Group protests budget's black mark

A group of concerned residents is joining a national call to find the lucky number 13.

Despite calls from the Opposition to make significant changes, the Conservative government is on track to pass its massive omnibus budget bill.

Clocking in at more than 400 pages, Bill C-38 contains not only the year's financial plans, but changes to environmental legislation, raises the age of eligibility for Old Age Security and revises rules about acceptable donations to charities.

On Saturday afternoon, protesters are expected in front of the offices of local MPs Bob Zimmer (101-1584 Seventh Ave.) and Dick Harris (206-575 Quebec St.) to protest the bill.

The noon-hour event is part of the national Blackmark Day of Action, initiated by advocacy group Leadnow.ca.

"We're just going to be hopefully letting people know that the bill has an awful lot of stuff in it that we don't really think needs to be in the budget bill," said Karen Anderson, who is hosting the rally in front of Zimmer's office.

The event is also aimed at lending support to anyone thinking of breaking rank with the Harper government. Based on later-retracted comments from Conservative backbencher David Wilks, if 13 Conservatives stood up to vote against the bill, it wouldn't pass.

"We're not actually necessarily asking for anyone to full-on defeat the budget, but they can break the bill up and take the non-budget items out of it," Anderson said. "And if MPs have misgivings about this and they could stand up and say 'no, we think this should be broken apart as well,' we want them to know that we support them in that."

Anderson, a carpenter and scaffolder, said she got involved in the action because of her own apprehension over the changes to environmental acts.

"Democracy works best when you participate. I didn't vote to have a whole bunch of environmental things packaged into a budget bill. I don't want this to happen this way," she said. "I'm not a stupid person, but it's an awful lot of information to take in. And I don't think I'm very different from most Canadians - I don't know every letter of legislation that covers us."

The day of action joins other movements in protest of the omnibus bill. On June 4, a group of environmental organizations, bloggers, charities and unions under the name Black Out Speak Out will darken their websites to raise awareness. This is similar to the Internet blackout conducted to protest American anti-piracy legislation in January.