A small gathering of die-hard social activists gathered outside a Vancouver police detachment yesterday to have their say about a controversial law.
It was a rally designed to draw public attention to the pitfalls of the Assistance to Shelter Act - dubbed the "Olympic Kidnapping Act" by critics - but the voices of 20 people or so fell on deaf ears as the only onlookers outside the rain-drenched Main Street detachment were a gaggle of media.
"This bill is unjustified and unworkable," said Pivot Legal Society lawyer Laura Track. "It takes a step backwards. Instead of continuing to find affordable housing and providing shelter space the government is taking a step towards criminalizing poverty."
Pivot is plotting a legal challenge against the act, while community groups such as the Carnegie Community Action Project and the DTES Women's Centre Power to Women vow to fight the legislation. And while the act has been chastised as a tool to keep homeless people off the streets during the Olympics, VANOC's John Furlong says the bill wasn't an initiative that came out of his office.
"I don't know anything about it and we haven't asked anybody to do anything like that," he said. "When the global television community arrives, they're going to tell stories and shoot pictures. And they're going to shoot the whole story."
