Let me put it this way: Cana­di­ans are usu­ally pretty quiet and it takes a lot to have them go down in the streets. But Stephen Harper made it, he man­aged to anger Cana­di­ans enough and have them demon­strate in the mid­dle of the win­ter. Way to go, Stevie!

On Decem­ber 30^th, 2009, Stephen Harper, the Con­ser­v­a­tive Prime Min­is­ter, decided to shut down the Par­lia­ment until the end of the Olympic Games, early March. The expla­na­tions and excuses for the pro­ro­ga­tion are pretty vague — the Olympic Games, the eco­nomic plan etc. The prob­lem is, this isn’t the first time the Prime Min­is­ter shuts down the Par­lia­ment and Cana­di­ans seems to be sick of it. Indeed, with­out Par­lia­ment, noth­ing gets done. More­over, Stephen Harper has already pro­rogued the Par­lia­ment last year. This is appar­ently a move to get out of polit­i­cal trou­ble, more than any­thing else.

The oppo­si­tion par­ties obvi­ously didn’t agree with Harper’s move. And this time, nei­ther did the peo­ple. Grass­roots move­ments started on the web and “no pro­ro­ga­tion ral­lies” were orga­nized through­out Canada last Sat­ur­day, on Jan­u­ary 23^rd.

This is hon­estly the biggest demon­stra­tion I have seen in Canada since I’m here. I was shocked to see how many peo­ple showed up on Par­lia­ment Hill. I guess it’s no secret that I don’t sup­port Harper’s pol­i­tics and the fact the Par­lia­ment can be shut down that eas­ily wor­ries me: hello, democ­racy, any­one? I went down in the streets as well — my first demon­stra­tion in a long long time.

You can see the full set of the rally here.

Rally And The East Block

Anti Rogue

The Crowd

My Mes­sage To Harper	Dude, Where Is My Parliament?
It’s Not The Econ­omy, Stupid!	Take Democ­racy Seriously
Cana­di­ans Do Care	Hol­i­day Or Hiding?
Take Me To Diner Before You Fuck Me, Stephen	Nice Smile, Arro­gant Conduct
Harper Pup­pet	You Decide
The Crowd	Jake Layon, Leader of the NDP, Adress­ing the Crowd
Michael Ignati­eff, Leader of the Lib­eral Party, Adress­ing the Crowd	Michael Ignati­eff, Answer­ing the Media’s Questions

Related arti­cles:

1. Happy Birth­day, Canada!
2. The Olympic Torch Relay In Ottawa (2÷2)
3. Inter­na­tional Friend­ship Stage — Egypt
4. Ottawa At Dusk
5. Canada Day In Ottawa