A St. Albert mother of two held her own protest with a message of supporting diversity and immigrants, after she "felt repressed" over a white-nationalist protest that was held on Saturday.
Ashley Winnington went out on the corner of St. Albert Trail and Bellerose Dr. on Monday evening. She and her two daughters held up signs that read "Love thy neighbour!" as well as "I value diversity" and "Thank you immigrants for strengthening communities."
Winnington said she and her children decided to hold the demonstration on Sunday night.
"We just ripped over to the dollar store and we thought, 'You know, if they can make these signs, we can make these signs too.' So, we came here right after school and stood here just to try and share some positivity," Winnington said.
She said the display on Saturday, where three individuals held up anti-immigration signs, had her feeling like she was looking at a place she didn't recognize.
"I felt that I was looking at a Facebook page from a different place, down the street from my home," she said. "I felt repressed that a group of people felt that they could speak about me and speak about Caucasian people and cast a vote for the way that we feel when that certainly isn't how I feel."
Her kids were impacted significantly by what they saw on social media Saturday afternoon.
"My children felt pretty upset. Some of my community members felt upset," she said, adding that although the group on Saturday felt comfortable sharing what they hated, she wanted to "come out here and say what we care about."
"I can't speak for everyone in St. Albert, or Alberta or Canada. But I can speak for my family and my community. And we care about this community, we care about differences and highlighting them and being stronger together," she said.
Passing cars blared their horns in support of the demonstration. She hopes their actions will have a positive impact on her kids specifically.
"I don't understand sometimes the world that I see, and my children have a lot of power because they can make the policy going forward," she said. "So I wanted my children to know that no matter what, if you see something that makes you uncomfortable, that seems stemmed and rooted in hate just to say 'That's not for me. I don't like it. This is what I do like."
An official counter-protest is being hosted on Sunday Feb. 2 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the intersection of St. Albert Trail and St. Vital Avenue.
