This just in from the Cobourg Rally
Deb O'Connor
Anti Proroguement Rally Rocks Downtown Cobourg
Today's rally, held in front of a locked door at MP Rick Norlock's Cobourg constituency office, was an unqualified success, as up to 150 people of all ages, shapes and sizes joined together to express their displeasure at the prorogation of Parliament by Stephen Harper's government. With so many there, at some points the roadway was impassable for cars.
The event, loosely organized by our local Council of Canadians president Elma Parker and Port Hope lawyer Wilf Day, kicked off with the crowd singing O Canada. Although this wasn't a partisan event, candidates for the liberals, NDP and Green Party had a chance to say their piece, all of them in agreement that Harper and his gang have flaunted their contempt for Canadians with this second self serving and dishonest prorogation and need to get back to work now.
While speakers raised several issues that generated their anger towards this government's arrogant leadership, two that resonated were the shutting down of the enquiry into Afghan prisoner abuse and the government's contempt of Parliament in refusing to hand over documents to that enquiry as directed by Parliament.
While some brought home made signs saying "Prorogue Harper" and "Get Back to Work", many more echoed these sentiments by chanting them in the crowd. One person could be heard shouting "Coalition" with murmurs of agreement coming from some of the assembled.
The mood was upbeat and positive despite the frigid temperature and clouds, with many expressing gratitude and pleasure that so many of us had come out to deliver the anti-proroguement message to our MP's darkened door.
Closing with a rather more energized rendition of O Canada, the skies cleared as many of the participants jumped into various vehicles to join the Peterborough rally
Overall, despite feeling some vindication and joy about the large size of the crowd, it is safe to say people are angry, very angry, at this government and it's sleazy dishonesty. If the rallies elsewhere are as successful as Cobourg's was today, it will be hard for Harper to continue telling us we don't care. Believe all of us today, we care very much, and intend to make sure Harper starts listening to us or he will pay the ultimate price for a politician, banishment from power.
Thanks Deb, I had to work. But if this is the norm Harper and Norlock and the Ruling party will be hard put to ignore it as "just the usual troublemakers"
Anti Proroguement Rally Rocks Downtown Cobourg
Today's rally, held in front of a locked door at MP Rick Norlock's Cobourg constituency office, was an unqualified success, as up to 150 people of all ages, shapes and sizes joined together to express their displeasure at the prorogation of Parliament by Stephen Harper's government. With so many there, at some points the roadway was impassable for cars.
The event, loosely organized by our local Council of Canadians president Elma Parker and Port Hope lawyer Wilf Day, kicked off with the crowd singing O Canada. Although this wasn't a partisan event, candidates for the liberals, NDP and Green Party had a chance to say their piece, all of them in agreement that Harper and his gang have flaunted their contempt for Canadians with this second self serving and dishonest prorogation and need to get back to work now.
While speakers raised several issues that generated their anger towards this government's arrogant leadership, two that resonated were the shutting down of the enquiry into Afghan prisoner abuse and the government's contempt of Parliament in refusing to hand over documents to that enquiry as directed by Parliament.
While some brought home made signs saying "Prorogue Harper" and "Get Back to Work", many more echoed these sentiments by chanting them in the crowd. One person could be heard shouting "Coalition" with murmurs of agreement coming from some of the assembled.
The mood was upbeat and positive despite the frigid temperature and clouds, with many expressing gratitude and pleasure that so many of us had come out to deliver the anti-proroguement message to our MP's darkened door.
Closing with a rather more energized rendition of O Canada, the skies cleared as many of the participants jumped into various vehicles to join the Peterborough rally
Overall, despite feeling some vindication and joy about the large size of the crowd, it is safe to say people are angry, very angry, at this government and it's sleazy dishonesty. If the rallies elsewhere are as successful as Cobourg's was today, it will be hard for Harper to continue telling us we don't care. Believe all of us today, we care very much, and intend to make sure Harper starts listening to us or he will pay the ultimate price for a politician, banishment from power.
Thanks Deb, I had to work. But if this is the norm Harper and Norlock and the Ruling party will be hard put to ignore it as "just the usual troublemakers"
14 comments:
150 people or approximately 1% of the population of Cobourg showing up?? "... unqualified success..." and "... joy about the large size of the crowd,..."
RIIIIIGHT...
I am sorry, but I do not agree with your group's protest today. I think that PM Harper is doing a good job, and if he feels that he needs time during these hard times to set down the government, he has that right.As for the hearing about the prisoners we are at war and I was wondering how many of the people out to todays protest ever attend the bridges when our soldiers come home from the war.These are prisoners after all.
Oh it starts now the denigration of the size of the crowd in proportion to the importance of the event. Watch Wally's video of the event and try to recognise the party hacks - very few of them the rest were local people POd by harper - that's the news story not the size of the crowd. here
If our pro Harper anonymous poster thinks its perfectly fine to ignore the Geneva Convention that prohibits torture of prisoners, there's not much point in telling him or her that Harper does NOT have the right to arbitrarily shut down Parliament whenever it's not in his partisan interests to do his job. Or when he wants to hide his government's misdeeds from the Canadian public.
We must return power to our elected representatives in Ottawa and put the prime minister back in his place. He is not our king and there is no such thing as divine right of prime ministers.
By the way, honouring our dead soldiers is not incompatible with respecting the human rights of prisoners. Absolutely not. It is entirely possible to do both, they are not mutually exclusive.
As one rally participant said today, he wants to honour the soldiers by bringing them home. Amen to that.
Last night, driving eastward on the 401 near Bowmanville, I saw coming toward me in the westbound lanes the overblown, gross, sick, mawkish parade of a couple of dead Mounties from Haiti. It was appalling. Highway of Heroes my fat ass. Highway Of Expendable Political Capital maybe. But fucking dead Mounties, Taser artisties, who died working in a tropical paradise at the expense of dumb plebes like us that pay for them to work in a tropical paradise -fuck them. Tough luck. The roof caved in. This is an excuse to cause a traffic jam? And what in God's name is learned from these dog-n-pony autopsies? The cause of death? Well, if you get blown to bits by a bomb in Afghanistan then it hardly take a qualified pathologist to determine that the cause of death was Being Blown To Bits By A Bomb. Same thing in Haiti: Cause Of Death: Falling Concrete Slab Activated By 7.0 Earthquake. We need an autopsy to figure this out? These Highway Of Hapless Stooges parades are muggs stupidity propped up by three-pack-a-day flag wavers with way too much time on their hands and a selfish need to appear selfless. It's all just so cloyingly sick. Sick, sick, sick...
Norlock said he wasn't going to listen to us because we were just Liberals and NDPers. That must be the Cons master plan because that's the reason Harper shut down the Government in the first place. He did not want to listen.
Norlock went from being a Big Dumb Cop to being a Big Dumb Backbencher in about two seconds flat. He has done absolutely nothing for the riding and he never will because he doesn't have to. The people of Northumberland, Rotarians all, will re-elect the dolt on a dime. Why? Because they perceive him as safe and harmless and reflective of all their worries and fears. He offers no hope for change and any progress is toward a goal of achieving the past -sometime in the Ward and June World of the 1950's.
I ask again: Is he still a member of The Rock Mountain Elk Foundation, a canned-hunting outfit of he-men "sportsmen" that hunt fenced-in elk? He was not long ago -and proud of it too. Hows that for our big brave Officer Norlock, eh?
Hi Ben
I notice few respond to Mr Muffley and his rants anymore. Would it be because he has become predictable, boring and irrelevant. Not to mention his fondness for foul language.
The protest is not a partisan issue, as much as Harper would have it. There are many Conservatives, and former Conservatives, who do not support the suspension of Parliament in the mean, cynical fashion of the PM. That's a fact !
Odd to find Jennifer's disparaging comments about our Mr. Muffley right when I was thinking how happy I am that he's back.
He may go over the top once in awhile, but people with passion do that sometimes. It's rare that I don't silently applaud his rants, especially concerning the evil Fantino and the highway of heroes devotees.
You keep on truckin' Merkley, and Jennifer, just skip over his posts, like I do with some other posters who offend my delicate sensibilities.
Seems to me, judging from the cries for coalition emanating from the crowd and the usual suspects involved, that although they are incensed (and rightly so) by Harper's undemocratic prorogation, many of them appear to see nothing wrong with last year's attempted overthrow of the government by the coalition without an election, also a perversion of the rules of democracy.
Congratulations to Merklin Muffley for ripping away the murky complacency of the Highway of Heroes. Heroism used to be considered as the performance of an act of extraordinary bravery or courage beyond the call of duty. You know, like volunteering to crawl out of your foxhole under enemy fire to rescue your wounded comrades beyond the wire without regard to danger. Or jumping into the freezing river to rescue a drowning child. Get the picture? It's not just doing your duty, it's doing something extra special.
To equate this with being unlucky enough to be blown up while riding around on a truck in Afghanistan is a debasement of the language. Have any at all of our dead soldiers been killed while engaging the Taliban in a firefight? Don't think so. And now, it seems you can become a hero just by having a building fall on you in an earthquake in a foreign land. Let's give respect to our volunteers where due, but we need some respect for clarity of language as well.
Again we have an anonymous poster spreading misinformation about our parliamentary process.
Forming a coalition government is one of the options that our Governor General had when Harper went to her the first time looking for proroguement.
If she had denied him, and he lost that non confidence vote he was trying to avoid, then she could have asked the other parties to join together in a coalition government.
Perfectly, absolutely legal. To frame that as some kind of overthrow of the government and a perversion of democracy, as this poorly informed poster did, is to display a lack of knowledge about our Constitution and how it works.
Before spreading misinformation perhaps a check of the facts would be order.
Hey Deb O,
Here's a constitutional quiz. Which of these scenarios is "perfectly, absolutely legal"?
PM Harper decides it's in his government's interest to stifle opposition criticism by proroging Parliament for several months.
Opposition parties conspire together in an attempt to defeat the government in a confidence motion and take over the government as a "coalition" without being elected.
You seem to think the second is just fine and dandy and apparently the first must be legally OK too since I don't see anyone taking Harper to Court.
But I think both are a serious affront to democracy, whatever the rules of Parliament might allow. Just two examples of the pathetic pseudo-democracy we swallow here in Canada with our lockstep Cabinet ministers, toothless MPs and a sham GG sitting prettily on top.
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