticized-s-1" target="_blank">View the story "Too soon: Should Torquil Campbell have criticized Stephen Harper during the shootings?" on Storify</a>]<h1>Too soon: Should Torquil Campbell have criticized Stephen Harper during the shootings?</h1><h2>Torquil Campbell does not like Prime Minister Stephen Harper. This shouldn't surprise anyone who has closely followed the non-musical exploits of Campbell, who is most known to casual observers as the co-lead singer of the indie-rock band Stars.</h2><p>Storified by <a href="https://storify.com/theglobeandmail">The Globe and Mail</a>· Fri, Oct 24 2014 14:25:02 </p><div><i>Update: On Friday morning, Torquil Campbell tweets that he is quitting Twitter for the time being.</i></div><div>see ya guyzblue john</div><div>top ten reasons im leaving this place 1. i'm not really into receiving death threats.blue john</div><div>Torquil Campbell does not like Prime Minister Stephen Harper.</div><div>This shouldn't surprise anyone who has closely followed the non-musical exploits of Campbell, who is most known to casual observers as the co-lead singer of the indie-rock band <a href="https://www.youarestars.com/home/">Stars</a>.</div><div>Whether on <a href="https://twitter.com/torquilcampbell/with_replies">social media</a> or during one of his frequent <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/q/blog/2013/12/19/torquils-rant-what-has-happened-to-canada/">Rant or Raves</a> on CBC's radio program <i>Q</i>, Campbell is fond of broadcasting, rather loudly, his opinions on culture and politics, with the Harper government being a frequent subject of scorn from the 42-year-old. A "jumped-up gang of thugs" is one of the more polite ways he has described the federal Conservatives,<a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/music/stars-singer-torquil-campbell-is-no-fan-of-his-fan-in-the-pmo/article6274288/"> in an e-mail to The Globe in 2012</a>, after getting into a Twitter spat with the prime minister's then-director of communications.</div><div>So when Campbell tweeted these latest missives yesterday ...</div><div>.@pmharper well, you've succeeded in making us a target; congratulations! now it's time to pass that "anti terrorism" bill, right? fascist.blue john</div><div>make no mistake about it: the last two days have been good ones for @pmharper. death, violence, terror, fear; business is good, right steve?blue john</div><div>... nothing seemed out of the ordinary, considering his documented predispositions – except for the timing. Bearing timestamps beginning at 10:29 a.m., his latest rant (or rave?) spouted forth just as the country was realizing what was occurring in Ottawa. At that hour, a soldier had been wounded at the National War Memorial, and a gunman had stormed Parliament Hill.</div><div>Attack on Ottawa: What we know so farIt was an attack that shocked the world and struck at the heart of Canada's government: A soldier dead at the National War Memorial, gunfire in the House of Commons and a city's downtown core put in lockdown. Details are still emerging about Wednesday's attack in Ottawa.</div><div>The immediate reaction from most of his followers: too soon. And that of the more shell-shocked: way out of line, Mr. Campbell. </div><div>@CBCRadioQ after reading insensitive tweets by @torquilcampbell today I wud hope he won't be on q air anytime soon please22mosaics</div><div>Yep, cancelling those @youarestars tickets in January. Stat. https://t.co/0OGXsH5EcmAndrew MacDougall</div><div>@torquilcampbell get off your soapbox dude. Today is not the day for this kind of self serving bullshit. Fuck save it for tomorrow #unfollowWard</div><div>@torquilcampbell Takes a special kind of asshole to Tweet something like this.Paul Synnott</div><div>Campbell wasn't impervious to the equally vocal criticisms launched back at him. In fact, the above replies were only the ones he was entertained enough by to personally retweet.</div><div>The online posturing between Campbell and his followers meandered throughout the day, touching on everything from native issues</div><div>tell the aboriginal women of this country that we have never had terrorism here before: https://t.co/i7nDxjAeg8blue john</div><div>to freedom of expression</div><div>and i'm happy to be the receiver of abuse and attempts to silence me. it's to be expected in a country where self delusion has become normalblue john</div><div>to the politics of the Second World War.</div><div>my father was a conscientious objector in the second world war. got spat on in the street for it. so yeah...i come by this shit honestly.blue john</div><div>At one point, Campbell landed on one of his most frequently cited, self-deprecating reasons why he's so outspoken in public: <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/11/22/stars-torquil-campbell-stephen-harper-evil_n_2176325.html">Why does it have to fall to me to say these things?</a></div><div>what you have to wonder is why some dick in a band no one has heard of has to say these things, and not someone who actually matters.blue john</div><div>also, i've said it before and i'll say it again: if you're looking to a rock musician for nuanced political commentary, you're being silly!blue john</div><div>It's the same tact Campbell took when The Globe's James Adams asked him last year about his feud with Andrew MacDougall, who, as the prime minister's communication director at the time, simply tweeted that he loved Stars' latest record. That exchange, too, devolved into something resembling Campbell's tweets about the Ottawa shooting. He said: "Only the fact that the views of moronic pop singers such as myself are considered newsworthy is more apocalyptically depressing than the sickening corporatist rule imposed on us by," to paraphrase, the Harper government.</div><div>And that, in a nutshell, is why Campbell relishes in most opportunities to opine to an audience. How seriously he takes himself, though, might need to be considered on a case-by-case basis. In a recent <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2j8jrt/we_are_stars_formerly_popular_middle_aged/cl9dasi">Ask Me Anything</a> session on Reddit, a reader asked of him: "Torquil Campbell, is that you? Can you please give us a Q inspired band rant or rave?" He complied with the request, and quite colourfully: The only reproducible portions are his calling Harper "an egg-shaped sociopath" and a jaunty "there ya go!"</div><div>What political vigor of any strength cannot account for is tone-deafness. Knowing your audience is one of the vital lessons of the Internet that often seems the least learned. Anyone reading <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/OttawaShooting?src=tren">#OttawaShooting </a>closely as events unfolded yesterday was presented with a mosaic of the country's real-time emotions. There was fear, anger, worry, curiousity and bonding as Canadians absorbed what was happening in the nation's capital. One sentiment that was consistent: Now was not the time to assign blame. Campbell's thoughts were not what many needed, or wanted, to hear in the first hour of a crisis</div><div>Politics aside was the card Stephen Harper played in opening Parliament again today, making what Campbell had to say last night seem even more out of key. </div><div>"We are opponents, but we are never enemies. We are all Canadians," PM Stephen Harper says as Parliament opens. https://t.co/RXVsWSbm9UCNN Breaking News</div><div>This morning saw him in a more musical frame of mind, choosing to summon the punk-folk spirit of Billy Bragg to articulate his thoughts.</div><div>Billy Bragg - All You Fascists: https://t.co/IdONX3rSbP via @YouTubeblue john</div><div>Billy Bragg - Ideology: https://t.co/TryYczedI1 via @YouTubeblue john</div><div>But in the end, is Campbell really just toying with us?</div><div>Right Said Fred - I`m Too Sexy (The Original): https://t.co/GChRF837M7 via @YouTubeblue john</div>