Occupy Canada: Calgary Court Orders Protesters To Leave

A Calgary judge has ordered an end to the Occupy Calgary protest.

According to the City of Calgary, Chief Justice Neil Wittmann approved the city's request Tuesday to order the protesters to tear down their camp at a downtown park.

Occupy protesters will have to vacate Olympic Plaza by Friday at 2 p.m. After that, protesters will be violating a court order.

The protestors had set up camp at that location on Oct. 15.

The city has been criticized for not forcibly removing them, but the police chief has praised the city for not turning this into a confrontation.

Officials did start removing tents last month and have tried to negotiate deals with the remaining protestors, with no success.

Finally last Friday, the city went to court looking for an injunction to prevent camping on Olympic Plaza.

The city said the bylaw banning camping in public spaces is being violated and other citizens would like to utilize the space. It also says a fire that started in a tent Nov. 16, injuring two people, raised safety issues.

The protesters have said in the past that even with an eviction order, they're not going anywhere.

Ben Christensen, a litigation advisor who represented the protesters, said last Friday that he had wanted an adjournment so he could submit more affidavits and better prepare for the case. He feels the city did not give them enough time to gather evidence.

The city will be holding a news conference to provide more details on where things go from here.

Origin
Source: Huff 

The Occupiers have even lost Naheed Nenshi

Even Naheed Nenshi, possibly the nicest mayor big-city Canada ever had, is fed up with the Occupiers. If you've lost Calgary Mayor Nenshi, you've lost the country.

So here is the choice the Occupiers face: go, with their tents and their portable toilets, and keep their dignity and message reasonably intact; or resist, and act as a law unto themselves, and be forever remembered dragging their own names through the mud of their unwanted encampments.

There is a third choice, peaceful civil disobedience: refuse to leave, insist on being carried away by police, and face the judicial consequences. Alas, if Mr. Nenshi is fed up, civil disobedience at this late stage is probably going to be met with a yawn, at best, by the public. “The protesters need to understand that they've lost the thread, they've completely lost the plot,” Mr. Nenshi says. “Making this about the tents instead of about the issues they're talking about, they've completely lost any ability to influence people.”

The remarkable tolerance of the civic authorities may have created a mistaken impression among the Occupiers that they have a right to occupy. Maybe that explains why the movement has tried everyone's patience, including Mr. Nenshi's. Its members seem to believe that civil disobedience is a form of protest protected from consequences. In Vancouver, after being served with a court order, the protesters packed up their tents and, like children proud of their cunning, moved them to another public area. Occupy seems just another group claiming an entitlement, free of responsibilities toward others.

The Occupy movement began as an understandable response to the excesses that contributed to the world financial crisis. It turned into an excess of its own. And now the courts have taken a strong stand against that excess. The time for negotiations is gone. Even Mr. Nenshi says so.

What will anyone remember of all this in a few years, or even in a few weeks? It depends on whether the Occupiers make a last, self-defeating stand, or go, as Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay says, with their heads held high.

Origin
Source: Globe&Mail 

Warning tickets issued at Occupy Calgary as city prepares to disassemble camp

On Tuesday morning in Calgary, bylaw officers, with the support of police, handed out warning tickets to protesters requiring them to remove their tents and signs from Olympic Plaza in the city’s downtown within 24 hours.

The first citation was issued to 19-year-old Tyler, who refused to provide his surname and was wearing a bandana over his face, but pledged to remain at the site. He said he has been participating in Occupy Calgary for the past month, sleeping in a tent on most nights, to raise awareness about “the gap between the rich and the poor.”

Meghan Oxley, 27, who also received a warning said she has no where to go. Her home was condemned due to black mould and a gas leak, and her previous occupation at a secondary Occupy Calgary site ended when a local agency promised new accommodation for the homeless protestors. But she said that pledge hasn’t come through yet.

Bill Bruce, Calgary’s director of bylaw services, said the next steps will be to remove structures and debris, issue tickets and set court appearances in order for a judge to decide whether the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees public camping. The city does not want to make an “high-level forced removals,” he said.

“That’s not Calgary’s way,” he added.

Cory Morgan, a local man who gathered 1,700 names on a petition to ask the city to act sooner to evict the protesters – and about two dozen tents – previously received a citation for driving his truck into Olympic Plaza, videotaped events as bylaw officers issued warnings. Some protesters shouted at Mr. Morgan to protest his presence at their protest site.

“They’re terrified of the optics of removing young kids from their tents,” he said of the city’s reluctance to force evictions.

Origin
Source: Globe&Mail 

Occupy Calgary: Mayor Naheed Nenshi Says Demonstrators' Rights Must Be Respected

CALGARY - Calgary's mayor says that the city's Occupy demonstrators have been peaceful and the city has no right under the charter of rights and freedoms to force them out of a downtown plaza.

Naheed Nenshi says that regardless of what other cities have experienced, the protest has not created a hardship for Calgarians.

He says any suggestion the issue is a crisis is ridiculous, adding it doesn't rank in the top 10 concerns for Calgarians.

About a dozen people are living in tents in the city's Olympics Plaza.

Temperatures have dropped below zero and snow fell Thursday night, but it hasn't deterred the protesters, who have not delivered any particular demands to city officials.

Nenshi says the charter of rights and freedoms trumps any civic bylaws so the only thing police can do is write ticket and not arrest the protestors.

Nenshi hopes the situation will be settled through negotiation, but he says that could be difficult as the group has no real leader.

Origin
Source: Huff