Anger unites Canadians: Poll

Gilbert Murphy could take it no more. The price of diesel had topped $1.40 a litre, and he knew it would get more expensive a week later thanks to British Columbia's incoming carbon tax.

 
Murphy was mad. The 74-year-old horse rancher and former oil rig worker couldn't understand how gas prices could climb so high, so fast, in a country so rich in oil.
 
"But I figured I can't bitch about it if I don't do something," he says.
'Politicians aren't doing anything for us up here. We don't want any of 'em involved in this. They're so full of bullshit.,' said Murphy.
 
So on June 21, he and a posse of irate neighbours near Williams Lake, B.C. hitched up their horses - six wagon teams and 24 outriders in all - and marched 32 kilometres down the highway into town and back, to protest the rising price of fuel.
 
"We're going back to the old ways," the horsemen hollered. The protest parade slowed traffic on the road, but only one passing motorist gave them the finger, says Murphy. Everyone else "honked their horns in support and cheered us on."  A homemade sign on one of the wagons said: "Born free. Taxed to death."

The angry majority consists of two volatile groups: one - 20 per cent of the total - who are doing or planning to do something to show their frustrations, and another - 35 per cent - who are bottling up their anger because they can't "do anything about it."

 
Ipsos Reid senior vice-president John Wright says the second group was an unexpected discovery.
 
"We found something that I think is deeply concerning - this pent-up frustration. It's out there, it's a significant proportion of the public who don't have an outlet for their concerns or their anger," he says. "We expected to find fed-up people, but not pent-up people.
 
"It's like having natural gas in the air, and if there's a spark of some kind, it can explode."  Murphy says too many folks keep their frustrations on simmer instead of taking action, as he did.