Chris in the News: The Mountain must be heard on the Hill

'I want my country back'
Hundreds protest prorogation; Hamilton rally one of 60 nationwide

January 25, 2010
Emma Reilly
The Hamilton Spectator
(Jan 25, 2010)

Get back to work.

That was the message of more than 300 activists, protesters and politicians who gathered in Gore Park Saturday afternoon to denounce the prorogation of parliament.

The protesters held signs bearing slogans such as "Democracy is a Canadian value" and "I want my country back."

Local politicians, including Hamilton NDP MPs Chris Charlton and David Christopherson, blasted Prime Minister Stephen Harper for shutting them out of parliament.

"When I can't take my seat in the House of Commons, he's denying 123,000 people on the mountain their voice in the single most important democratic institution in the country," Charlton said.

"Those 123,000 people are mad - and they're not going to take it anymore."

Former CHCH anchor Dan McLean was the sole Liberal candidate at the rally.

The candidate in Ancaster- Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale thanked the crowd for their attendance on a cold January afternoon.

"What I see out in front of me here is what I call democracy," he said.

MPs were scheduled to resume work today until Harper shut down parliament with a phone call to Governor General Michaelle Jean. Business will resume Mar. 3 with a speech from the throne.

Despite Harper's argument that prorogation is a "routine constitutional matter," the move has been blamed for a dip in Conservative approval ratings and a scathing editorial in The Economist, an internationally-renowned magazine.

Hamilton's rally was one of 60 protests taking place across Canada and in five international locations, including London, Amsterdam and New York City.

The grassroots campaign to hold a national day of protests was spearheaded by McMaster student Shilo Davis. Her campaign became an offshoot from a massive Facebook group called "Canadians against proroguing parliament" that has attracted 212,000 members.

"My dream was to get all the capital cities on board and I thought that was a pretty far stretch," Davis said. "But then once the word got out, which didn't take long at all with Facebook, we had cities across the country asking to get on board."

Christopherson says the rally speaks to a "new politics" where Canadians can use technology to access and share information about their government.

"I've been in elected politics now for 25 years, and I've been through a lot of prorogations, and I've never seen anything like this," he said.

"Where it used to take weeks for an issue of prorogation to come out -- and nobody really cared much -- now, it's instantaneous."