Activist David Cunningham says the Anti-Poverty Committee is "getting really big, almost too big". The APC organizer says there are about 200 members, and claims that its supporters run to "a couple of thousand to a few thousand now".

In an interview with the Straight , Cunningham belied the common perception that the APC is engaged solely in protests. He noted that its Downtown Eastside office is open seven days a week to help people in such matters as filing for income assistance, housing problems, and complaints against the police.

"If we were putting poor people in a position of harm, I don't think we would have so many people joining our organization," he said. "They're coming to the Anti-Poverty Committee and they're participating in our confrontrational campaigns."

Cunningham is going to court on Thursday (May 24) to challenge a peace bond ordering him to stay away from board members, employees, and events of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC).

The peace bond was issued to Cunningham following his arrest on May 19, when he fell for a ruse by meeting a police officer impersonating a reporter who wanted to interview him.

Cunningham denied that he had threatened VANOC officials at a recent rally, where he said that the APC will take its protests directly to the offices and residences of Olympics organizers in order to "evict" them.

"We're clear that it's a political attack that we're waging on VANOC," he said. "Unlike the police, we're not a violent organization. We're guided by a nonviolent, civil-disobedience principle."

APC organizer Anna Hunter told the Straight that Cunningham's arrest isn't going to deter the group. "It only makes us stronger," she said. "We're a democratic organization. We don't have leaders."

Hunter said that the APC will follow through with its "political promise" to evict VANOC officials from their workplaces and homes. On May 22, APC activists trashed the downtown Vancouver office of Ken Dobell, a VANOC director and special adviser to B.C. Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell.