It’s one thing to click the like button on Facebook, but quite another to show up in person for a Canada-first, anti-immigration rally on Parliament Hill.
The Mounties and Hill security didn’t need to set up all the extra barriers on Saturday because only 100 people showed up, or about 900 fewer than organizers had expected.
It would have been easy for Dan Dubois to blame the lousy turnout on the 31 C heat, but he didn’t.
“I’m disappointed. The response on social media seemed bigger,” said Dubois, the 58-year-old national president of the Canadian Combat Coalition, or C3 as the self-described Canadian patriots call it. “I was expecting 1,000. Canadians are complacent. No wonder Canada is going down the tubes.”
Dubois, standing on a platform made of three wooden skids as he addressed the small anti-immigration, anti-Justin Trudeau crowd, said it was the most “multicultural bunch of racists I’ve ever seen.”
The biggest hurdle for Dubois’ group is to strip itself from any racist links because the Ontario francophone from Sudbury insists his party is anti-racist.
Dubois warned the sparse crowd on the Hill that the “mainstream media” would do its best to cast them “as a bunch of racists.”
Dubois noted that while the crowd was small, it included all walks of life and cultures, including Hindu, Pakistani, First Nations and Chinese.
The rally was held to complain about mass immigration and the Trudeau government. During his speech, Dubois called on the government to stop giving tax money to people “who hate us” and to close the borders, and he equated mass immigration to cultural suicide, referencing Canada’s crimes against its Indigenous people.
He drew the most applause when he called Trudeau a pervert and demanded that he stop groping women.
Dubois also called for an end to child slavery and honour killings, and said immigrants should abide by Canadian laws and values.
There were no clashes because almost no counter-protesters showed up. In fact, there were more tourists than protesters.
The loudest protester was a man who stormed around waving a Canadian flag, screaming that all of this was “my country.”
Nick Blanche, 35, was one of the men acting as security for the rally. “Some of us are a little more conservative in this movement. I think we should close the borders a bit more because (mass immigration) is messing up our country.”
Stephen Garvey, leader of the National Citizens Alliance, also spoke at the rally in the hope of expanding the Calgary-based pro-Canada, anti-globalist party that, in its own words, wants to restore the country’s traditional heritage, culture and values.
Garvey said he founded the Canada-first political party in the hope of saving the country from corruption, big government, taxes and mass immigration.
Dozens of tourists took photographs of the far-right participants, many waving Canadian and Quebec flags.
Some supporters identified themselves as Soliders of Odin and others were seen wearing Storm Alliance garb.
Members of the ultranationalist, men-only anti-immigrant group Northern Guard also attended the peaceful rally in full colours.
- IMMIGRATION
- RALLY
