Page disrupts Throne Speech with unprecedented protest

[Feilan]

She shoots! She scores!

Imagine the scene in the pmo after hours? It looked something like this:

Deeeee-licious.



steve-o = PWND.

p.s.(Clarification:...as of 1947's passage of the citizenship act in our house we ceased to be citizens of Britain. [though... it was not until '77 that the phrase "citizen of Britain" was removed from our passports. The designation 'Canadian' became a primary requirement of citizenship - meaning Brit's could no longer claim Canadian citizenship as a bonus for being a Brit on Canadian soil.] So anyway, no, not a crown colony by any meaningful definition.)

timeline

[Stephen Morgan]

She was fired.

Disobedience is rarely advantageous in a work environment. Or so I hear.

[Jeff]

The first reports said Parliament Hill security had removed a page for a "medical reason." Because not knowing the right time and place to protest is a manifestation of mental illness, I suppose.

Sample commentary from our conservative media:

Sometimes revolutions are good, or at least — even with all their excesses — necessary. But surely most would agree that only in the most dire of circumstances would the uncertainty and potential for widespread opportunistic violence that follows revolutions be preferable to the status quo. To the overwhelming majority of Canadians, the election of a majority Conservative government probably isn’t quite worth throwing the nation into chaos. That Ms. DePape is not one of them tells us all we need to know about how seriously we should take her statement.

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/201 ... -damascus/

[Jeff]

She was fired.

Disobedience is rarely advantageous in a work environment. Or so I hear.

Well - that depends.

Speaker of the Senate Noel Kinsella said in a statement that he deplored DePape's actions, "which constituted a contempt of Parliament."

She lost her job. I'm sure she expected to.

Meanwhile,

On Friday March 25, 2011 the Canadian House of Commons found Prime Minister Stephen Harper guilty of contempt of Parliament. According to parliamentary law, contempt of parliament is a federal crime. Being that Harper has been found guilty of a crime Harper is barred from seeking re-election on May 2, 2011. No federal government or cabinet minister has ever been found in contempt before.

He kept his, and even received a promotion.

[elfismiles]

"You Go Girl!"

Bridgette Marcelle / Bridgette Marcelle / Bridgette Marcelle

Matt Gurney: While rogue page calls for a Canadian Spring, dozens die in Damascus
Matt Gurney Jun 3, 2011 – 9:39 PM ET


Chris Wattie/Reuters - DePape probably doesn't intend violence in the streets, but that's what a "Canadian Spring" would mean.

Today, I liveblogged the Throne Speech while watching the feed on CBC NewsNet, and due to the CBC’s camera angles, didn’t see Bridgette DePape (a.k.a. Bridgette Marcelle) approach the Prime Minister and Governor General and hold up her “Stop Harper” sign. I found out about it via Twitter, as both reporters and government officials in the Senate reported the rare protest during a major speech. Indeed, it wasn’t until after the speech had concluded that I (and the rest of Canada) learned more about Ms. DePape, who helpfully released a press statement (with her phone number) even before she’d been escorted from Parliament in her newly unemployed state.

In her statement, she called for a Canadian version of the Arab Spring. As that pearl of wisdom reached me, via both online and televised mediums almost simultaneously, I couldn’t help but note the irony of Ms. DePape’s statement. Exactly while I was reading her call for a Canadian Spring, CBC was providing a news update from the Middle East. Today’s stories: Dozens killed as violence continues to flare across the region.

That’s not to say that Ms. DePape wishes to see violence on the streets of Ottawa, Toronto or Edmonton, of course. No doubt she much prefers the peaceful kind of popular revolution, with hippies placing daisies in gun barrels and the like. But it does speak to the mindset of those so wildly opposed to right-wing parties winning power that they consider almost any price worth opposing the Harper agenda — including, apparently, chaos and anarchy.

Just look at the news coming out of the Middle East today. In Damascus, Syrian troops opened fire on protesters emerging from evening prayers in Damascus, killing at least 34. In Yemen, rebels of unknown affiliation attacked the Presidential Palace, wounding both the Yemeni President and Prime Minister (with as-yet unknown collateral casualties). This might not be the kind of people’s revolution that Ms. DePape would herself choose for Canada, but it is how nearly all revolutions end up eventually. Even the French Revolution, which gave us many of the building blocks of our modern civilization, had its own terrors. The guilotine did not become a commonly used implement amidst the stability of the monarchy.

Sometimes revolutions are good, or at least — even with all their excesses — necessary. But surely most would agree that only in the most dire of circumstances would the uncertainty and potential for widespread opportunistic violence that follows revolutions be preferable to the status quo. To the overwhelming majority of Canadians, the election of a majority Conservative government probably isn’t quite worth throwing the nation into chaos. That Ms. DePape is not one of them tells us all we need to know about how seriously we should take her statement.

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/201 ... -damascus/

[elfismiles]

[2012 Countdown]

So her contract was up soon, and if she were going to do this ever, now was the time. I only wished when at 21 I was politically aware enough to do something like this if I saw fit. At that age and opportunity, she saw the chance and took it.
If she plays this out, she could have a future in politics. The rabble love a rouser, and her statements/resasoning in regard to the stunt is effective and compelling.
She's got the 'it' factor, I see a potential future star in politics.

'"Not only is protesting important, it is our fundamental right," she wrote.'

The conservative dismissal of her actions as unserious and silly is just as hollow as this bed wetting response "The incident raises serious security concerns, which the Senate will fully investigate," the statement said."
No doubt all future pages should expect to be tasered if they pull this stunt.

[Jeff]

If she plays this out, she could have a future in politics. The rabble love a rouser, and her statements/resasoning in regard to the stunt is effective and compelling.

"In fact, the buzz on social networking site Twitter was largely positive, and DePape appeared to have a job offer from someone at the Public Service Alliance of Canada before the day was done."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadi ... Id=7046238

Some professional reactions from the same link (not including cabinet minister Jason Kenney's "some lefty kook"):

Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett called it "an abuse of parliamentary privilege. There's lots of room for that out on the lawn, or whatever."

Liberal MP Justin Trudeau said DePape had stepped on the "sense of respect and decorum" that goes with a throne speech and he'd rather the protest hadn't happened.

Green party Leader Elizabeth May lauded DePape for her bravery but suggested that by interrupting the Governor General she'd used it in the wrong venue. "Essentially, in theory, we're in the presence of Her Majesty, that is the sovereign. That isn't Stephen Harper's room. That's somebody else's room."

[crikkett]

"... in theory, we're in the presence of Her Majesty, that is the sovereign. That isn't Stephen Harper's room. That's somebody else's room."

Well, that's not only make-believe, but as perfect room as any from which to call for stopping Harper.

Way to go Brigette!

(PS doesn't it look like her eyes changed color?)

[Canadian_watcher]

She was fired.

Disobedience is rarely advantageous in a work environment. Or so I hear.

Well - that depends.

Speaker of the Senate Noel Kinsella said in a statement that he deplored DePape's actions, "which constituted a contempt of Parliament."

She lost her job. I'm sure she expected to.

Meanwhile,

On Friday March 25, 2011 the Canadian House of Commons found Prime Minister Stephen Harper guilty of contempt of Parliament. According to parliamentary law, contempt of parliament is a federal crime. Being that Harper has been found guilty of a crime Harper is barred from seeking re-election on May 2, 2011. No federal government or cabinet minister has ever been found in contempt before.

He kept his, and even received a promotion.

exactly. this is what the world has come to: us and them. and we'll never be them.

[JackRiddler]

Matt Gurney: While rogue page calls for a Canadian Spring, dozens die in Damascus
Matt Gurney Jun 3, 2011 – 9:39 PM ET


Chris Wattie/Reuters - DePape probably doesn't intend violence in the streets, but that's what a "Canadian Spring" would mean.

[ETC ETC]

So let's translate that.

Matt Gurney: Harper will order you all to be gunned down in the street! He's the Canadian Assad!

Canada is Syria! Don't delude yourselves, if you intend to hold strikes or camp out for social justice. The well-armed Canadian security forces will faithfully carry out orders to shoot dead the whole lot of you unarmed rabble! The survivors will be rounded up and tortured, and forced to renounce their insubordination in televised confessions. And it will all be your fault for secretly desiring chaos, whatever your hippie peace rhetoric. Better just stay home, okay?

Finally, someone who tells it like it is?

.

[Jeff]

Well, she was in Toronto for the same G20 as the officer who said "This ain’t Canada right now. There are no civil rights here." So it's a mistake more people should be making.

And yeah, media: "Arab Spring" refers to peaceful, civil disobedience, not the helter skelter of regime violence.

[MacCruiskeen]

Canada is Syria! Don't delude yourselves, if you intend to hold strikes or camp out for social justice. The well-armed Canadian security forces will faithfully carry out orders to shoot dead the whole lot of you unarmed rabble!

...just like the well-armed British security forces. This girl's bravery, and the predictable response to it by the powerworshippers, reminds me of the 21-year-old Bernadette Devlin slapping British home secretary Reginald Maudling's face in Parliament after he had lied shamelessly about Bloody Sunday (and after the Speaker had refused to allow her to speak, even though she was the only MP who had been an actual eyewitness to that massacre).









Why are so many of the best people women?

[Jeff]

Performing from her self-penned, critically acclaimed play, She Rules with Iron Stix, Brigette DePape asks whether art is an escape from real world problems or part of their solution.

A playwright since the age of 15, and a third year international development student who has contributed to sustainable development projects in Senegal and Bosnia, DePape explores the possibility of new worlds: changing our actual world through activism vs. creating new worlds through fiction. She attempts to reconcile responsibility and creativity, suggesting that plays can be a powerful tool for cultural change.

Presented at TEDxYouthOttawa on March 4, 2010 at Ashbury College in Ottawa, Canada.

[Nordic]

wow, i've gone from adoring her as this spunky cute kid, to feeling horribly inadequate compared to her. she kind of shames the rest of us!!

not to be negative, but ... wow.

i hope her parents are as proud of her as i would be if she was my daughter.