By Doug Draper
A court order restricting what demonstrators can do and say in front of Marineland did not stop about 50 individuals from demonstrating in front of the sprawling Niagara Falls, Ontario amusement park this Labour Day.
A recent court order awaded to Marineland did not stop animal activists from demonstrating in front of the Niagara Falls park this Labour Day.
Dylan Powell, head of the Niagara, Ontario-based activist group Marineland Animal Defense, told Niagara At Large at the rally site that 50 was the number he expected to show up at what has long become an annual demonstration along the main road in front of Marineland. He called the event a “dress rehearsal” for what he is confident will be a much larger demonstration involving several hundred animal activists from in and outside the Niagara region on Marineland’s closing day this coming October 13th.
Powell said the Labour Day demonstration was also intended to show anyone who might be concerned about participating in a protest in front of the park due to the recent court order that it can still be done without anyone getting into trouble with the law.
“It is safe. You can do it,” Powell said as the three-hour demonstration this Labour Day went off without incident and as a lone Niagara Regional Police officer assigned to the protest site spent most of his time helping demonstrators cross the heavily trafficked street called Marineland Parkway in front of the park.
To help ensure there were no legal entanglements during the demonstration, Marineland Animal Defense also had its own “marshals” on site to make sure the court order was complied with.
Some of the rules in the court order, handed down by an Ontario Superior Court Judge early this August, prohibit protesters from using megaphones or bullhorns to call out to people driving into Marineland’s parking lots or walking to its ticket gates. They also prohibit placards with language on them chagring that the operators of the park are ‘animal abusers’.
Marineland has called such language defamatory and damaging to the reputation of a park with a 50-year history as a popular Niagara Falls tourist attraction. Park owner John Holer and his spokespersons have repeatedly maintained that they do an excellent job of caring for the whales and other animals in the park.
Animal activists, including some of Marineland’s former animal handlers, have insisted for many years that animals like whales and dolphins have no place in aquarium parks like this and should be left to live their lives in their natural environments.
Over the past year, Marineland has slapped million-dollar lawsuits against Powell and some former park employees for various protest actions and charges they have made about alleged cases of animal mistreatment . This past April, Marineland also filed a $7-million libel suit against The Toronto Star for articles the newspaper published on alleged cases of animal mistreatment. The suit charges that the articles were harmful to Marineland’s “reputation and goodwill.”
Those facing the lawsuits, including The Star, have said they plan to fight them.
Meanwhile, Powell and other activists say they have every intention of continuing with demonstrations in front of the park and other events aimed at convincing the public that wild animals have no place in facilities like Marineland. As they demonstrated in front of the park this Labour Day, many passing cars offered them honks of supp
(Niagara At Large invites comments on this post from readers who share their first and last name with their views. NAL also wishes to remind our many friends and supporters that this site will be officially re-launched this September 9th after recovering from severe flood damage at our home base this July.)
Niagara At Large 
Thank you Doug for your journalistic coverage of the protest. Your integrity is appreciated. The Niagara Parks police showed up for the first time in more than 3 decades to issue parking tickets to cars parked where they have parked for many years. Though nobody was actually ticketed Parks police informed us that the people cutting the lawn called to complain that the parked vehicles were impeding their grass mowing. However, the grass in that area had already been mowed prior to the arrival of protesters. This was evident by the shortness of the grass. The lady who drove me to the protest voiced her opinion that somehow the owner of the place being protested had somehow “inspired” the Niagara Parks police to arrive to hand out tickets. After a nanosecond of thought I did wonder why the government level involved would have given the order to have the grass cut on a statutory holiday where the wages would be significantly higher than any other day. Having been employed by a few different levels of our government I remember their reluctance to provide more than the minimum of staff when at least time and a half was the rule of pay. Yes, many agreed that this was a rather suspicious use of Niagara parks police and whoever was instructed to mow only that area at that particular time on that particular day when never before on the Annual Labour Day Protest had there ever been an interest in where the protesters parked. While the reason why this happened will remain a mystery, the fact that there will continue to be an Annual Labour Day Protest will remain public knowledge. The reaction of the owner of the place being protested has proven that the protesters are closer than ever to their goals by admitting that their presence is a hindering his profits. Some protesters are inquiring about leasing a small area of public land space to use during the seasonal protesting, As the owner of the place being protested has been granted permission to lease public land space and has built a fence upon it to deter the protesters a precedent has already been set. The “good guys” are winning and the “bad guys” are whining!
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Protest??? You call this a protest??? I’ve seen more Brock students packed into a phone booth. Ya got professional (what else does he do) protester Dylan Powell and a couple of people that may have been cloned in a protest lab. Thanks for the great humour.
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