TORONTO — Rabble-rousing musician Steve Earle made a bizarre appearance at Canadian Music Week on Friday, chatting about conspiracy theories and bashing George W. Bush while also resurrecting his scuffle with former prime minister Kim Campbell.

Currently on a sold-out cross-Canada tour, Earle said this visit is his first where he hasn't needed a "dog licence" to cross the border. "This is my first trip to Canada ever that didn't require a stack of paper this big," Earle, stretching his arms wide, said at a Q&A session designed to help new performers.

Earle, from Texas, was referring to a rehabilitation permit, required for entry by customs officers for those with criminal convictions.

But the 50-year-old singer-songwriter, who spent four months in jail on drug possession charges, says while it takes the average person five years to get such a permit, it has taken him a decade - and he blames Campbell.

"I pissed her off in the late 80s over the Satan's Choice case. There are a lot of Kim Campbell remnants in the Justice Ministry. It took me a long time to get a rehabilitation permit," said Earle.

His feelings for the one-time justice minister stem back to the late 1980s and early '90s when he threw his support behind two members of the motorcycle gang. He felt they'd been wrongly convicted of murder.

His passion for the case inspired him to write the song Justice In Ontario and even appear at a 1991 demonstration on Parliament Hill in support of setting the jailed men free.

Earle is currently touring in support of his latest release, The Revolution Starts . . . Now, which won a Grammy last month.

The disc features songs like F the CC (an ode to the Federal Communications Commission) and Condi, Condi, a tribute to what he calls "the extraterrestrial hotness" of Condoleezza Rice, the current U.S. Secretary of State.

Earle also spoke at length about Bush and right-wing American fundamentalist groups that want the U.S. to "dominate the world for the next 100 years."

"It's not a left-wing conspiracy theory. It's something that really exists," he said.

Unfortunately, he said, most Americans aren't paying attention.

"I think we're reaching a time in my country that people, as long as they're doing OK, don't want to look too deep."

He also warned that he sees "scary" things happening in Canada.

"You're too close to us. Rich powerful people in Canada are not going to be able to sit by and watch rich powerful people in the United States pay no taxes and have absolutely no restrictions from whatever they want to do from the government," he said.

"Canada's probably in more danger than any other country of catching this virus that emanates from my country."

He applauded the continued Canadian content (commonly known as Can-con) regulations which force radio stations to play up to 35 per cent made-in-Canada music.

"If I lived in a country that bordered a country like the United States, I think any type of protection of your own resources . . . is advisable," he said, adding that in his opinion the North American Free Trade Agreement only works in the U.S.'s favour.

"It means that you have an open door for trade in the United States until the United States wants to close it. One sick cow and it's closed," he said, making reference to the Canada's mad cow scare.

He went on to say he wouldn't be surprised if an American owned most of Canada's fresh water rights.

"It's possible," he said. "No one in this room can tell me for a fact that isn't true. I'm always suspicious."

After his show in Toronto, he moves on to perform in Ottawa, Montreal, Moncton, N.B., and Halifax.