Police keep lunch crowd and Olympic demonstrators apart

Corporate media account of Feb 11, 2008, 'Shutdown 2010 Corporate Countdown' protest in Vancouver

The Province
Published: Tuesday, February 12, 2008
By Damian Inwood and Suzanne Fournier

B.C. will get its opportunity to show off to the world two years from today when the Winter Games open, Premier Gordon Campbell told 1,200 people at a lunch in the Hyatt Regency yesterday.

Outside, police erected barricades to halt anti-Olympic protesters with banners and loudspeakers who blocked traffic on Burrard Street for more than an hour but didn't get inside the hotel.

About 50 angry protesters surged forward and shouted face-to-face at police officers.

Inside the hotel, throngs of police in combat boots, body armour and ballcaps mustered just out of sight of the noisy demonstrators.

Constables stood beside every entrance and exit and mingled in the crowd.

"We're just trying to keep the peace," said Sgt. Joe Chambers.

Two years from today, the Olympic torch will make the final leg of its journey and light the 2010 cauldron at B.C. Place Stadium.

"Two years from tomorrow - just imagine this - the world's eyes are going to be on B.C.," Campbell said. "And it will be your chance to show off the great diversity of B.C., the richness or our province and the vastness and diversity of our country."

Campbell predicted the 2010 Olympics will set a record for Canada - which never won a gold medal while hosting the Games in Montreal and Calgary.

"There'll be a podium and our athletes won't just walk up to No. 3 or No. 2 but they'll be standing at the top of the podium and we will all be singing 'O Canada' with them," he said. "So, these are your Games."

Campbell also pointed to places like Prince George, Kamloops, Kimberley and Mount Washington where the Olympics have sparked new training facilities for athletes.
"We're going to be the best Olympics ever for athletes."

Campbell's speech to a Board of Trade lunch was part of a day-long 2010 Business Summit.
Outside the hotel, demonstrators screamed at police "for taking cash to protect VANOC" but officers remained non-confrontational.

"I'm really angry today because I just found out our own chiefs are signing on to the Olympics deal and accepting a bit of cash, when so many of our people are homeless and even more will be displaced by these Games," said Carol Martin, a Nisga'a and director of the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre.

Angela Sterritt of Native 2010 Resistance accused Olympic organizers of trying to co-opt "our indigenous peoples, our cultures and our identity to pretend they have native support for the Games."

A furious Squamish Nation man accused the Four Host First Nations Secretariat of misuse of Olympic-related funds and projects distributed to co-operative aboriginal groups eager to capitalize on Olympic business ventures.

"The Squamish Nation is worth $155 million and is getting more to back the Olympics but that's going to go to the leaders again, not to the members - my family has been threatened for speaking out," said Don Mathias Joe.