Now that City Hall has taken away Occupy Regina’s potty privileges by confiscating their port-potty for lack of permit what are the turtling and the clenched to do? Where to shake the dew off the lilly?
When the potty was hauled away, – it was a shot across the bow in a game of you sank my battleship – they immediately mobilized forces with the speed and exactitude of The People’s Front of Judea. A quick camp meeting on Tuesday was organized to discuss the problem. A petition was created, a press release hastily written and discussed, and a rally scheduled for a high-stakes crap shoot at high noon on Wednesday.
Occupy Regina even showed up for the Tuesday night City Hall public meeting hoping against hope to speak their case but, alas, not to happen. They were too late to get on the agenda, (by 5 days! What timing), and none of the councilors broached the subject which would have allowed the protestors to plead their case.
In a seemingly coordinated effort across Canada, many other Occupy Tent Cities have been given the eviction notice: Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary, London Ontario, including Regina.
The impetus seems to have been the overdose death of a young woman in Vancouver. That Vancouver has taken a stand to force the protestors out has given the other mayors courage to draw up their own eviction notices. They are using the age-old excuse that it is for their own good, for their safety and well-being.
No good will come of this.
The irony is that people die of drug overdoses every day. As long as it occurs in a dank dark back alley they can be swept under the pavement. Never mind that poverty undermines the safety and well-being of the poor every day. Where is the concern then?
There is none, they just want them out of their eyesight. Minimum Visual Impact after all.
