In the heart of Fraser Valley’s Bible belt, the Chilliwack Coalition of Concerned Citizens is causing a stir.

Yes, the two Chilliwack ridings gave the B.C. Liberals their two biggest margins of victory in the last provincial election. But when Premier Gordon Campbell came to town on February 20 to attend a Chamber of Commerce dinner, a victory party it was not.

The Coalition showed up outside the hotel with 2,000 angry Chilliwackians. It’s a sign that, even in conservative Chilliwack, British Columbians are fighting back against Campbell’s cuts.

At the time of that February protest — after only eight months in office — the Liberals had already imposed a contract on teachers, ripped up health care workers’ contracts and announced cuts averaging twenty-five per cent to all services. Since then, hospitals and schools have been closing across the province, and thousands of public service workers have been fired.

Two thousand protesters would be considered a good turnout by any standard. But in Chilliwack, a town of 70,000, it was historic. “The largest political rally in the history of Chilliwack,” says Coalition president Troy Marshall. Not bad for a group formed only a couple of months before.

Coalition members got together because they wanted to inform and educate citizens about the cuts and what they would mean to their community. Their primary goal? To encourage democratic debate on issues affecting the town’s citizens. Not exactly a revolutionary manifesto, but, in these parts, it’s downright radical.

Local papers and politicians have been simultaneously criticizing and denouncing the citizens’ coalition ever since the success of the February rally. Marshall was vehemently attacked when he floated the idea of having businesses opposed to the provincial cuts do something to identify themselves to coalition members.

Marshall saw it, not as a business boycott, but as a way for like-minded people to put their consumer power to work. But to the Chamber of Commerce, the two local newspapers and local politicians, his suggestion was akin to McCarthyism and a serious threat to free enterprise. Letters to the editor called Marshall everything from a thug to a Nazi.

“The attacks were quick, aggressive and personal,” says Marshall.

Despite the backlash, membership in the coalition has continued to grow. Reaching out to others in the community affected by cuts to health care, the group held a successful rally June 14 to save a seniors home. The rally and follow-up weekly vigils have helped pressure the city to refer the closure to its Mayor’s Health Review Panel.

The Concerned Citizens of Chilliwack are not alone. There is a coalition in almost every city, town and village in B.C. (Marshall knows of at least forty-one groups and more are getting organized.)

The group’s next goal is a modest one: to be “moderately successful in the upcoming municipal elections in November and loosen the Liberal stranglehold on our community.”

Conservative they may be, but the Liberal government should be worried nonetheless. After all, if Chilliwack can mount a fight-back like this one, who knows what’s in store? Likely not a two-seat shoe-in in the next election.