March 29, 2024

Judge orders Occupy Vancouver to clear out

VANCOUVER – B.C. judges have ordered the Occupy encampments in Victoria and Vancouver to end, while protesters and civic officials in Toronto are waiting until Monday to find out if that city will have similar clout to clear its camp.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Anne MacKenzie agreed Friday with city lawyers who argued the protesters camped out on the lawn of the downtown Vancouver Art Gallery were trespassing on city land.

She concluded all tents and structures must be down by 2 p.m. Monday.

“I am persuaded by the city’s submissions,” MacKenzie said.

“I find the city has established a clear breach of its bylaws. . . I find the city would have irrevocable harm if they were refused”

MacKenzie said the protests can continue, but protesters cannot continue to live on the site.

Lawyers for the protesters had argued the encampment should be allowed to stay on the grounds the tents were integral to free speech and assembly, an argument MacKenzie said fell outside the scope of her hearing.

Hours earlier, a court in Victoria ordered campers parked in Centennial Square to pack up by 7 a.m. Saturday.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Terence Schultes said freedom-of-speech arguments simply weren’t strong enough to trump the city’s enforcement of its bylaws.

Lawyers for Occupy Toronto have made similar free-speech arguments in Ontario Superior Court, with lawyer Susan Ursel calling the encampment “an exercise of conscience.”

“(It’s a) manifestation of what they’re trying to create in the world,” Ursel told Justice David Brown.

Like Vancouver and Victoria, the City of Toronto says the protesters are trespassing. It argues they are violating bylaws and infringing the rights of other park users.

Brown, who will issue his ruling Monday morning, took issue with the protesters’ use of the term “eviction,” noting the city is only trying to enforce its bylaws.

“The (city’s) notice says you can use the park for political expression,” Brown said from the bench.

“But ditch the tents and not during the midnight hours.”

Ursel suggested the city should talk to the demonstrators about ways they can share the park before dismantling the camp.

Brown said the protesters could initiate that discussion but said they showed little indication of a willingness to compromise.

“You can talk, but their bottom line is: ‘Ain’t going anywhere’,” Brown said.

Five protesters fronted the legal challenge after officials went tent-to-tent to deliver bylaw notices after Mayor Rob Ford said he’d had complaints from area businesses.

Rachel Young, who owns a business across from the park, said Brown was asking the same “tough questions” the community has been asking since the occupation began Oct. 15.

The protesters have taken over the “entire” park, Young said outside court.

The argument that the tents are a fundamental part of the protest doesn’t wash, Young added.

“As soon as you fall asleep in a tent, you’re camping, you’re no longer protesting.”

Darrel Smith, a lawyer for the city, said the protesters don’t need to stay in the park overnight to get their message across.

“They’re not holding rallies or protesting between midnight and 5 a.m.,” he told the court.

“The impact on their rights is negligible” while the disruption in the neighbourhood has been significant, he said.

“Public interest demands the citizens of Toronto get their park back.”

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association, which is intervening the Toronto case, is arguing the protesters should be allowed to stay.

Association lawyer Jill Copeland told the court the camp posed no threat to public safety, and inconvenience or added cost wasn’t enough to justify removing the protesters.

Brown said his task was to figure out “when is the line crossed between some inconvenience and beyond the pale.”

The protesters took over St. James Park a few blocks east of Bay Street a month ago as part of the global Occupy movement that started on Wall Street in September.

Some protesters have said they would defy any order to leave.

Others, as several did in Victoria, said they didn’t want to risk a confrontation with police and left voluntarily.

While Schultes gave the protesters until 7 a.m. Saturday to leave Victoria’s Centennial Square, he said the city would have to come back to the court to enforce the ruling.

In Quebec City on Friday, about 40 police officers went to the Occupy camp to help dismantle a wood-and-metal shelter used by protesters to serve food. A handful of protesters initially tried to block police from getting to the shelter but were unsuccessful in stopping the officers.

City officials said the shelter had to go because it was too much like a permanent structure.

– with files from Colin Perkel and Paola Loriggio in Toronto

Local news from metronews.ca/vancouver

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