Conservative MP’s office calls police on C-51 protesters for singing and being “noisy”

Law and order has been restored to the parking lot outside a Conservative MP’s office.

The office of MP Daryl Kramp, chair of the same Public Safety Committee that studied the controversial Bill C-51, called police on a group of protesters in Belleville, Ontario this week who were being “noisy,” according to local newpaper QuinteNews.

Another local news outlet, InsideBelleville.com, reported that some protesters (a group of about 40 at its peak) were dressed as spies and allegedly sang songs:

“The idea was for protesters to go inside Kramp’s office, one or two at a time, to register their dissatisfaction and ask MP Kramp who is the chair of the Public Safety Committee to amend or change the bill,” one of the protestors explained to the local press.

But just when things were winding down and protesters were “heading for their cars ’cause they felt they’d done what was necessary,” that’s “when the cops showed up” and shut down the party — for good. Protester Gary Magwood explained:

“We probably had about 15 people left when the cops showed up. And Daryl’s office called the police because we were disruptive, we were noisy — here’s the best part — we were distracting the office staff from attending to constituents concerns. Now don’t you love that for double-speak? Aren’t we constituents?”

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Belleville police confirmed to QuinteNews that no arrests were made.

Kramp told QuinteNews Thursday that at no point was his office staff in any physical danger during the protest, but he cautioned critics “don’t understand” bill C-51 and “haven’t really explored the full realities of the bill”:

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Bill C-51 has been criticized by four former Prime Ministers, several former Supreme Court Justices, 100 law professors and the Canadian Bar Association representing 36,000 Canadian lawyers, the Canadian airline industry, privacy commissioners, every major Canadian newspaper’s editorial boards, the makers of one of the world’s most widely used Internet web browsers, as well as one Conservative MP.

The NDP and the Green Party are voting against the legislation.

_{Photo: S. Davidson. Used under Creative Commons license.}