Christopher White calls CAPP members "vocal majority" as rallies planned for January 23 across Canada

Christopher White, the founder of the Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament (CAPP) group on Facebook which is changing the way politics is done in Canada refers to his 201,000 plus members as the "vocal majority" as it prepares for rallies across Canada on January 23.

"Now we, the vocal majority, find ourselves to be the new power brokers in Ottawa. With rallies planned across Canada on January 23rd, all eyes will be on us,"  Mr White says in an article he wrote for http://rabble.ca/ today.  "We are not, as the traditional thinking goes, an apathetic people. We care deeply about our country, but for too long the increasing cracks in our political system have made it seem beyond repair, leaving people feeling frustrated and disempowered. Finally, we have an issue that unites us, one that we can wrap our heads around while keeping an eye on the eventual end game."

He explains that after Stephen Harper, the prime minister, prorogued Patliament, he started the Facebook group,  "with the simple idea of getting Canadians to write to their Members of Parliament and asking them to return to the Hill on January 25th, the day the session was set to resume. Honestly, I didn't actually think it would work.. .. My action, however, has snowballed into a movement encompassing Canadians from across the country and the political spectrum."

Referring to the upcoming rallies on January 23, Mr. White says "The upcoming rallies are not the culmination of our efforts, they are the beginning. Let's start with prorogation and use our inevitable success to push for greater reforms, ones that ensure that our government is accountable, transparent, and responsive to the demands of the electorate..."


You can read Mr. White's complete article at http://rabble.ca/
Thanks Chris for permittng  me to use quotes from your article to share with my readers.. mjm
Christopher White is a graduate student in Anthropology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. He started the Facebook group Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament, which now boasts moire than 201,000  members and is growing by the minute.

CAPP group heads to 'tipping point'

I've been everywhere today to borrow from a song by Stomping Tom Connors, from coast to coast to coast in this vast and magnificent land, reflecting on the display of unity being displayed among the members of the Canadians Against Proroguing Parliaament (CAPP) group on Facebook. When I last looked, the membership had passed 192,000 but it grows by the minute. On January 5, when I first wrote about it the membership was 26,000.

Quite frankly, no matter the end practical result of the efforts of the members of the group founded by Christopher White, a graduate student at the University of Alberta, to force Stephen Harper, the prime minister, to reverse his decision on proroguing Parliament until March 3, the proverbial geni is out of the bottle.

The power of the Internet to bring people from all parts of this country together in common cause on an issue is now a reality in Canadian life. At the risk of using too many metaphors, Chris White and his group are a game changer, (I taught too many English literature courses.)

To understand a little  better what's happening out there, I reviewed the statistics on my blog, Michael J  Morris reports, and while they are anecdotal, they reveal that Canadians from large and small communities, and from all regions are interested in the prorogation issue.

Visitors to my blog since January 5 when I started tracking the CAPP story have come from 58 regions in 21 countries but 91 per cent are from Canada, and from 371 different cities, over 90 percent in Canada. In the same time period, 83 percent of site visitors came from Facebook.

According to my stats compiled by web-stat.com, the top 10 regions in order are Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec, Alberta, California, Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador. Yes, California!

The top 10 cities are Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Sudbury, Montreal, Victoria, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Hamilton and London - reasonably close reflection of Canada's largest population centres. Interestingly, Calgary is not in the top ten.

Back to Stomping Tom and I've been everywhere for a moment. I was most interested in the reuslts from smaller communities so here are some randomly selected communities where people are interested in the prorogation issue and have visited my blog: Yellowknife, Nanaimo, Trail, Vernon, Victoria, Kelowna, Prince George, Medicine Hat, Lethbridge, Okotoks, Red Deer, Spruce Grove, Regina, Saskatoon, Meadow Lake, Selkirk, White River, Omemee, Barrie, Timmins, Minden, Flesherton, Whitby, Kitchener, Kingston, Quebec City, Pincourt, Gatineau, Repentigny, Fredericton, Moncton, Miramichi, Sydney, Halifax, Dartmouth, Charlottetown, St. John's and Burin. Just a sampler. They also came from about another 300 Canadian communities.

Five of the top 10 posts on my blog are related to the prorogation issue.

Of course, all the above is strictly anecdotal in nature but it sure shows the interest when Canadians from coast to coast to coast will take the time to visit one small web site, not associated with any major media group in the country.

And these Canadians are communicating with each other, on the CAPP facebook group, sharing ideas and information one with the other, 24/7, in one huge national talking place. It is amazing to behold.

Malcolm Gladwell tells us that the "tipping point"  happens when momentum for change becomes unstoppable.

If CAPP continues its momentum, can the tipping point be far away?

Email me at mj.morris@live.ca

Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament facebook group passes 70,000 members as grassroots anger with Harper continues

UPDATE AT 10:45 P.M. ET  The Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament group has passed 76,000 members.


The facebook group Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament reached 70,000 members at about 5:40 p.m. ET today as Canadians continue to express their anger with Prime Minister Stephen Harper's decision to prorogue Parliament.

The total number of members on five groups I have been monitoring stood at 98,084 at 5:40 p.m. ET today,  well within reach of 100.000 shortly as each continues to grow but at a slower rate than Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament. This group had 26,460 members at 9:45 a.m. Monday.

Posts on all the groups continue to express their anger with the prime minister's decision to prorogue Parliament until March 3, instead of having MPs and Senators return on January 25.

In related news, last night the Liberal Party announced that its MPs and Senators will return to work on January 25.

An indication of the interest in the grassroots protest movement centred on facebook groups my blog, Michael J  Morris reports, has seen its highest daily traffic since I started it just over a year ago with my posts on the issue of prorogation. My stats show that visitors are coming from all regions of Canada, including the territories as well as from the United States and other countries.