Wednesday, March 4, 8:35 a.m. — I get on the bus to campus. I think about the cuts to the transit budget and how they’re nixing free bus passes for kids. I’m masked-up with my hair tied back. Blue jeans and a neutral jacket. Sturdy shoes.
11:30 a.m. — We start walking from campus. I’m with most of my second year acting class. We take an odd route, but I try not to mind. It’s been a while since I’ve had the time to go this far downtown, and it’s nice to see the murals and old churches. We cut through the lawn in front of the old Halifax Memorial Library. My friend makes fun of the Churchill statue. I tell him that this building used to be a poorhouse. We walk over ground that used to hold the dead. When you walk in Halifax, it’s not so rare.
11:55 a.m. — I can tell when we’ve reached Province House before I can see the building. Cops are lined up at either end of the street. My group starts whispering about bacon. Their position makes me worry about kettling: corralling protesters into a tight, ruly pack. Something I don’t have enough experience to detect or stop — but there aren’t very many of them. There were a hell of a lot more of us. I am passed an extra sign my friend made. It reads: “Culture requires Creation.” The word “Creation” is in rainbow paint.
Other signs include: “DOUG FORD SIMP,” “TIM! Read a book,” “Premier’s Seat Has a Fixed-Term Lease” and about a hundred variants of “Houston: We Have A Problem.” Several identify cutting and limiting the arts as a step towards fascism. There are puppets, mostly of rats, but also an enormous Houston head wearing a dunce cap, BOZO scrawled across it in red. A long strip of cardboard signage reads: “Should the cuts pass, we the undersigned hereby pledge to BOO TIM HOUSTON and his complicit stooges loudly at every opportunity.” There must be hundreds of names written down. Paul of the King’s Co-op Bookstore’s enormous cardboard sign simply reads “NOPE.” Someone is up on stilts.
There’s speeches and the first of many musical performances. Masuma Khan and Liliona Quarmyne both check-in with the crowd throughout the rally. Quarmyne introduces the speakers, and Khan leads us in a series of spiriting chants. It’s easy to tell why they call Khan “General.”
12:30 p.m. — Susan Leblanc, an NDP MLA, and Claudia Chender, leader of the Nova Scotia NDP, speak. Leblanc greets us by calling into the mic: “Friends, Nova Scotians, countrymen — we come to bury Tim Houston, not to praise him.” Chender tells the crowd that her caucus loves us. Absurdly, despite my distaste for politicians, I feel like she means it. But that might just be my NDP membership burning a hole in my pocket.
12:40 p.m. — Amelia McMahon from Choirs for Change leads us in a round of song. Of course a bunch of artists and creatives would protest in four-part harmony. I take my mask off to sing and yell louder.
There are many journalists here as well. A Global TV camera is on the prowl through the crowd. There’s a woman with a camera behind me, who keeps hitting me in the back of the head with it while she’s trying to aim.
12:48 p.m. — Iain Rankin, Nova Scotia Liberal party leader, and Derek Mombourquette, a Liberal MLA, emerge to say a few words. The province’s only Liberals are acting like a pair of good ol’ Cape Breton b’ys. Rankin’s energy was stronger than usual. Mombourquette talks about Indigenous arts and storytelling, and about how things are going in the Land of Fog, the Mi’kmaq name for Cape Breton Island. He declares that the Houston government’s budget “has no empathy.” My notes start getting less detailed the more excited I get. Names start getting lost.
1:07 p.m. — The president of the Nova Scotia Federation of Labour speaks, reminding us that artists are workers.
1:09 p.m. — We sing It’s Okay to Change Your Mind, a song created from the Minnesota ICE occupation.
1:18– Kay MacDonald, a program coordinator for the Youth Project, speaks. I, along with the rest of the folks who’ve had friends’ lives saved by that organization, who themselves have been saved, shriek. Kay connects this struggle outward. They call out Sudan and the Congo, Iran and Palestine. They highlight Indigenous people, African Nova Scotians and Acadians, French and Gaelic programs and speakers. We shout “Free Palestine!” We whoop loudly for queer youth, for intersectionality, for reconciliation. For all the ways that art can aid our struggle and heal our wounds.
1:41 p.m. — A representative of the proposed student strike tells us that NSCAD has voted “yes” on the strike, and that Acadia University is in the midst of their strike vote as we stand here.
1:47 p.m. — The Association of Nova Scotia Museums representative calls the lack of consultation “appalling and disgusting.” He says Tim Houston “ … went from a champion of museums, to the arbiter of their destruction.”
Neptune Theatre’s Youth Performance Company kids sing Seize the Day from Newsies. I fail to note the time because I was distracted by seeing a kid I went to high school with among them. Omar: you fucking rule, dude.
1:53 p.m. — Choirs for Change returns with a Farewell to Nova Scotia parody. I can’t count the number of times I’ve sung that song. The first time was in music class in second grade.
2:10 p.m. — We begin to head out. My companions need to get to acting class. The rally is still going strong. A musician is starting to play, but I don’t get to hear it as we rundown Barrington Street to the bus stop. Yes, this means I don’t get to follow Tim Houston around and yell at him to his face. We catch the 1 bus.
After the rally, I was asked if we should be afraid of the Houston government retaliating against the industries and groups whose leaders protested. I answer with another question: Can reason fear a duel with stupidity?
