My first protest in Ottawa

Protests and rallies, are they worthwhile, are they worth the effort, worth the time? Have any changes in Canadian politics ever been made or “un-made” thanks to a protest? Is it just hippies, activists and students that attend rallies? I didn’t really know so I set out with my camcorder and camera to find out.

Today, I attended a rally on Parliament Hill. It was a protest that was staged alongside various other protests around the country, and also in a few international locations. I believe that it was primarily organized by the Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament who began as a Facebook group. Their group page has garnered the support of over 200,000 fans, myself included. 

I’ve been in Ottawa for about four years now and hadn’t participated in a protest until today. I’ve always wondered what they were all about. Having grown up in a small northern community, when you heard about a protest, it was usually a group of students or union members protesting cuts in education or various labour issues that affect the mostly blue-collar community. I wanted to move to the capital so that I could be exposed to more: more culture, more events, more festivals, more job opportunities, more speeches, more variety of voices, more noise, more lights, more chaos. It was too comfortable in the North and I figured that I needed to be exposed to more while I was still young. 

During my first job at a Crown Corporation in downtown Ottawa, I saw a lot of protests. My co-workers found it amusing that I’d be glued to the window whenever the protesters marched on by. Whether they were anti-abortion or pro-abortion marchers, farmers, aboriginal rights protesters, whatever the cause, I wanted to see it. Sometimes, I’d take a break and go walk along with them. It made me proud to have chosen to be here, to have chosen to be in the middle of where everything happens politically, in Ottawa. But protests fell on deaf ears to all of the other people I worked with. The majority of them were Ottawans who worked downtown and went home in the ‘burbs afterwards. They rolled their eyes and sighed “oh.. protesters again, here we go”. And that’s the impression that I got from the government workers in the buildings nearby. I hear that civil servants aren’t allowed to participate in protests that might prove to be unsupportive of the current government. I wonder if that irks some of them or if some have snuck into rallies anyways. 

Today’s protest was… enjoyable in a “wow, can you feel that energy?” kind of way. I can’t think of a better way to describe it. I caught quite a few speeches on film and took plenty of photographs, laughed with a few people, discussed social media and surveillance with others. I ran up to the raging grannies and said a huge hello! I wanted to hug each one of them for being active and political and for showing everyone that we all have a misconception about older people and older women: that when we grow old, we don’t cease to have a voice. My new motto now is that if the raging grannies can do it, so can I. 

The entire experience was typically Canadian. Peaceful but spirited, everyone was generally cordial and kind. The demographics surprised me quite a bit as I was expecting a much younger crowd but there were a lot of middle-aged people in attendance. After about two hours of standing in the snow, I decided to take a lunch break and head over to Timmy’s for soup and coffee for a half hour. On my way back, people with signs and flags were walking away from the Hill and I thought I had missed the end of the rally. Nope, it turns out that (and I’m assuming) Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton had made their speeches. People were leaving as Elizabeth May was giving her speech. I overheard a man telling the people with him that he was happy to have seen them up close. “What other occasion do we get to see these guys in person?”. 

So today wasn’t about changing the prorogation of Parliament. It was about saying “we noticed”. I’m happy I went. But it leaves a lot of other questions in my head like “have protests ever worked?”. 

Does anyone out there know of a good book or website that might list examples of protests and rallies that have incited change in Canada? Also, what are the best methods for change, based on evidence? Protests, letters, petitions? Violence is almost always discouraged but is it a more effective method or are peaceful methods the best means for change? 

And then I wonder: is it possible that one person or a small group of people are more effective at invoking change than a very large group of people? Can one girl with a camcorder or a film crew with a decent budget create a message that could make waves across the political system moreso than a large group of people protesting in every major city in Canada? Should we rely on pranksters like the Yes Men to fix the world?

It quickly becomes apparent that there are many options available to us when we have a cause in mind and a bit of time on our hands. The question is, what’s the best way to use your time to achieve the results that you want? 

Lastly, is there a resource online that lists out all of the protests happening in Ottawa or across Canada on any given day? I ask because I’ve found it very difficult to see what’s happening in the capital as most organizations and news about protests are scattered across different websites or different groups on Facebook. 

So share your knowledge, information or ask more questions and I’ll see if I can get the answers to them. 

I’ve also captured quite a bit of the rally on video. 

(Oops.. just noticed that there are captions in that second video (about mutual surveillance) that shouldn’t be there. I guess that’s what happens when you try to edit videos when you’re exhausted. )

Also, I want to share this video from another first-timer who joined the rally in Ottawa:

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