Prime Minister Stephen Harper's decision to prorogue Parliament has been one of the biggest political firestarters since - well -- his late 2008 decision to prorogue Parliament to throttle opposition threats of a coalition.

The fallout has triggered an interesting experiment of social media grassroots democracy.

A Facebook group opposing prorogation has grown to more than 200,000 members. It will culminate with rallies across Canada on Saturday, two days before the House of Commons would have resumed operations had Harper not phoned Gov. Gen. Michaele Jean on Dec. 30 and asked her to prorogue.

Parliament now won't resume until March 3, after the Olympics end, with a new federal budget on March 4. Everything else Parliament had in the pipeline will have to start from scratch.

While some of the more partisan political bloggers did spout off at the time, you don't get the sense people thought the controversy would knock down the Conservatives' poll numbers to where they are now -- statistically tied with the Liberals.

But many Canadians were looking for an outlet. Christopher White, who founded Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament, told ctvtoronto.ca that he set up the group on the morning of Dec. 30 after hearing of Harper's call to Jean.

"I started the Facebook group with the intent of getting people to write to their MPs and get them to return to Ottawa (on Jan. 25), and it's snowballed since then," he said.

By Jan. 3, four days after prorogation, White left the following note on a Facebook group: "Hullo All, It seems like only yesterday this group had a mere 7,000 members...actually it was. At nearly 12,000 and growing, the message is clear: get back to work! Our goal is simple: tell your MP to show up to work on January 25th, the day Parliament would have resumed. It will send a strong message and prove to our politicans (sic), not just Harper, that they answer to US."

The graduate student of anthropology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton said this wasn't an ideological or partisan issue: "It is a fight for democracy, accountable government and proving that the power of Canada resides in the hands of its people."

By Jan. 7 -- when an Angus Reid poll found 53 per cent of Canadians opposed prorogation, as opposed to 19 per cent agreeing with the move -- it hit 100,000 and broke 200,000 on Jan. 17.

Two weeks later, writing at the alternative left-wing online publication Rabble.ca, White said the mainstream news commentators had been talking about the tactical brilliance of the Harper government and agreeing that Canadians didn't care.

"We were told that we would forget about it and that we could look to a Conservative majority sometime after the Olympics. In the pre-social networking age they might have been right, but as over 200,000 Canadians have proven, even the experts can get it wrong," he said.

The group

On the Facebook group, Canadians are talking about the issue and attempting to organize themselves.

According to a Rideau Institute-released study, here is a snapshot of those who participated in a survey posted at the group in mid-January:

  • about half were over age 45
  • 88 per cent said they were "politically engaged"
  • 96 per cent voted in the last election

However, it wasn't a random sample and only 341 people responded. Study author Pierre Killeen told CTV News that the question in Ottawa was, "'Who are these people?'"

He got a lot of emails from people who told him it was nice to see they weren't the only members of their generation to get involved.

As an indicator of the grassroots nature, Mark Francis of Toronto left a blog post at the NoProrogue.ca website saying he had spent $40 of his own money postering for Saturday's rally.

"I found it to an uplifting experience. Instead of complaining and intellectualizing (sic), I was actually doing something. I recommend it for everyone," Francis, who normally blogs at Section 15, wrote.

"A lot of online activity, it feels like you're in an echo chamber accomplishing nothing, and you never necessarily see the effects of what you're doing," he said.

Francis, who describes himself as an independent green, said the "arbitrary and partisan" nature of Harper's actions in proroguing are what motivated him.

But he admitted no one came up to him and chatted as he postered, although he saw some people looking at the posters.

The question remains of how well the demonstrations will be attended on Saturday. When Harper visited Toronto on Wednesday to meet with the C.D. Howe Institute, 35 protesters greeted him. A similar-sized group showed up in Truro, N.S. to meet Harper there.

At Blogging Tories, a site that aggregates posts from conservative Canadian bloggers, the only two prorogation posts essentially smirked at the low number.

Francis expects a good crowd in Toronto on Saturday, estimating that 1,000 people might show up.

However, the Toronto Star reported on Jan. 13 that an anti-Ontario-college-instructors-strike group had 22,000 members. Four thousand people signed an online petition promising to walk out of class. But when it came time for action, no individual protest at the 11 campuses involved more than 20 people.

"How do you put a number on it?" White said. "I think some people, no matter what happens, will say, 'Oh, it was only X.'"

But people should also consider the dialogue created over the past month. He thinks the rallies will be well-attended, "but I do keep reminding people the rallies are not the end. They're just the beginning, if anything," he said.

Killeen also offered this caution: "I think maybe this is a tipping point. ... What we might be at now is where this (social media protesting) gets taken much more seriously by decision-makers."

In this new world, some people participate politically on line, and some in the physical environment. "So it's not an either/or -- it's a cumulative thing. I wouldn't see the protests as a validation of this. The ultimate validation will be in the ballot box," he said.