Students were among the thousands of Canadians who gave up their Saturday afternoon to gather at Parliament Hill Jan. 23, protesting Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s second prorogation within the last year.
For Paige Galette, a second-year political science student at University of Ottawa who attended the rally, the prorogation has direct consequences. As a Haitian Canadian, she said she was “shocked” by the timing of the prorogation.
“I have family [in Haiti] so it affects me personally,” Galette said.
Sam Heaton, a second-year Carleton University student studying political science, took part in the rally by leading the crowd in chants. Varying in severity from “Hey! Hey! Ho! Ho! Back to work you go!” to “Harperdictateur!” all were met by enthusiastic fist pumps and cheers.
The rally began as a Facebook event, organized by the group Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament. The group co-ordinated 61 simultaneous rallies across Canada and gained international support from the United States, England and the Netherlands.
Undergraduate students from the University of Ottawa, Jesse Root and Alex Hill, agreed to organize Ottawa’s rally.
Root said their commitment was an act “of need and frustration.”
Beginning at 1 p.m. the crowd of protestors grew steadily over the next couple hours, spilling onto the lawn and into the streets. According to Root, the rally attracted more than 10,000 supporters, far exceeding his initial expectation of 1,000.
According to Elizabeth May, Green Party leader, the prorogation reflected Harper’s confidence in the apathy of Canadians.
“Over 46 per cent of Canadians didn’t vote at the last election,” May said. “A big chunk of that was people under 25.”
Despite the statistical assumption that young people are apathetic when it comes to Canadian politics, a number of students participated in the rally.
“They still believe our generation doesn’t care, but look how many people showed up today,” said Lauren Ott, a first-year political science student at Carleton.
According to the Facebook group, the rally united Canadians in common outrage at Harper’s willingness to shut down Parliamentary debates until March 3.
“If parties can’t get together and talk about the issue, it’s just a one-party rule. That isn’t the democracy I asked for,” said Robert Dorey, a fourth-year history and English student at U of O who attended the rally.
New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton who was present at the rally said he was “thrilled” by the youth participation.
“The students want to take hold of their institutions and they want their say to be respected and recognized,” Layton said. “They understand that if you shut down dialogue and discussion and criticism and alternative points of view, then you’re standing in the way of developing solutions to the serious problems we’re discussing today.”
Since Harper announced his decision last December, prorogation has adopted negative implications among some Canadians.
Jill St. Germain, a Canadian history professor at Carleton, said prorogation exists in all parliaments as a legal option for the government to end the current session and wipe all business on the table, but is concerned about how it is being employed.
“The act itself is no revolutionary or problematic thing. The power to prorogue in itself is not the problem,” Germain said. “It’s the use of it . . . [for] avoiding questions.”