The pro-coalition demonstrations last week took me back to February of 2003 and the big world-wide demos against the invasion of Iraq. The size and scope were much different, the targeted result was much less grim but the optimism was very similar.

Suddenly, there was a feeling of people rising up and coming together in the hope of effecting positive change, of having the immense satisfaction of taking Harper down, of moving forward on some progressive policies that would put our country back on track and take us out from under the curse of the mean and nasty people who inhabit the Conservative Party.

I’m not a natural optimist and I found it difficult to summon up the hope that so many others seemed to feel, perhaps because of the betrayal of 2003. So many millions of people in 800 cities around the world were so easily swept aside by the war criminals in Washington.

I now expect that last week’s demonstrators will meet the same fate at the hands of the two old-line parties in Ottawa with the help of the corporate media which has already started to heap scorn on those who believe Harper does not represent the best interests of Canadians.

The coalition will not survive. When Parliament resumes, the Conservatives will bring down a budget that the Liberals, under Michael Ignatieff, will support.

Stephen Harper will not let his guard down again. He will continue his inexorable march toward a majority government.

For those of us who will be at his mercy — with Michael Ignatieff in charge of keeping him in check — the idea is nothing short of physically repulsive.