Pro-Coalition Rallies

So I was thinking the last 3 days about going to the pro-coalition rally tonight in Vancouver, I has somewhat hesitant as I am not really the protest or rally type. I was kind of worried it would just be a smallish group on the side of the street and it might be somewhat uncomfortable. But after the events of today, I felt compelled. Boy was I wrong, the rally was Huge, it was at the Canada Place the Vancouver convention building, inside the huge ballrooms. The rooms were packed and had reached capacity so hundreds were left outside when the speeches started. The rally was also very well organized, with huge video screens, big “Coalition for Canada” banners, a huge Canada flag and a band playing. Lot of people wearing Canada flags and other stuff. And everyone was given “Coalition Yes/Qui” signs.

I was also surprised as to the makeup of the crowd, I kind of expected a bunch of young people, it was anything but. I was standing with a group of people over 60. There were speeches from Vancouver councillors, and people from the Liberal and NDP parties as well as recorded speeches from Layton and Dion.

The crowd was very lively and all the speakers brought up Harpers tactics of divisive politics, trying to pit groups vs each other. vs Quebec, east vs west and so on. Whenever this was brought up it was the thing that got the crowd the most vocal, I could tell that one lady near me was from Quebec, she was really upset.

It was defiantly an interesting experience and nothing what I had expected.

I keep forgetting I have a blog, should have posted this there.

Watching CTV Newsnet news right now, they have anti-coalition rally in Alberta on the news with less than a hundred people and nothing about a huge rally like the one in Vancouver with way more people. Instead for there pro-coaltion footage they show 2 people on a street corner somwhere... seems somewhat biased to me. I usauly find CTV very balanced.

UPDATE
ok now on the actual newshour, they have the big rally in Ottawa.