標題: Larry Campbell says housing key to ending Occupy encampment [打印本頁] 作者: tiffiant 時間: 2011-11-12 20:04 標題: Larry Campbell says housing key to ending Occupy encampment
Larry Campbell says housing key to ending Occupy encampmentApproves of Robertson's 'steady hand'Kate Webb
Nov 12, 2011 19:18:25 PM
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) - A former Vancouver mayor who once handled an occupation similar to the one at the Art Gallery is throwing his support behind Gregor Robertson's re-election bid.
Campbell was elected mayor in the fall of 2002 during the Woodward's Occupation, when a small group of activists occupied the empty building for a week. When they were evicted, they took their campaign for social housing to the street, setting up camp outside the building for another three months.
He says that event - known as the "Woodsquat" - inspired the city to provide housing to the demonstrators, and wants to see the same thing come out of this occupation.
"A lot of the people there simply need help," he says. "They need help with drug addiction, they need help with homelessness, and the city's prepared to do that. We have the resources to be able to go in there and help these people as we did in Woodward's, so those are the similarities."
Campbell says a steady hand is the only way to avoid provoking people like the "black bloc," who are willing to use violence to get their message across.
"You send police in in the kind of way [the NPA] wants to do it, you're inviting anarchy," he says. "You're inviting all those people with the black hood to come out again."
He is convinced the protesters will leave of their own accord once they feel they have been heard and their needs met作者: tiffiant 時間: 2011-11-12 20:05
