Housing activists plan Olympic 'red tent' campaign
Activists in Vancouver are threatening to hand out red tents to street people in the hope of attracting international attention to the problem of homelessness in the city during the Olympics and forcing the federal government to come up with a housing strategy.
The Pivot Legal Society said Monday it was ready to distribute 500 of the bright red tents emblazoned with slogans like "Housing is a Right" and "End Homelessness Now!"
The goal is to convince federal authorities to establish a national housing strategy, according to Pivot.
Vancouver prepping for olympics with new crowd control device
Vancouver police have a new crowd control device capable of emitting painfully loud blasts of sound, just in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics, CBC News has learned.
The medium-range acoustic device (MRAD) can use sound as a weapon, emitting piercing sounds at frequency levels that cross the human threshold of pain and are potentially damaging to hearing, say audio experts.
But it is primarily designed as a communications device that's clearly audible up to a kilometre away, say police.
Anti-Olympic signs could mean jail: rights group
A proposed B.C. law would allow municipal officials to enter homes to seize unauthorized and possibly anti-Olympic signs on short notice, civil libertarians say.
Violators could be fined up to $10,000 a day and jailed up to six months, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association said Friday.
The proposed law was introduced Thursday as a bill to amend the Municipalities Enabling and Validating Act.
The government said in a statement that the changes will "provide the municipalities of Vancouver, Richmond and Whistler with temporary enforcement powers to enable them to swiftly remove illegal signs and graffiti during the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games."
Cost of security rises 5 fold (at least) for 2010
"The cost of providing security to the 2010 Winter Olympics is
estimated to be $900 million but could go higher if threats emerge,
Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan said Thursday.Saying he
was confident security planners had now accurately calculated the cost
of protecting athletes, officials and dignitaries, Van Loan nonetheless
refused to say that the new budget would be enough."The one
caveat I make to this is that this is made on an assumption of a
certain level of risk," he said. "If the level of risk goes up or
incidents happen before or at the Games you may have to change that."
Cost overruns to slash social housing in Olympic Village
About 250 social housing units included as part of the Olympic Village project for the 2010 Winter Games may face the axe due to new cost overruns, according to a Vancouver city administrative report.
The cost of the affordable housing component of the project has risen to an estimated $110 million — a 70 per cent increase over the original budget of $65 million — says the report, released Monday night on the city's website.
Protestors mark countdown to olympics
"Around 100 anti-Olympics protesters marked the one-year countdown to
the 2010 Games with a noisy rally and march through downtown Vancouver
on Thursday night.The protest began with a rally in Victory Square around 7 p.m. and
continued with a demonstration up West Georgia to Burrard, with
marchers accompanied by police on bikes and motorcycles.
Cameras will be staying after 2010, don't kid yourself
Of particular concern are hundreds of security cameras expected in
and around Olympic venues. After the 2004 games in Athens, Greece,
police turned the cameras into a citizen surveillance network."I
can ensure you any plan or proposal or supposition that the City of
Vancouver will keep video cameras in the downtown core simply because
they are there after the Games, simply doesn't fly with me," said
Loukidelis. What's needed is a balance between personal privacy and
anti-terrorism, he said.
Uncomfortable Olympic spotlight
national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, has put it into words.
Canada's indigenous people will use the Vancouver Olympics to air their
grievances.
"We're ignored. Our proposals are dismissed. They're
not taken seriously. Our efforts to establish a healthy, respectful
relationship with this government obviously are not compelling enough,"
Fontaine said last week.
While he stopped short of calling for
disruptive tactics, other native leaders are warning of blockades,
protests and other forms of activism. "What that speaks to is the
desperate situation in our communities," Fontaine said.
He urged
Canadians who have joined the pre-Olympic outcry against the Chinese
government for its treatment of Tibet, to look in their own backyard.
"They should be just as outraged – if not more so – about our
situation," he said.