Senate Page Disrupts Throne Speech ~ A Page Outta Harper's Book?

Brigette Marcelle ~ AKA ~ 'Brigette Depape'

bravely gives up her job as a page in the Senate of Canada (AKA 'The Harper Senate of Harperland') to get out her simple message during the reading of Harperland's first Throne Speech!

Brigette Depape Holds a Sign which simply says:

STOP
HARPER

No Shrinking Violet, Marcelle (Depape) had a press release all ready to go:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Friday, June 3, 2011

" Senate Page disrupts throne speech and says "Harper's disastrous agenda needs to be stopped with creative action and civil disobedience".

Ottawa -- During the reading of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's throne speech today, a young page was yanked from the Senate Chamber as she tried to hold up a stop-sign placard reading "Stop Harper."

"Harper's agenda is disastrous for this country and for my generation," Brigette Marcelle says. "We have to stop him from wasting billions on fighter jets, military bases, and corporate tax cuts while cutting social programs and destroying the climate. Most people in this country know what we need are green jobs, better medicare, and a healthy environment for future generations."

Brigette Marcelle (aka Brigette DePape), 21 and a recent graduate from University of Ottawa, has been a page in the Senate for a year, but realized that working within parliament wouldn't stop Harper's agenda.

"Contrary to Harper's rhetoric, Conservative values are not in fact Canadian values. How could they be when 3 out of 4 eligible voters didn't even give their support to the Conservatives? But we will only be able to stop Harper's agenda if people of all ages and from all walks of life engage in creative actions and civil disobedience," she says.
"This country needs a Canadian version of an Arab Spring, a flowering of popular movements that demonstrate that real power to change things lies not with Harper but in the hands of the people, when we act together in our streets, neighbourhoods and workplaces." "

Trending in Canada as 'Stop Harper'
and as 'Brigette Marcelle' and both
ahead of 'Throne Speech'

Her opinion is a commonly held one and it is obvious that she is not alone in this protest. As I type this there are some 15 Facebook pages springing up and growing. Where will it end? I am not sure, but it is at least a heartening gesture on her part. Gee, I wonder what's on her mind? Or has she been reading mine? News spread quickly and ten minutes later it was a trending topic on Twitter in Canada and briefly in the world.
The campaign to stop Harper is not a new one as you will see from this 2008 video in which Rick Salutin describes Harper and his right winged views and his Tourettes-like habit of blurting out Right winged ideological rhetoric, his teflon and why, even though most of us fear him, he gets to sneak up the middle, by splitting the vote. He discusses the difficulties of strategic voting and the grassroots nature of the movement.

Jeremy Dyer Human Rights Activist

We have not had a young hero like Brigette Depape since Jeremy Dyer refused to shake Harper's hand in July of last year. He was protesting against Harper's duplicity and his arrogance. Harper had made a mockery of Human Right's and then helped open the Human Rights Museum in Winnipeg last July. Ryan, a young N.L. human rights activist was also invited to the event. Ryan had not agreed to meet Harper and when he found himself face to face with him, he used the opportunity to have his views heard.

“It was such a degrading experience. I felt so tokenized,” he said. “I feel like they took something so huge away from me that weekend. So huge.”

There is not a lot on the web that is directly attributed to Jeremy Dyer, but there is this lone comment on a blog by Montreal Simon that Jeremy left regarding the human rights of Omar Khadr.

This Video was shot from a concerned citizen's TV obviously. Sadly, CBC.ca and Evan Solomon do no share videos. It matters not that they are made using Taxpayer money, they simply do not share them. Neither does Evan Solomon share the intellect of the young Depape. He tries to shame her, she is not ashamed. Shame on you Evan, and the rest of the MSM who do not care about things as flippant as democracy, pay attention, you could learn a lot from Canadians who do care.



Of course these are early days in Harperland and this story will take a day or two to get a real handle on, but at least this shows that Canada still has a pulse. I can only hope it also means that Canadians are starting to suffer 'buyers remorse' for buying in to the Harperland experiment. I sure hope it does, please feel free to comment.

Afterthought: As I was pondering the confusion surrounding her name. The confusion was that at First it was reported as Brigitte Marcelle, then Brigette Marcelle and then a bit later as  Brigette DePape and also De Pape. After some digging I found this. It answers several questions or at least suggests that DePape is  her stage-name, and that in spite of the ramblings of the anonymous and right winged commenter below, that she is obviously ^NOT stupid. It is also obvious that she is ^NOT shy and ^NOT always quiet.  At least she is no longer anonymous!



I am tired of both Cowards and Cowardice. I suspect that Brigette DePape, or whatever she prefers to call herself, feels somewhat the same.
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A Beautiful Gesture ~ Nothing is Ever that Simple in Harperland

Yesterday, our Prime Minister made history (sort of) and became "One of the first", (according to CBC) whatever that means, leaders to visit Kalavryta, Greece which was the site of an horrendous war crime.  That in itself was an honourable gesture. It should have been left at that. There is no need to treat every photo opportunity as an avenue to sway public opinion at home, especially when that kind of 'for domestic consumption' only spin is so irrelevant to the gesture.  
The prime minister’s visit to Greece included some sombre moments on Sunday. Stephen Harper visited the town of Kalavryta, significant for its role in resisting the Ottoman Empire and later, German occupation during the Second World War. It is also the place where the grandfather of Dimitri Soudas, Harper’s director of communications, was executed by the Nazis along with nearly 700 other men and boys in 1943.

“It’s hard to believe Prime Minister Harper visited a town where, as a young boy each summer, I would visit my grandmother who would tell me all about what happened during the massacre of 1943,” Soudas said on the telephone from Athens. “Despite what happened she still managed to raise her three daughters, including my mother, without ever remarrying. She spent the next 64 years of her life wearing black.”

This is exactly the way that Harper would like this story to be remembered.  A young man visiting his home town and grieving a grandfather never met. I agree it is a sad story with an overriding message of compassion and humanity. It was a huge gesture, but was it done by a man who represents all that is good and compassionate about this country? I am ^NOT buying that last bit of it!


It was in actuality however, from Harper's point of view, much more a chance to generate some sympathy for Dimitri Soudas than a story of war crimes, and the pain of having to grapple with it. I really hate to say this, (Harper 's followers will scream that I supported German atrocities during WWII or some other such stupidity, as they often do) but anyone who knows the story of Dimitri Soudas, knows what I am talking about here. Soudas has been in hot water for a long while now over several very important issues, but like the will ^NOTS they are, these guys stick together.


First of all he was scheduled to speak before a House Committee in 2010, but was replaced at the last minute by John Baird, now the Minister of Foreign affairs, who went to the Committee to protect Soudas, more that to clarify his position. Soudas was subpoenaed at the time but was nowhere to be found. David Akin eventually tweeted that they were both on the same airplane, somewhere over China, if my memory serves me well. (apologies to Akin, if it does not) At any rate Baird was disrupting the committee back here in Canada, which was it's name pre Harperland.

"The days where you can call in 25-year-olds before this committee, to beat up staff who can’t defend themselves, are over,” Mr. Baird told the ethics committee."

Secondly, Soudas is in 'deep' for a little story (2007) that lay virtually dormant until it surfaced in January which was again pretty much suppressed (in 2007 and in February/March of this year) and only re-emerged just before the election was called. It had to do with the Montreal Port Authority  and their need for a new top man. It is alleged that Soudas tried to influence that decision.

But, as per usual, they circled the wagons, and before long a couple of Federal Ministers had stepped in, and then the Prime Minister chimed in, and when further allegations and evidence was introduced, Soudas was forced to deny it in person. It only seems fair to add that not everyone believed him, but of course nothing has come of it, at least not yet! These guys are Good, and like I said, in the very worst of ways.



Before you accuse me of being an insensitive jerk, I need to remind you that I have been following the career of Stephen Harper for well over a dozen years and I have become used to being desensitised by his incredible contempt for; me, you, Parliament,  the hard earned money of Canadian Taxpayer, House Committee members, the press, the truth, etc. etc. etc.

I try to be fair with them. I really do. I try to think well of them. I really do. I try to give them the benefit of  the doubt.

Well, actually that last one ended in 2006 with the Income Trust. It was the first hard lesson that I was forced to learn and the first time that Harper showed actual contempt for Canada. Keep it mind that it happened right after he teamed up with the NDP to get his first minority government. You remember them?  "The New Government" as Harper called them then. That was before "The Harper Government" and before "Harperland". It should have been a sign to us all then that he could not be trusted. It was after-all his very first opportunity to do damage. I was surprised mostly by just how quickly and unapologetically it happened.

My biggest and most persistent surprise has been how long it has taken this country to stop him. Have we lost our respect for respect? Do we now condone contempt? Five years later and we are still rewarding this most ingenuous man. Why?

So, with all due respect for the people of Greece, the entire Free world and anyone like myself who knows how long it takes to heal old wounds and injustices, I must still ask that you excuse me if I have been desensitised. No photo opportunity ever goes untapped, whether that purpose is hidden or not. I do my best to remain in possession of my humanity under a regime that does it's best to fake having maintained theirs. I do all right considering.

To read about and see the proof of Harper's record of contempt, see other posts in this Blog.  

An Afterthought: On many many occasions, Dimitri Soudas has reached Evan Solomon during the show power and politics on his Blackberry and given real time spin, while the guest being interviewed, usually a political opponent, waits as Evan shamelessly presents that still warm spin, to everyone in Canada.

To add to that insult, when Dimitri is on he tends to be alone, with no one to interrupt. Such power in the hands of a man who needs so much defending. Evan is often helpful to the powerful. It must be nice.

When was the last time you or anyone you know had even reasonable access to the press?

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