A Prince Albert rally will join dozens of other rallies across the province in standing up to demand their MPs sit down - in Parliament, that is.
The protest is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. at the Union Centre at 107 8th St. E. on Saturday, two days ahead of when Parliament was originally set to resume.
Instead, MPs won't sit until the beginning of March because Prime Minister Stephen Harper prorogued Parliament on Dec. 28, killing all current legislation before Parliament.
"The government is trying to cancel and avoid dealing with things and issues that should be dealt with, not just put on hold or shoved under the doormat," said Fay Hill, president of the Prince Albert & District Labour Council, which is co-sponsoring the event with the Prince Albert chapter of the Council of Canadians.
She thinks the decision was designed to turn attention away from an ongoing investigation into the government's response to allegations of torture of Afghan detainees turned over to Afghans by Canadian soldiers and because they wanted to attend the Olympic games.
"(Harper) just doesn't want to admit that they were torturing the people in Afghanistan," she said.
Despite the rally, Prince Albert MP Randy Hoback said the government's decision to prorogue parliament until March hasn't caused a flood of emails or phone calls to his office.
"Our constituents have more concerns on their minds," he said by phone Tuesday from California, where he is vacationing. "They want us to concentrate on jobs, get people back to work, and get the budget back in order. And that's what I'll focus on when I get back to Parliament and that's what I'm focusing on now."
He repeated his argument that the proroguation of Parliament will allow the Prime Minister to appoint new Conservative senators and reconfigure the senate committees that discuss legislation.
Still, a recent set of national public opinion polls has shown the Conservatives essentially tied, including one by the Strategic Council that was released Jan. 12, which showed the Conservatives with 31 per cent support - a 10 point drop since October - to the Liberals' 30 per cent.
The result is similar to an EKOS poll published Jan. 14, while a poll by Angus Reid has the Conservatives at 34 per cent to the Liberals' 28 per cent.
Parliament will resume March 3 with a speech from the throne.
