Will Vancouver Police Allow Pro-Violence Activists To Start A New Tent City?

More violence for the DTES?

More violence for the DTES?

After several months of mayhem, and allegations of a neighbourhood crime spree, a BC court has finally called for the shutdown of Victoria’s “homeless” tent city. Chief Justice Christopher Hinkson ruled in a 40-page document that the tent city is both a danger to the people living inside of it and the local community its residents have intruded on. The protest was organised and backed by professional activists including the infamous Ivan Drury of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

DTES Activists love tent cities, they’re virtually a guaranteed way to get the media coverage they so desperately desire. The Vancouver Police Department typically plays into their hands, claiming their duty is to “keep the peace” over that of to enforce the law. This inevitably leads to 100’s of thousands of dollars of policing, medical, and legal fees for city taxpayers.

Well folks, the time has come for another tent city on July 9th, this time in the DTES. It’s led by the usual suspects who’ve setup similar past protests including the Carnegie Community Action Network (CCAP), the Vancouver Area Drug User’s Network (VANDU), and the International League of Peoples Struggle (ILPS). And, considering who’s signed-up for Saturday’s protest, there’s every possibility we’ll see violence as we have in the past.

Saturday’s March For Housing Justice will start at Oppenheimer Park, the same location of Vancouver’s most recent large-scale tent city. The protesters will then march to 58 West Hastings St, an empty lot across from Save-On-Meats. The protest’s Facebook page claims that the protest will be part of a set of actions across Canada- I’ll be looking out for what they have planned in Toronto.

CCAP is a well-known group of agitators, Ivan Drury officially resigned from the group in 2013, it’s unknown if he’s now associated with them. VANDU is an organisation that’s received significant funding from Vancouver Coastal Health, who threatened to remove their funding after the group was discovered running an illegal unlicensed assisted injection service. The ILPS are a group of crazy assed Maoists with an anachronistic anthem that takes one back to the glory days when half of the world suffered under repressive socialist states.

The guest list includes some names this site has covered in the past:

  • Ann Livingston is a DTES radical connected to CCAP, who has a history of lying about the police.
  • Shirley Samples is an anarcho-environmentalist who’s often seen with her “We Love This Coast” banner, and was involved with last year’s violent May Day dance party.
  • Harsha Walia is Canada’s most visible advocate for activist violence. She was involved with the May Day violence, the violence at the 2010 Olympics, and the violence at the pipeline protests on Burnaby Mountain.

Stay tuned for more reports on the protest as new information comes available. It will be interesting to see if the VPD decide to enforce the law this time- or, once again, saddle the city’s taxpayers with 100’s of thousands of more dollars in related expenses. One thing’s for certain, as Mayor Gregor Robertson and his team at Vision Vancouver are closely allied with many of the protesters, it’s pretty much guaranteed he’ll once again go for the latter option.

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