Here you will find our recent activities, protests and actions.
Grannies hold Nuclear Tea Party to warn of planned nuclear waste dump near Ottawa River
Very few people in Ottawa are aware that a nuclear waste dump, 9 stories high and 100 football fields in width is going to be built in Chalk River, near the Ottawa River. The Grannies want to sound the alarm. Ottawa’s water supply is threatened.
So the Grannies, along with Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County set up a tea party, complete with goodies, ice tea and hot tea to attract people to come and learn about this huge dump of nuclear waste to be covered in plastic and placed near the Ottawa River. Check out the video. Get more info at www.concernedcitizens.net.
Ottawa Grans at National Day of Protest against Bill C-51
A large, energetic crowd of around 1000 came out to protest Bill C-51, the so-called “anti-terrorism” bill that will virtually bring the secret police and wide suppression of peaceful protest to Canada. The Raging Grannies were there to sing about the bill and were asked to sing it again. Check out the video and check out the words.
A Plea for Toilets in the LRT Stations.
The Ottawa Raging Grannies came out in numbers to a meeting of the City Environment Committee where the budget was being discussed. Our purpose was to sing in favour of public toilets in the new LRT stations. We are concerned with the cost of retrofitting the LRT stations with toilets, since it is much cheaper to do it right the first time.
Our main purpose was to address the environmental cost of a lack of public toilets. As Granny Ria Heynen, stated: “I frequently use the bus transit station at Lincoln Fields. The smell in both the elevators is overwhelming. With no public toilet, these locations are toilet substitutes. How unpleasant and unsanitary!”
We came out in support of the local Gotta Go! Campaign (ottawapublictoilets.ca) that is lobbying for a network of public toilets throughout the nation’s capital. For aging Grannies, as well as those suffering from colitis and celiac disease, having frequent access to toilets is critical – not to mention pregnant women, small children, patrons of downtown pubs or fans attending a game. As Cathleen Kneen notes, “We are trying to persuade the public to use transit, but without toilets in the stations, many of these people will not use the transit system for fear of being caught short.”
Granny Linda Green adds, “The LRT end stations are not the only ones that need toilets. I might be in transit for up to an hour before I arrive at a LRT station such as Hurdman by bus. Then what do I do?” Failing to plan and budget for toilets in the LRT would be a serious, and costly, error.
We said all that and we said it in song! Check out the video. Check out the words.
Ottawa Grans infiltrate Canadian Club lunch where President of Energy East Pipeline was speaking.
Armed with two banners and four tickets at $40 each (senior rate), members of the Ottawa Raging Grannies infiltrated a Canadian Club lunch where the corporate group gathered to hear the President of Energy East, Francois Poirer, praise the pipeline. The grannies wanted to bring a different message to the crowd and to the press. During his speech, Grannies Bessa, Gale, Jo and Ria stood, unfurled banners smuggled inside their purses, and walked silently to stand in front of the speaker. The banners said “You can’t drink oil” and “Stop Energy East”. While the business-oriented audience moaned and groaned about the protest, it received a good deal of media coverage. (Vancouver Observer. Ottawa Citizen) Thanks to Ecology Ottawa in supporting this event with publicity and by sending in two volunteers to do the filming. See a short video of the protest.
Ottawa Raging Grannies join environmental groups in Energy East Pipeline protest.
The Premiers meeting in the Delta Hotel was too much to resist as a venue for protesting the Ottawa East Pipeline, particularly making the point that the Elephant in the Room is climate change. Along with Ecology Ottawa, Council of Canadians, Greenpeace Canada and 350.org, we turned up with a large elephant and elephant signs. Bessa, Gale, Jo, Leslie Anne, Linda, Martha, Pat, Ria, and Terrie all braved the windy, cold day to hold our signs and sing two songs created just for the occassion: “There’s an elephant in the room” and “The elephant in the room.” The titles are similar, but the content is not.
We were asked to leave the washroom in the Delta Hotel, where we were donning our skirts and hats and rehearsing our songs about climate change being ignored by the Premiers meeting upstairs. We found police waiting to escort us outside. We felt pretty important and dangerous.
Ottawa Grans at Climate Justice Fast
For the third year, a group of activists have fasted on Parliament Hill while engaging in conversations with MPs and others on the importance of climate change action. Check them out at climatefast.ca/.
This year, the Ottawa Raging Grannies came to show support and sing about pipelines. We were holding a garden hose with a sign that said “This pipeline is too big!! You can’t drink oil.”
A monument has popped up on the Supreme Court grounds
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- Front of Harper’s Bus
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- A view of Harper’s Bus
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- Side of Harper’s Bus
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- Back of Harper’s Bus
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- A few of the victims.
OTTAWA : 11 am, 26 September, 2014, Grounds of the Supreme Court of Canada
The Ottawa Raging Grannies have constructed a monument to all victims “thrown under the bus” by the Harper government. The large blue cardboard bus is labelled Monument to the Victims of C, and popped up near the proposed site of a monument to the Victims of Communism.
A sign next to the bus read “Dedicated to all the victims thrown under the Harper bus.” The bus, driven by Stephen Harper, had an “Out of Service” sign on the front, and the license plate read “Oil #1”. Victims’ feet extended from under it, with toe tags identifying them. Some of the victims identified were Veterans, Environmental Protection, CBC, Democracy, Native Women. But there were many more. According to Cathleen Kneen, one of the Grannies, “We had so many victims that sadly we couldn’t include them all in our monument. In fact, we made a decision not to use names of individual victims such as Nigel Wright, because the list is so long.”
The Grannies built the monument for two reasons:
First, they hope it will remind Canadians of the many, many victims thrown under the bus by Harper. “The number is overwhelming,” said Raging Granny Ria Heynen. “As we identified Harper’s victims, we were saddened by how many of them are highly valued by Canadians. We hope people will not forget them when it comes time for the next election.”
Second, the Grannies hope that their prototype monument will inspire abandonment of the Harper government’s plan for a Monument to the Victims of Communism in the Supreme Court precincts, instead of the planned third building for the Federal Court. This proposed monument has a price tag of four million dollars, and would greatly detract from the symbolic importance of the site, not to mention the irony of building such a monument after signing a free-trade agreement with China.
People’s Climate March — Ottawa Photo Op
The Ottawa Raging Grannies did more than just show up for the Parliament Hill Rally to provide supporting photos from around the world to be shown in New York during the major People’s Climate Events. We came with a great sing-along song, “Bring Back Our Planet to Me” and the crowd loved it. Check out the words and our video.
Ottawa Grans at the Unconvention in Montreal
June 25-28, 2014
Congratulations to the Montreal Raging Grannies on a great unconvention! Ten of us attended: Bessa, Gale, Jane, Jeanette, Jo, Linda, Loris, Ria, Siobhan, and Virginia.
We put on a well-received workshop on poster making in which participants made posters for the march involving all the Grannies.
Our contribution to the “Show and Tell” raised the roof when we drummed in to “When the Grans Come Marching In” followed by the Corporation Song, then drumming ourselves out with “Here We Come”. We even made the front page of Le Devoir!
And the great evening event was a showing of “Granny Power“, the film long in the making but worth the wait.
Protest against secrecy and the TPP
On July 10, the Ottawa Grans attended a hastily called demonstration by SumOfUs. Negotiators of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement made a last minute change of venue. They were supposed to meet in Vancouver, but Harper moved it to Ottawa to escape planned protests. This trade agreement is being negotiated in secrecy. Leaked information shows that it is a complete corporate takeover.
Grannies Alice, Alma, Ann, Cathleen, Jo, Ria, and Terrie sang two songs, “We are the Corporations“, an old favorite for these corporate take-overs and a new one, “Democracy is Up For Sale.” The demonstration was well organized, good songs, good (and short) speeches, and with more than 500,000 petitions delivered to Don Davies, NDP MP who will deliver them to Parliament when it returns in the fall. You can see a well-made video of the protest here.