Xanthippa's Chamberpot

Yesterday, August 7th, there was a protest against Ontario’s illegal eco-taxes.  I have posted photos from it here and here.  These are some more photos from there, along with a bit more commentary.

The protest was held outside of the Ottawa constituency office of Bob Chiarelli, the Communications Minister in Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty’s government.

Aside from the speakers, whom you can see in part 1, there were other politician and/or would-be politicians.  Even a fellow blogger Blake Batson, was also there – hopefully, he’ll blog his impressions from the protest.

The Ottawa municipal elections are coming this October.  The current front-runner in the race for Mayor is Jim Watson:  a former mayor of Ottawa, who left to join Dalton McGuinty in Queen’s Park just prior to the ‘amalgamation’, where the malaise which had infected tho ‘old’ City of Ottawa under Watson’s reign was imposed on all the neighbouring municipalities as they were gobbled up into one entity.  Now that Bob Chiarelli became unelectable as Ottawa’s mayor, bodymaster McGuinty has swapped Bob and Jim’s roles…  This has certainly

not gone unnoticed, as Shirley Mosley clearly pointed out.

It had also brought out a number of candidates running for City of Ottawa Council in the upcoming elections.  (For ease of reference, here is the official list of all the declared candidates.)

This young man (right) with CFRA’s Rob Snow (left) is Leslie Saintilma, a very pleasant and intelligent guy (at least, that was the impression he left me with from the few minutes we chatted) who is running in Ward 10, Gloucester Southgate.

Interestingly enough, Ward 10, Gloucester Southgate, was represented by not one, but two candidates.  I did not get to chat with Wade Wallace (he was busy helping with Lisa McLeod’s volunteers), but I did snap a pic of him as he was being interviewed by Rogers, the local community channel:

Ward 7, better known as simply Bay Ward, was represented by the very pleasant GJ Hagenaars – whose wife and really cute young son also came (though the pic I took of them did not turn out – sorry).

It is likely I have missed some candidates who were there.  If I did, please, let me know and I’ll update the post with the info!

Still, the municipal candidates were not the only ones there!  Here, Ade Olumide, chair of OTAG (Ottawa Taxpayers’ Advocacy Group) can be seen talking to the gold-expert John Button (OK – I only got a bit of the back of Mr. Button’s head…).

Here is a better picture of John Button, as he was speaking.

Here is a shot of MPP Lisa McLeod, as she is being interviewed.

Talking about Lisa McLeod….  She did something I quite liked.

As is the case with many  ‘watermelons’ (green on the outside, red on the inside) who avoid discussing the merit of initiatives by resorting to ad hominem attacks on their critics, Dalton McGuinty attacked (or, in this case, got Dr. David Suzuki to attack) Lisa McLeod.  Ms. McLeod told the audience about the attack in a story in a newspaper (I didn’t catch the name of which one) which stated that her opposition to the illegal eco taxes meant that she was not ‘eco-friendly’.

Ms. McLeod turned that to her advantage, because sometimes, opposing illegal taxes only means one opposes illegal taxed (my wording). And, she proved it!  She brought a re-usable eco-friendly shopping bag (with her name emblazoned on it) for each and every one there!  As she spoke, a wave of volunteers began handing them out!

There were also some people wearing Lisa McLeod t-shirts who were collecting signatures on a petition against those hated eco-taxes:  apparently, they collected over 350 signatures on the petition at this one protest alone!

And the protest did have impact.  Not only had many more news people showed up for this one (as opposed to the July one)  here are a few people who were walking by and stopped to find out about the protest.

From the young:

to vets (left):

people of all walks of life had a  message for Dalton McGuinty and his government:

OK – here are some more shots:

Debbie and Shirley are planning the NEXT protest for August 28th 2010 at Dalton McGuinty’s Ottawa constituency office.  If you don’t like being taxed to death – legally and illegally – I’ll see you there!

UPDATE:  Blake Batson at PerspectivesOttawa has also posted photos from the protest – in the background of one of them is little old me!

The intro to this post is in part 1.

These are photos I took at the anti eco-fee demonstration today if front of Bob Charelli’s costituency office in Ottawa.   While not all the people there were wondering whether taxes ought to be voluntary, it does appear that many Ontarians have reached the breaking point and will simply not stand for any more taxes.

By the way – it was revealed that, among the protesters, were not just conservatives and libertarians:  a few card-carrying Liberals were noticed by their neighbours.  This does not bode well for the McGuingy gang….

Now, to the pictures:

While the above sign warns of ‘Liberal spies amongst us’, I do suspect that most of the Liberals there were in agreement with the protest – after all, even many Liberals opposed Premier McGuinty’s idea of permitting industry to levy taxes on the citizens of Ontario.  After all, ‘fascism’ is, by definition, the collusion of government with industry…

This young nman, however, self identified as being from Mr. McGuinty’s office:  and, until his batteries ran out, he did record the protest!

This protest also drew a lot of ‘political’ people – more photos and ‘who’ was there will be in part 3!

Today, yet again, hundreds of people protested the illegal taxes known as eco-fees which the Ontario Government plans to re-impose on the citizens in October 2010.  (Photos from the July demonstration can be found here and here.)

The protest was organized by two local citizens:  Shirley Mosley and Debbie Jodoin.  They are the ones who took out the permits, the ones who promoted the demonstration by phoning call-in radio shows (especially Lowell Green’s Island of Sanity on CFRA).

These ladies (and I do mean ‘ladies’ as a term of high respect:  women who are leaders) are private citizens.  These protests are not your standard ‘load up all the union-members who want to keep their jobs, give them these pre-printed protest signs and make sure they look enthusiastic, or it’s off to the unemployment line for them next week’ kind of protests.

No.

These citizen activists have taken it upon themselves to do something against the lies and ever-increasing taxation levels emanating  from the Liberal Government of Ontario, its Premier, Dalton McGuinty (or was that McGuilty?) and its Communications minister, Bob Chiarelli.

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.  So, please, turn your word-counter off, because here come some pictures from the demonstration!

Debbie Jodoin:

Shirley Mosley:

And, they had quite a lineup of speakers!

I’ll go in sequential order (though, Debbie and Shireley also spoke in-between the other speakers):

OK – I’ll admit it:  I was late and did not catch the name of this speaker from the Canadian Taxpayers’ Association.  Is someone would, please, comment with his name, I’ll update this and, hopefully, do a bit of face-saving….  My apologies!

Here he is later, talking to the crowd:

Janet Jackson Beth Graham, the Conservative candidate who challenged Bob Chiarelli in the by-election that brought Bob back into a McGuinty Cabinet:

Lisa McLeod, the Ontario Conservative MPP for the Nepean-Carleton and someone who’s making me think that my initial assessment of her was too hasty – the more I see, the more I like her:

Rob Snow, the popular CFRA radio show-host and a bit of a local celebrity (he was at the first demonstration, too):

There was nothing subtle about Mr. Rob Snow:  he is a most awesome rabble-rouser!  And, he is an excellent speaker!  To the point!  He said – among other things –  ‘We can’t do much worse than these Liberals!’

Well said.

Mr. Snow also brought greetings and words of support from the legenday broadcaster, Lowell Green, who would have come had he not been on holidays out of town.  And, he also brought greetings from Nick Vandergragt, who is also a CFRA radio host and is currently filling in for Lowell Green.  Mr. Snow told us that Mr. Vandergragt would have lved to attend the show, but could not:  today was his wife’s birthday, and, had he abandoned her to go to the protest, she threatened to vote Liberal in the next election….  I think we all understand and appreciate Mr. Vandergragt’s sacrifice!

Last – but not least – was another CFRA legend and financial guru, Mr. John Button:

With his expertise in finance and economics, Mr. Button explained the effect this unreasonable (and in my never-humble-opinion illegal) taxation is having on the economy and the real human price which is being paid for it, especially by Ontario seniors.  Regarding the Ontario Liberals, Mr. Button gave us advice above gold:  ‘Reduce taxes!’ and ‘Throw the bums out!’

Well said!

More pictures to follow in part 2.