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Protest route

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The bus I ride to work makes a couple of dozen stops before it rumbles past Parliament Hill, the seat of national government and the focus of many of our individual and collective discontents.

Last week at one stop, we picked up a thick-set, polite but weary middle-aged man with an umbrella and a big, white sign fixed to a stick with 'Protest the injustice' written on it in bold letters.

The driver greeted him with a warm 'hello' and told him he could park his sign at the front of the bus. Just what injustice the sign carrier was decrying wasn't clear; I was sitting too far back to make out his careful lettering.

At the stop in front of the hill he picked up his sign and got off. The driver wished him a good day. It all seemed so civil and so routine: just another day on the job site for a man clearly so frustrated with some aspect of how his life is being governed that he feels compelled to stand in the hot sun all day, making Canada's federal politicians and Ottawa residents aware of his feelings of outrage.

He's not alone. Year in, year out, the hill is abuzz with those who lack the money, the access or the influence to make the federal government pay attention to their concerns. Last week, it was farmers who rode their tractors into the city to register their anger about the lack of support for their industry.

My bus rolled into the middle of their protest and was jammed there for an hour.

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