VANCOUVER: IT''S HAPPENING RIGHT NOW OR IT'S NOT

A call from the Anti-Poverty Committee (Vancouver) reads:

PROTEST CORPORATE INVASION OF INDIGENOUS TERRITORY!!
PROTEST OLYMPIC GENTRIFICATION!!
PROTEST VANOC'S BULLSHIT BUDGET!!

The Vancouver Olympics Committee (VANOC), the ruling elite of the 2010 Olympic games, have been allowed to conspire in peace behind closed doors while outside people?s homes and land are destroyed.

At their next secret meeting join us in confronting them face-to-face at their headquarters.

BECAUSE THEY WILL NOT OPEN UP - DRIVE THEM OUT!

It's scheduled for today. In fact, something should be going on right about now.

Members of the Anti-Poverty Committee, a local group that wants to cancel the 2010 Olympics, vowed to force their way into Wednesday's VANOC board meeting.

There have been a series of clashes surrounding the Olympic Games preparations

After a rally downtown at 1 p.m. today, protesters plan to take a bus that can seat 62 people to VANOC's Graveley Street headquarters, APC organizer David Cunningham said.

He said the APC warned VANOC more than a month ago that if its meetings weren't opened to the public, protesters would storm in.

"We are willing to do whatever it takes. We do have tricks up our sleeves to force our way in, or force them out," he said, adding the group has a list of grievances they plan to read aloud. The money spent on the Olympics should be directed toward social housing and alleviating poverty, he said.

The Anti-Poverty Committee is an organization of poor and working people, who fight for poor people, their rights and an end to poverty by any means necessary.

The following is from Canada's Globe and Mail.

Protesters target VANOC board members
ARMINA LIGAYA

VANCOUVER — Protesters who are threatening to storm their way into a meeting of the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee today say they will start “evicting” individual board members at their workplaces to get their message across – including tossing their belongings into the street.

The Anti-Poverty Committee — a local activist group that wants to cancel the games and direct Olympic funding towards social housing — plans to target VANOC board members at their workplaces.

Committee organizer David Cunningham said protesters intend to “symbolically evict” the VANOC board members in the same manner people have been displaced from the downtown lower east side.

“It would be just going in with a very confrontational attitude, much like the police go in to people's hotels,” said Mr. Cunningham. “When those places are evicted, people's belongings are just literally thrown into the streets. We'd be looking at doing about the same thing.”

In recent months there have been a series of protests surrounding the Olympic games preparations, including a February clash where activists stormed the stage of a VANOC ceremony, vandalism of the Olympic clock and today's planned protest.

The APC will go to board members' offices if protesters aren't able to force their way into VANOC's board of directors meeting. These regular meetings are traditionally closed to the public, but greater transparency and accountability is on the meeting agenda, said VANOC vice-president of communications, Renee Smith-Valade.

The APC is scheduled to meet at Pigeon Park at 1 p.m. PDT, before taking a bus which can seat 62 to VANOC's Graveley Street headquarters.

“Hopefully, they'll let us into the meeting today and we won't need to do this,” Mr. Cunningham said. “Otherwise, we'll start immediately... it will be a campaign of escalating office invasions.”

Constable Tim Fanning of Vancouver police said it's too early to speculate, but if the APC commits a crime, they will be dealt with.

“It's a no brainer... they're talking about a criminal offence, whether be it mischief or disturbance,” he said. “We won't know until we get there, or if it happens.”