Canadians Rally 4 Bush

[Pictures care of FreeDominion.ca]

Wow, today was totally awesome! I was like fifteen feet from the President, the First Lady and Condi Rice. Here's the pic of the motorcade:

The RCMP kept their promise to Canadian pro-Bush activists. In exchange for not showing up at Parliament Hill where the anti-Bush hooligans (featuring more New Yorkers than Canadians, and Bob Dylan) had gathered, the police arranged for the pro-Bush demonstration to be held within the security zone at the airport. We were not told of this until after we had met at a neutral mall parking lot, where we could sift legitimate pro-Bush supporters from anti-Bush trouble-makers.

Connie Wilkins and Mark Fournier, co-founders of Freedominion.ca, organized the rally. Free Dominion is the official Canadian sister site of Free Republic. Here's a great pic of Connie at the pre-rally in the mall parking lot, just as she's surprising us with the news that we will be rallying for the President at the airport and not the mall:

About two hundred of us showed up to rally for Bush, including some Americans. This was pretty good given the temperature was below freezing. We welcomed our American cousins as they were of the sane variety (and not the New York rioters). Also unlike the anti-Bush rally, we outnumbered the Americans by about 10 to 1 at our pro-Bush rally. Nevertheless, the Americans who showed up displayed the class as the President -- after the pre-rally, they approached each of us Canadians and personally thanked us for giving the President a warm welcome. (They also showed American hospitality when, despite our protests we should treat them as our guests, they picked up the tab for coffee and donuts at Tim Horton's between the pre-rally and the rally.)

From there we headed off to the airport, where we were allowed into the outer security ring, checked out by the RCMP and Secret Service, and began to rally along the side of the road at the airport hangar -- meaning we would be the first Canadians that the President would encounter after touchdown. We had a great time, chanting "Dubya", "We Want Bush", and "Carolyn is a Mad Cow" (a reference to Canada's most anti-American member of parliament.)

Finally, the big moment -- the fake Bush came through with his motorcade and we cheered, not quite certain if this was the real thing. Fortunately, the Secret Service intervened and held us back, at which point everything clicked for those of us who weren't certain. In hindsight, it seemed a little strange that the President was driving his own cadillac.

About ten minutes later, the real President Bush came bye. We recognized the presidential seal on his limo and started chanting "Bush!" over-and-over-again. We stopped when we saw the First Lady, and started to chant "Laura!" The president seemed a little taken aback at first, but we were sure he didn't mind.

At this point he confirmed our suspicions. The biggest Texas grin you ever saw came over his face as he slowed down the limo, stopped waving and gave us the big thumb's up. I cannot describe the euphoria we felt at that point. We were like ten to fifteen feet away from him. Some young mother pointed the president out to her toddler and said, "That's what a real leader looks like honey. He's pro-life." Half of us screamed "Bush!" while the other half screamed "Dubya!" Within a few seconds, the "Bush!" chant won out the president just nodded his head like he wanted to say, "This is way cool!"

Obviously this is what the President was thinking. We FreeDominioners would have been happy with the thumb's up and Texas grin he shared with us, but the President had something else in mind as his motorcade pulled away. He was happy we were there and he was darn well gonna show his Canadian supporters his gratitude. But we didn't know it.

From there our group disbanded as the President went downtown. He was greated by obnoxious protesters on parliament hill (protesters who became violent later on.) Meanwhile Connie and Mark joined Sonya and I for lunch downtown, near our place, which also happened to be near where the anti-Bush protest was taking place. So we had to hide our signs and whatnot. As the pizza arrived, we received news that the President was about to give a short press conference.

Then, during the press conference, the President stated: "I frankly felt like the reception we received on the way in from the airport was very warm and hospitable, and I want to thank the Canadian people who came out to wave — with all five fingers," About half an hour later is when the violence started, as we heard the sirens and watched all sorts of emergency vehicles make their way to the anti-Bush protest site.

But again, thanks to Connie and Mark from FreeDominion.ca for organizing such a warm, Canadian, five-fingered welcome for President Bush.