Thousands Protest Harper Shutting Down Parliament

Thousands of angry Canadians across the country joined rallies Saturday to Prime Minister, Stephen Harper's decision to suspend parliament.

As a conservative and, more importantly, a Canadian citizen, I'm not too happy about this myself. It was just when he did it to combat the "alliance" that former Liberal leader Stephane Dion made with the communist NDPs and separatist Bloc Quebecois, but this is a little bit different. Actually, this time it's a lot different. His critics (and many citizens) are questioning if Harper's reason is just so he can avoid questions on some of his policies. I may have to agree...slightly.

Mind you, the biggest crowds were in the liberal bastion of Toronto.

And having Jack Layton telling us about democracy and telling Harper that parliament is "not his house, it's the people's house," is first of all meaningless coming from him and second, it seems Layton can't even come up with his own line of chastising. Didn't Scott Brown say the same thing about the seat left behind by Ted Kennedy? (It's not Ted Kennedy's seat, it's the people's seat") And as for Michael Ignatieff, isn't he still too proud to be an American? ("It's my country, too")

But still, the prorouge this time around is a bit too un-democratic for my tastes.