The Peterborough Examiner reports, “Brigette DePape was in Peterborough Tuesday night, speaking at Market Hall as part of an evening presented by the Council of Canadians. …She calls what she did ‘small’. But it got the country’s attention. In June, when the new Stephen Harper Conservative majority government was presenting its speech from the throne, DePape broke ranks with her fellow Senate pages and held up a sign reading Stop Harper. She was promptly removed and lost her job as a page, a coveted position for young Canadians that involves assisting MPs and senators in Ottawa.”
“She said she became a page to learn more about politics. ‘I was interested in a career as a politician or a lobbyist,’ said the 22-year-old Winnipeg native. ‘And I really thought that through our government, we were going to make change.’ Being a page meant she was privy to the inner workings of Parliament Hill and she enjoyed learning what she could, she said. But the election of a Conservative majority in May made her rethink the impartiality required by pages, she said, explaining that the Tories’ position on climate change, military spending and what she called a corporate agenda fuelled her decision to hold up the sign. ‘I knew I had to take action,’ she said. It cost her the job, but now she’s touring the country to talk about her decision.”
“‘She’s drawing attention to the corporate takeover of Canada and the world’, said John Etches of the Peterborough-Kawarthas chapter of the Council of Canadians.”
In June, the Council of Canadians hired DePape to write a paper on the importance of civil disobedience. In September, we launched that report ‘Thinking Outside the Ballot Box: How People Power Can Stop the Harper Agenda and Create Fundamental Change‘. The French-language version of the report – Sortir de l’urne éléctorale: Comment le pouvoir de la population peut contrer les plans de Stephen Harper et provoquer des changements fondamentaux – was launched in October. The report can be read in French at http://canadians.org/democracy/documents/OTBB-0911-F.pdf and in English http://canadians.org/democracy/.
To see photos and video from yesterday’s public forum in Peterborough, please go to http://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3354454.
