My First Protest Since my Return

Maybe it was the feeling of seclusion, being trapped in the suburbs 'till I can find a job and place to live downtown, or maybe it was a desperate need to get back into my activist boots after a paltry two month sabbatical, but my reasons for attending the Keep Transit Public rally were more than just my belief in the cause.

Let's get the details in first: Vancouver has a convoluted (but still partially responsible to the public) board that manages the transit infrastructure (trains, buses and roads) in and around the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD). This board suffers from a lot of the same issues that Toronto runs into in that it's mostly made up of the mayors of all the cities & towns inside the GVRD, so no one can agree where to spend the money. The burbs want more roads and buses, the urban centres want more trains, narrow roads. Nothing gets done and a lot of money is spent. People are mad.

So the BC government, in it's usual cowardice, had decided to abdicate even more of its responsibility and redesign the system to use a hybrid multi-mayor board with a bunch of unelected, unaccountable private business groups who can apparently be trusted to "see the big picture" and not wreck the city for their own interests.

At best, this kind of plan is either stupid or naive. At worst, it's a bunch of rich capitalist politicians scrubbing the backs of their rich friends... and Vancouver will be stuck with the result.

So I went to the protest. I didn't expect much to come of it of course because we are sitting with a majority government and the Liberals here will get whatever they please. It was much like any other small rally (<100 people) but for some reason, it would appear that the wingnuts were the only ones yelling. One moron was shouting "this is Fascist" every few minutes -- though he clearly knew nothing about Fascism. The speakers were their usual overplayed selves (as appears to be the norm with most rallies) and in my own observations of the crowd, I found myself asking a scary question: "It's been 6years... have I become a moderate already?".

I had to check myself to be sure that my ideals were still there: yep, all good, I was just surrounded by wingnuts.

Don't get me wrong, their hearts are definitely in the right place. Bill 43 is a terrible plan and sure to do all the wrong things (though probably a few right things as well) in this province. I just didn't feel like they were being effective and that's the opposite of what I want.