Liberals and NDP takeover Prorogue rallies

So much for "non-partisan"... the Liberal Party and the NDP managed to takeover much of the agenda of KW's "Rally for Democracy" today, turning it into not much more than a "We Hate Harper" rally. And yes, I was there to see it all for myself.

Why don't we lead off with this little gem...
Yes, that's right, once again we see the left equates our Right Honourable Prime Minister with a mass-murdering Anti-Semite. And they think we're NUTS? And for the record, I didn't see ANYONE even trying to get that offensive sign taken down.

What's that? Accusing our troops of "War Crimes" again? Have you guys been talking to John MacCallum or something?


Notice the logo on her touque? That's right, we've got a Greenie!
An interesting and inadvertent little "poll" they conducted for me with this sign. In the hour or so I was there? Around 15-20 horns honked... TOTAL. And how many hundreds of cars do you figure pass through uptown Waterloo on a given Saturday?

Another "FASCISTS" slur... at least he's somewhat original with his baseless attack.


And we see the Dippers out in full force... there were a dozen or so of these signs floating around the crowd.


While the organizers did a half decent job of at least putting a venere of non-partisanship on the surface of things, it wasn't very thick, and didn't hold for very long. The various speakers were doing their best to attack all things Harper, on just about every issue. Basically, things turned into a partisan "Anyone But Harper" rally... with keynote speakers being none other than former MP's Karen Redman and Andrew Telegdi, of course!!! You'd almost think they were running for their old jobs again... oh wait, THEY ARE!!! Leave it to a Liberal to turn a "non-partisan" rally into a "VOTE FOR ME!!!" pitch. These two never miss an opportunity to get their faces in the media, they're lobbying HARD to get back into Parliament... so of COURSE they're going to jump on the chance to publicly bash the Government! They got their troops well organized for this event, it was interesting to be a "fly on the wall" and watch their interactions with the "grassroots" at the rally. Let's just say there were a LARGE number of card carrying members there.

Then we have the NDP... we had the "official" NDP signs in the crowd, and of course, we had the unions...
Here's your local NDP EDA showing up, banner in hand.

Get'em while they're young... what was it Comrade Lennin said about that? Oh yea, "Give us the child for 8 years and it will be a Bolshevik forever."

The good old UFCW, showed up of course.

And the Postal Workers... all loud and proud lefty-union types. I'm thinking they never were Harper fans in the first place...

The CAW and CUPE also showed up over at the Guelph rally, since we're talking about union involvement. The rally there was fairly small, and all the regulars from in town you'd expect to see were there... but I'd say there was no more than 120 there, which is pretty small considering the massive Liberal, NDP and Green base that you have in that lefty town.



Of course, there was one minor incident in KW where someone was trying to shout down one of the speakers, for something clearly inaccurate that they'd said about Trudeau... the speaker had said something about Trudeau having "respect for Parliament", what a LAUGH that was!!! Anyway, the organizers had him SHUT DOWN PRONTO, a couple of them went up to him right away and tried to get things diffused quickly. Cause you know, when you're at a "Rally for Democracy", you wouldn't want things to go off the pre-approved script or anything. Wanted to get a photo of the situation and some more info, but the gentleman didn't want that, so I'm respecting his wishes.

The organizers had also invited an independent candidate to give a few remarks... remember what I said about a "vener" of non-partisanship? Well his little talk, although intended to make things look non-partisan, actually blew the lid off that little sham. He's standing there making so very accurate remarks about the state of our democracy, taking to task not only the current Harper government, but also PREVIOUS Liberal governments... he took Trudeau to task once or twice as well. Anyway, the best way to describe the crowds reaction to him was... well, subdued. Polite applause here and there when he said something they really couldn't object to, and of course loud applause and cheering when he took a shot at Mr. Harper... but the rest of the time, when he was discussing some of the real issues related to our Parliamentary system, well... you could hear crickets. Guess he didn't know he was supposed to stick to the "All anti-Harper, All the Time" script. While I didn't agree with a lot of things he said, he was BY FAR the most honest and genuine of all the speakers there today. But by being genuinely "non-partisan", he helped expose the partisans for who they really were, and shredded any semblance of credibility the organizers of today's event had. And for that, I tip my hat to you sir! If anyone can get me his name, I'd appreciate it.

On top of the local parties and union support, you have the two Universities, Waterloo and Laurier, just a couple blocks up the road. Kinda makes it easy to boost your numbers when they're around. Overall I'd say there were about 300 some odd people there, but considering that they had weeks to get the word out, the combined resources of three political parties (Liberals, NDP, Greens) from three cities good sized cities (Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge, all 120,000+ EACH), along with the support of at least two unions, plus the student body of two major universities just blocks away, with GORGEOUS sunny weather at +1 degrees, I'd have to say that turnout wasn't all that good.

Compare today's rally with last year's anti-Coalition rally in KW... in a matter of days, they managed to pull out well over 120 people in -20 degree weather!!! Comparing apples to apples, today's rally was pretty much A FLOP.

So there you have it, that was my "non-partisan" take on the KW "Rally for Democracy". Hey, if those Libs, Greenies and Dippers can claim that they were being "non-partisan" today, why can't I?

Of course, I stand by my statement from the other week... it was a big mistake for the Liberals to fan the flames of this one. When they support our Throne Speech and Budget in March, a good number of the folks who attended today's rally are going to find a new scapegoat for their anger.