Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament facebook over 100,000 members as polls show opposition to Harper decision

The Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament facebook group had reached 100,561 members shortly before three a.m. ET  Friday while two polls released Thursday showed that a majority of Canadians were opposed to Prime Minister Stephen Harper's decision to prorogue Parliament.

Also on Thursday, The Economist, a very respected magazine slammed Harper's decision asserting that he was counting on Canadians' complacency as he rewrites the rules of his country's politics to weaken legislative scrutiny.

I asked political actvist Colin Le Fevre to give his views on the Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament group reaching more than 100,000 members.  He cautions that simply joining a group is not enough to briing ablout change.

Here are his comments:

"I think the group has been absolutely successful in the fact that it has gained a huge number of members in such a short time, but we as a movement need to be weary of the numbers in terms of assuming we have a committed movement.

"It is very likely many people have visited the group once, joined, and feel their voice has been heard. They are unfortunately wrong. We have to be honest with ourselves here, no change is going to come from a large number of people in a Facebook group.

"We need to use the medium to mobilize people. If every person in that group writes their MP, or donates money or time to a political party, or attends a rally there will be significantly more influence from this group then from the group standing alone. But without people doing this, the Facebook group will be utterly useless.

"To summarize, we need people to act, not just join the group, if we want to make any successful change."
Here is link to Colin Le Fevre's web site: http://www.colinlefevre.ca/

Olli Matikainen explains why he joined the group and became involved. Olli is a former student of mine.

Here are Olli's comments.
"I heard about the Proroguing by Harper on CBC radio when it happened, and I was left wondering "why is the Canadian Parliament being again put out of commission?". When it happened a year ago, I was able to understand the logic used by Harper "to some degree"... I mean he was fighting for his political life, and was desperate to save his government... so while I don't agree with Harper's policies, I could understand the logic of proroguing a year ago.

:This time, the reason provided for proroguing strikes me as extremely lame (the government needs time to figure out the economic plan given that the economy seems to be improving???). This reinforces my impression that Harper is simply arrogant, and is not really interested in the voice of the people... he's got an agenda, and we're going to get it whether we like it or not.

"So when I saw your notes and comments on Facebook re. proroguing, it touched a nerve (in a good way!) and so I joined. While I don't consider myself a political junkie, I do pay attention to the "goings on" of the national government, and I'm quite fascinated in how the internet and Facebook provide a forum for the "average joe" to learn and contribute to Canada's politics."


Here is link to a poll taken by the Angus Reid group taken for the Toronto Star.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/747532--majority-condemn-harper-move-poll-finds?bn=1

Here is link to a poll taken by Ekos for CBC News.
http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2010/01/07/ekos-poll-prorogue.html

Here is link to article in The Economist.
http://www.economist.com/world/americas/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15211862&source=hptextfeature

Projects improve quality of life in Cranbrook in last decade

While the Citizens for a Livable Cranbrook Society, led by its president Sharon Cross, is my pick for the most significant news story of the past decade here, there are others that have helped define the community in a positive way.

Here is link to my earlier story on the success of the CLCS: http://michaeljmorrisreports.blogspot.com/2010/01/making-difference-in-cranbrook.html


And here are my picks for the others that made  a difference in the community in the past decade. To me at least, the following reflect efforts to make Cranbrook a better place to live and improve the quality of life for all citizens.

The new Cranbrook Public Library ranks high as the quality of a community's library says a lot about the place . It replaced a building that had long outlived itself and only the high quality of the library staff made it a place I enjoyed visiting. Approved in a referendum by both city and  Area C voters, the new library is a wonderful reource centre for all ages.

The volunteer Communities in Bloom Committee, headed by Patricia Adams, almost singlehandedly moved Cranbrook towards becoming a "blooming" place to live, rather than the "ugliest city in Canada" as it was referred to some years ago by a travel writer.

The "Refuge", a shelter for homeless men in the winter months, founded by the Kootenay Christian Fellowship, demonstrated positive action towards the less fortunate in the city. The KCF deserves great credit as they just shiowed  with an awful lot of faith that it could be done. Since then a shelter for women has been established by the Salvation Army.

The expansion of the East Kootenay Regional Hospital, and as result attracting more doctors, especially specialists here, despite criticism from other communities in the region that  lost or saw reduction in their hospital services, was a step in the right direction. It needs to be continued.

The Kootenay Ice winning the Memorial Cup had to be the biggest sports story of the past decade here. The late Ed Chynoweth moved the Western Hockey League team here from Edmonton just over a decade ago.

The expansion of the airport and renaming it the Kootenay Rockies International Airport was a significant booster to the regional economy as it comes to rely more on tourism related activities.

The reconstruction of Cranbrook Street (Highway 3) commonly referred to as "the Strip"  really enhanced the main road through the centre of the city, and resulted in a much needed facelift to many buildings along the street. The Communities in Bloom committee also played a very major role in beautifying the street.

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.