Vancouver activist Derrick O’Keefe says local rallies in support of Egyptian anti-government protesters will likely continue taking place for some time.

“Probably as long as the standoff continues and as long as there are people on the streets in Egypt in big numbers we’ll see protests happening here,” he told the Straight today (February 4) by phone.

Another rally is planned for 1 p.m. Saturday, February 5, outside the Vancouver Public Library main branch at Robson Street and Homer Street.

The demonstration is to coincide with solidarity rallies planned in Edmonton, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, and Winnipeg.

“I think we’re finding a lot of people paying attention and a lot of people expressing their support,” said O’Keefe, co-chair of Stopwar.ca in Vancouver, a group helping to organize the local rallies.

O’Keefe expressed disappointment with Canada’s response to the uprising in Egypt, where citizens are demanding the ouster of long-ruling president Hosni Mubarak.

“Yesterday, Lawrence Cannon, the foreign minister of Canada, endorsed Mubarak’s so-called transition plan, which is clearly not what the people who are risking their lives on the streets of Egypt want to see happen,” O’Keefe said.

“It’s a way for the regime to really stay in control and hand things over to his head of security and intelligence, Omar Suleiman,” he added.

O’Keefe said the Canadian government instead should have condemned Mubarak’s regime and voiced support for the legions of pro-democracy protesters calling for political change in Egypt.

Cannon has indicated the Canadian federal government is concerned about the stability of any political transition in the North African country.

“I think the question is what’s next,” Cannon said in a Globe and Mail report. “A vacuum does not mean a transition.”

“The transition must be orderly, we have said it from the beginning. And these things must be settled by the Egyptians themselves.”