It's a bad time to be poor

Cameron Stuart Bishop recalls that he once served his country as a soldier. He also recalls the time a Vancouver cop pointed a gun at him while another officer handcuffed him as he was pinned facedown on the ground.

Several emotions tore through his mind. But there was one thought that stood out, noted the 45-year-old man who describes himself as a former "specialist" with the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry.

"I felt betrayed," Bishop told the Georgia Straight at the site where the supposed incident happened in early May. It was on the sidewalk along West Broadway near Laurel Street, which he also, incidentally, calls home. It's also where he makes a living by asking for change from passersby.

Bishop recounted that he was handcuffed after the cops found a knife underneath the backpack he uses as a pillow when they roused him from sleep. He said he told them he had a weapon because he was recently knifed in the leg by two men at that same location. Later, he said, he was told by the cops to pack his stuff and take a walk.

Bishop said he'd been living on the streets since 1997 without any problems from the police. But starting last summer, he said, cops began making life more difficult for him. From his bag, he pulled out a handful of tickets citing him for city-bylaw violations like "loitering" and "solicitation".

Those tickets were just a few of those issued him, he said. One night last winter, he used a bunch to make a little fire for himself. It's a long way from the warm home he used to have back east when he worked as a deep-sea fisherman after leaving the military, Bishop said. When the Newfoundland fishery collapsed in the early 1990s, his family started to unravel and he found himself in Vancouver in 1994. Three years later, he said, he was on the streets.

Bishop said he believes that a "war" has been declared by the city against poor people like him. "Why can't they just leave us alone?" he asked.

Chris Shaw, spokesperson for the 2010 Games Watchdog Committee, told the Straight that the harassment of homeless people is hardly surprising in an Olympic city.

"In the run-up for and during the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, some 9,000 people were swept off the streets," Shaw said. "It's economic cleansing."

Shaw said he expects police to "red-zone" Vancouver's homeless by designating places where they can't go and be seen by the outside world.

On May 7, the Impact of the Olympics on Community Coalition released a report urging the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) and its partners–the City of Vancouver and the British Columbia provincial government–to live up to their so-called Inner-City Inclusivity commitments.

These include commitments to housing, environment, civil liberties, and transparency.

"Continued harassment by private and public police, in the forms of the Vancouver Police Department, municipal By-law inspectors, and private security firms, will result in the functional denial of access to public spaces for homeless and under-housed residents," the report noted. "The authors wish to point out that the failure of the Parties to build sufficient social housing and to fund social welfare programs like drug detox, treatment and transition housing, along with mental health supports in the community, has resulted in the visible street disorder in Vancouver."

The report took note of tactics to stifle anti-Olympic dissent, like the use of civil injunctions and criminal contempt-of-court charges, as well as "illegal restrictions on public space and the mobility and assembly rights" of protesters. And the statement also reminded the parties of their commitment to "establish a table to discuss civil liberties and Games security concerns".

"The purpose of the table is to bring together members of all levels of government, the community and interested nonprofits and businesses to discuss how VANOC might best implement their ICI civil liberties Commitments before formal Games security policy is put in place," it stated. "To date this table has not been established."

Jason Gratl, president of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, noted that this advisory committee would assist the event organizers in "balancing civil-liberties interests with other important public interests such as security and transportation, and enhancing the perception that sports are not necessarily antithetical to democratic participation".

"The time is ripe," Gratl told the Straight. "The security plans are not yet finalized but they are approaching maturity. What we want to make sure in the complex organization of the Olympics is the existence of an institutionalized structure that will safeguard civil liberties."