With or without approval from city hall, anti-Olympic activists will hold a rally on the afternoon of February 12 on the north lawn of the Vancouver Art Gallery. They will then march to B.C. Place, which will be hosting the opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Games that evening.
“We’re going to exercise our democratic rights as Canadians to protest,” Robert Ages of the 2010 Welcoming Committee told the Straight.
The activist coalition has not been able to obtain permits for the demonstration and march. In a January 14 letter to council, protest organizers noted that they’ve been informed by the city’s special-events office that “formal approval is being withheld to ensure that the northern plaza remains accessible as there are multiple events already approved for the area”. The same office, according to organizers, also passed along their application for a march to the Vancouver Police Department, which, on normal occasions, only supervises temporary road closures for marches approved by city hall.
“This development is troubling, because without approval from the city, the police could simply terminate the rally and/or march,” organizers told councillors in the letter.
They also asked councillors to support the granting of approval for their planned activities.
“We’re saying, ‘Look, we’re not going to not protest the Olympics because a civil servant has been told, ‘Oh, this time don’t give them the paper form,’ ” Ages said in a phone interview. “I mean, Christ, if our democratic rights were dependent on that, we might as well be living in Beijing.”
COPE councillor Ellen Woodsworth told the Straight there’s no reason why city hall should deny the coalition a permit to use the north lawn of the art gallery, a traditional site of protests in Vancouver.
