The Grey Hair & Blue Rinse Crowd Take to the Field

We're here, maybe not queer, but you are going to have to live with it.

I attended the local "Defend Our Coast" rally this week outside our local MLA's office.   It wasn't a protest directed at the MLA but a demonstration of our views and determination to stop bitumen trafficking on the British Columbia coast.

Even for my little town we got out better than 200-people, a damned fine showing given it was in the middle of the work week.  I mingled with the crowd and was struck by their commitment to seeing this stopped - entirely and for good.   This anger was coming from the Grey Hair & Blue Rinse crowd, not normally known for activism.   Yet there was this palpable sense that this was different, this time there was a line in the sand that was not going to be crossed.  

Imagine the optics of busloads of Geezers'n Grannies being hauled off to jails by Harper's minions.   Masses of lifetime law-abiding citizens standing up and silently saying "enough, no more, this ends here."

It was encouraging to read an item from Le Monde about the role being played by Spanish grannies and grandads where the "abuelos" are said to have 'emerged as a pillar of strength in a faltering society.'

And we may just have a surprise in store for Stephen Harper, one he probably dreads.   We may be able to seize the narrative this time.  Harper and Redford and Big Oil can howl that we're obstructing progress, impairing the national interest.   Yawn.  We can counter that this is really about defending our coast against the demonstrated and extensive perfidy of the Tar Sanders and their minions.   Harper's record of gutting our environmental protections, firing our defenders and monitors, 'fixing' the environmental review mechanisms let us take the narrative from him.

That's why we'll show up and keep showing up - not to obstruct something but to defend something, something that is ours alone.  That's the sort of thing the Grey Hair & Blue Rinse crowd can get behind.