Vancouver Protest; Thousands of Needles Lost in a Haystack

With the superlative hyping of these mass protests across Canada, I decided that I would visit the Vancouver chapter of Canadians Against Prorogation, excited to see some of the left coast's loonie fringe at their finest. I grabbed my camera, jumped in my car, and took off for downtown. I was listening to the radio en route where they said "we are receiving reports that thousands of people are protesting up Hornby street." But sadly there was a serious accident in the Stanley Park causeway and the Lion's Gate Bridge was shut down to vehicle traffic, so I had to "park'n walk". Thus I arrived at the Art Gallery just under an hour late. I still figured these thousands of people would be easy to find.

As you can see, I was greeted at the meeting place by a massive crowd in a groundswell of public anger (not simply a scattering of tourists taking their picture with the Olympic Clock).  There was nobody holding signs, no musical acts doing live shows, no spontaneous chanting, nothing.  So I figured that these many thousands of people had set off on foot from their initial meeting place.  Surely these thousands of people marching in harmony through the busy downtown core should be easy to find.

I walked up Georgia to GM Place, I walked up and down both Granville and Hornby to Pender the whole while gazing up and down the streets, and there were no protestors.  Finally I did happen to find a gathering of about 30-50 people protesting outside the courthouse a block from where the Prorogation Protest was set to meet.  As it turns out CAP double booked Hornby with Egyptian Christians Against Detention.

On my way home I decided to stop by Stanley Park, near the giant Olympic rings at Cole Harbour.  If there was a great place for these thousands of angry Canadians to congregate at the end of their long march, this must be the place.

Unfortunately there were no protestors at the end of that rainbow. I was very disappointed. I was hoping to see real live protestors frolicking about in their natural environment, but alas all I found were empty streets. As I made my way back across the Lion's Gate on foot, there was a feeling of sadness that I was not able to observe the clowns in action, but also a sense of amusement that I walked up and down the streets of downtown and other than some Canuck fans getting ready for the game, there was no significant gathering of people in sight. I did get a good laugh when I came home and checked The Province newspaper for a report. This is what they had to say about today.

In Vancouver, several thousand protesters urged Harper to get the government back to work.

A large throng marched in Vancouver’s Victory Square with critics saying the Conservatives’ move was anti-democratic and calculated to avoid heated questions during the 2010 Olympics.

One of the Vancouver march organizers, Trevor Fenton, said the move shows Canada is in a “full-blown constitutional crisis.”