{"id":2082,"date":"2008-12-06T17:54:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-06T22:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=2082"},"modified":"2008-12-06T17:54:00","modified_gmt":"2008-12-06T22:54:00","slug":"duelling-pro-democracy-rallies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=2082","title":{"rendered":"Duelling Pro-Democracy Rallies"},"content":{"rendered":"
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With a pair of duelling rallies going on in downtown Toronto, I figured I would scout them out before doing a bit of Christmas shopping. Agree or disagree with them, seeing hundreds of people braving the cold to protest is a sign that democracy is alive an well in Canada (despite what people at both<\/em> rallies would have you believe).<\/p>\n

First up was the Tory pro-democracy rally at Queen’s Park. I showed up, hearing a speaker calling the “coup” the “saddest moment in Canadian history” – and here I thought that<\/em> honour was reserved for the Gretzky trade or the death of Matthew Cuthbert.<\/p>\n

Next up was Peter Kent who is, truth be told, not a bad speaker. He called “the unholy alliance” a “betrayal of the democratic process and a betrayal of Canada”. It’s good to see that the prorogation has helped cool down the heated rhetoric. Kent’s pitch to the media there was that the Liberals should back down – he claimed Liberal MPs had approached him last week asking him to tell Harper to prorogue because they didn’t want the coalition to go into power.<\/p>\n

Speaking of caucus dissent and of not wanting to get into power, John Tory was up next and he opened with “Welcome to the seat of democracy in Ontario”.<\/em> Well, it’s a good thing democracy was able to find a seat to run in! <\/div>\n

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After he spoke the crowd chanted “Har-Per! Har-Per!” – even at a Conservative<\/em> rally, he can’t get support. Ouch. Of course, the crowd was a bit off on their angry mob shouting points, as the guy next to me started chanting “No More Rae Days!” at one point, for reasons only he understood.<\/p>\n

Dion was scheduled to speak at the other rally at one and, knowing how prompt he always is, I figured I should head down to Nathan Phillips Square.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The coalition rally was, appropriately enough, larger than the Conservative one. They had a stage, printed signs, and Mary Walsh. Even the chanting was more organized, with Marg leading everyone in a “Yes we Can…Ada! Yes we Can…Ada<\/em>!”.<\/p>\n

It turns out I’d missed Dion, but I arrived in time to catch Jack Layton in all of his mustachiod self-righteousness. “Harper took away your right to vote<\/em>!” Jack boomed. <\/p>\n

Following this, the musical entertainment played “let’s not be separated tonight” – so even if the Bloc has a veto on policy decisions in the coalition, we can rest assured that they do NOT have a music veto.<\/p>\n

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No doubt Gilles was able to provide the “Oui” signs.<\/em><\/p>\n

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There’s nothing like a 500 word sign to really get your message across at a rally.<\/em><\/p>\n

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I always knew Santa was a Liberal! He dresses and red and spends billions buying gifts for people every year.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With a pair of duelling rallies going on in downtown Toronto, I figured I would scout them out before doing a bit of Christmas shopping. Agree or disagree with them, seeing hundreds of people braving the cold to protest is a sign that democracy is alive an well in Canada (despite what people at both […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2082"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2082\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}