We protest everything in Newfoundland and Labrador - there are small protests of a dozen or so about some issue every week, and every year has a handful of larger protests. Regardless of their size, they are quite likely to get angry here - for example, students don't just protest the cost of tuition, they break down the door to the Board or Regents meeting where decisions are being made, sit with their signs, and scream. Fishermen don't just gather outside federal government buildings, they literally kick in the door and occupy the offices until senior staff agree to a meeting, etc.
Quite a few of them have been formative in our history. Our strong labour movement largely began with violent strikes in Harbour Grace and Carbonear in 1832, and solidarity strikes that continued throughout the island well into the 1840s. It wasn't until the Sealer's Strike in St. John's in 1902 that the former two were eclipsed in size and impact. The St. John's strike was unique because it put the fear of God into the upper classes - the sealers were almost entirely migrant workers from rural Newfoundland, Ireland, and England. They didn't have public support, and didn't give a shit about destroying the city - unlike the earlier strikes which took place in rural areas where many of the men had families, interests, and support. When the sealers started trashing Water Street (they even hauled a large ship up out of the harbour and into the middle of the street), the merchant class started treating them better, including higher pay. It kicked off more rapant unionism in Newfoundland, which has
almost always had the most unionized workforce among what are today the provinces of Canada.
MUN Archives
Probably still does, but Quebec looks higher to me...
Immediately after our independence in 1855, we entered a period of deadly riots - election day shootings, open warfare between neighbouring communities, and so on. Growing pains as the Protestant upper class adjusted to the new Roman Catholic political class. Some of these riots are still remembered for their impact on the course of our history.
Perhaps the single most important protest/riot in our history was the sacking of our Parliament, the Colonial Building, on April 5, 1932 - the most visible moment from the drawn-out death of our nation.
MUN Archives
Quote:
Having barely survived a decade of political chaos and failed get-industrialized-quick schemes fueled by foreign debts in the 1920s, the island now found itself in the doldrums of the Great Depression. Most of the country was tied up in resource exports—fish, forestry, and mining—and as those industries collapsed, the ranks of the unemployed swelled dramatically. The government, buckling under nearly $100 million in debt (roughly $1.7 billion today), was all but powerless to handle the roughly one-third of the country on a six-cents-a-day dole.
The situation wasn't helped by the fact that the Squires government was hilariously corrupt. At the same time as it was trying to retain creditor confidence by slashing as much public spending as possible without actively killing the poor, Squires was pocketing the War Reparations the island was getting from Germany. Another one of his ministers was being paid a salary as 'Immigration Officer' despite the fact that Newfoundland literally had no immigration at the time. This, while growing numbers of unemployed and destitute people were beginning to march in the streets.
On April 5, 1500 people paraded up from the Majestic Theatre downtown to present a petition demanding a "proper investigation" into accusations of corruption. By the time they had arrived at the Colonial Building, it had grown into an agitated mob of 10,000 [Note from me on SSP lol: that's only a few blocks. That's how much of a powder keg the country was at the time]. The band tried to calm them by playing "God Save the King" twice, but each time they finished the crowd got more and more restless. Eventually, word reached the crowd that the petitioners had been refused entry to the House, and someone started chucking rocks at the windows.
All hell broke loose. A group of policemen who had been inside the building's lobby decided enough was enough, so they opened the front doors to push the protesters down off the stairs, indiscriminately cracking heads with their batons. They brained a child in the head and the crowd went wild. They pulled one cop down off a horse and beat the shit out of him. Every window in the building was smashed out with rocks as the mob rushed up the stairs and into the front door. The police were forced to retreat, forming a human barricade blocking the door to the legislature floor. The mob instead tore through the rest of the offices in the building basement instead, destroying everything they found. They tore up the books in the library and carried a piano out into Bannerman Park to smash it to pieces. Two separate fires were set inside. It was a glorious chaos.
...
They weren't long outside before the crowd recognized the prime minister, and before he could get into the car he was rushed by the mob. The police pulled Squires out and retreated inside the building, while a cadre of Catholic and Anglican priests tried to negotiate a safe passage out. The mob begrudgingly agreed, but the streets were too crowded for Squires' car to pass, so they had to make their exit on foot. The prime minister got barely fifty metres away when they rushed him again, this time clocking him in the face. The police managed to pull him out again and they booted it down the street, running down a side alley and into a private residence to escape the mob. The angry crowd roaming the streets lost him, and Squires spent the rest of the night hiding out in a bedroom while the demonstrators sacked all the downtown liquor stores.
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https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/4...prime-minister
Everything was destroyed or looted. We never recovered, and became one of the few nations on earth, and the only British Dominion, whose own government voted away its independence the next year.
There have been lots of great protests since, including our legendary student movement and university occupations, Cod Moratorium protests, Meech Lake protests, anti-Harper protests, the #NLRising movement - but none are stronger in people's understanding of who we are than 1932.
And here are a few typical examples of the dozens upon dozens of smaller protests that happen here throughout the year:
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someone123 those pics are great, thanks for posting!
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