Squamish band will likely protest at 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games
Squamish band members will likely protest at the 2010 Olympic Games despite the chief signing an agreement with the Vancouver Organizing Committee to support the event.
“There will be some level of protest, and I hope so, too,” Squamish First Nation Chief Bill Williams said Thursday.
“We are going to be working with VANOC, but we have 3,500 members and not all want to be part of the Olympics. They want to talk about the children and the hardships in the community and they have the full right to do that.”
Williams said natives across Canada have the highest ratings in all the worst quality-of-life scenarios.
“We have the highest rate of people incarcerated, the highest rate of children dropping out of schools, the highest rate of children in the child-care system and I could go on and on,” Williams said.
“I myself as an aboriginal male have the shortest lifespan.”
The Downtown Eastside’s Anti-Poverty Committee has also staged several anti-Olympic protests, including an attack on a podium outside the Vancouver Art Gallery during the launch of the Olympic clock. The clock has been defaced twice.
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