Three weeks ago, I was just a regular mom of four, doing whatever I could to get through this rough economic time. Today, I’m a political activist. The details of this transformation are kind of fuzzy, but in three short weeks as Simcoe Barrie’s C.A.P.P. (Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament) Coordinator, I came to realize that in the heart of every caring mother is an activist. All we need is a cause.

On the chilly afternoon of January 23^rd I told my fellow citizens in downtown Barrie that I took up the cause because we have a constitutional right to good government, and that a good government does not abandon its duties. A good person doesn’t either, and it is our duty to make sure that our constitutional rights are upheld. That is certainly true, but something else drove me more. In early December, my eldest son told me that he’d been offered a position in the Canadian Forces. Less than a week after I started planning the rally, I dropped him off for basic training.  My son is becoming a soldier, ready to fight for democracy worldwide. I was damned well going to make sure he has it at home.

The C.A.P.P. rally was so peaceful that the police complimented our conduct. That is, all but one Conservatively-aligned man, aged well into his 60s, who felt it necessary to exercise his freedom of speech at a greater volume than our speakers and musicians were exercising theirs. He even continued his loud and obnoxious rant after the National Anthem began to play. He tapered off around “…and all our sons command,” arguably because the media cameraman took the focus off him. This man personally insulted me when Erich Jacoby-Hawkins was talking about Afghan detainees, and he bellowed that our group was a bunch of terrorist-loving expletives that have no respect for our soldiers. I would like to assure that man that I have far more respect for my son than he did that day. The man’s shouts were more than disrespectful, they were disgraceful. It was not what he was saying, but the manner in which he went about saying it, modeling his behaviour after Stephen Harper’s caucus during question period. Many people addressed him, but he just kept shouting that he had a right to speak in public too.

I did my best to tune him out, and focus on the words of the speakers who I’d asked to come and share information and inspiration to the people rallying for democracy. I heard another rise in his voice, and turned. I saw a young man, not too far past voting age, politely asking this elderly man to stop because he was not being respectful to the speakers and the spectators. The old man kept yelling at him. The irony associated with this moment will forever be emblazoned in my mind. So many times I hear older people complain that the youth of today lacks respect, yet here was a young man diplomatically attempting to impress upon the old man the meaning of respect and appropriateness. I asked one of the other speakers standing near by if she had witnessed it, and she said, “Yes, I’ve been watching, the boy has said it at least five times.”

That old man who showed up with the goal of sabotaging that rally was at best inappropriate and disrespectful, and at worst, disgraceful, pathetic, and vile. The young man had come to help set up, tear down, and make sure everyone had what they needed when they needed it. The young man was my second son, Matthew. In the heart of every caring mother is an activist, because we have to give our children a world worth having, and we have to give our world children worth having it. Old man, I thank you for showing me that I’m doing a good job.