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Macleans.ca

Canada’s magazine

A grand total (II)

Vancouver Sun, Dec. 7, 2008. A self-described non-political person, Kathleen Chafe didn’t vote for Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives in the last federal election — but that didn’t stop her from saying she was Tory yesterday. The 23-year-old Vancouver corporate headhunter was one of about 250 people who braved yesterday’s rain to show support for the Conservatives at the Rally for Canada at Library Square — one of several similar rallies held nationwide … Minister of Public Safety Stockwell Day said the message is clear. “Canadians want to send a strong message that they don’t want to see a coalition,” said the Okanagan-Coquihalla MP, clad in a Team Canada hockey jersey and Vancouver 2010 scarf. “We’re saying that is enough. Canadians are responding by saying we love Canada — they are rising up.”

The tally

With 51 precincts reporting specific estimates—restricting the count to media-reported figures and, where available, police counts—it’s possible to account for approximately 21,000 anti-prorogation protestors at yesterday’s rallies.