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Conservatives rally against "separatist coalition"

The Conservative Party will not stand for a coalition "driven by separatists," Stockwell Day told a rain-soaked crowd today in Vancouver.

Day called the Liberal-NDP-Bloc Québécois alliance a "separatist coalition", and said the opposition parties had joined together because the Conservative economic update contained "a couple of little things that were going to take a smack at them."

Conservative MP James Moore reached out to Quebec during the rally, saying: "For us, this country is united together. For us, Quebec is part of Canada. For [the coalition], Canada is not part of Quebec, and that's not good enough."

Moore challenged the opposition to hold elections. "If you want to have your coalition, have the guts to put it before the Canadian people in an election campaign before you impose it upon them," said Moore.

Despite rain and cold, hundreds filled Library Square to hear Conservative MPs and others speak out against the coalition. Rally organizer Keith Roy called the assembly a "grass roots organization of people coming together to say 'no' to this nonsense."

Conservative supporter Ward Benedict said what scares him most about the coalition is "that there would be no parliamentary mechanism to remove them."

Ward said if the Governor General allowed the coalition to take power, it would "set a precedent where any minority government in the future would become an automatic loser," as opposition parties "would simply band together and award themselves power. The policies and parties that were the losers of the election would automatically become the winner. That doesn't make any sense to me."

A small group of coalition supporters were also in attendance. Tense moments sparked occasionally between them and Conservative supporters.

Rosemary Larsson, a Liberal party member, said the separatist label for the coalition was a "monstrous lie," and said the rally was "unleashing a torrent of hate for anyone who ever worked for the Bloc."

Larsson called the rally a "shameful and hypocritical spectacle."

"They're wrapping themselves in the Canadian flag and claiming that they're protecting Canada, instead of facing the fact that they've lost the confidence of the House of Commons, and that the opposition parties represent the majority of Canadians," said Larsson.

She said she believed the country was headed for another election, and that today represented the first day of campaigning.

Sean Casey reports for The Hook.

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