Countdown not shutdown

2010 COUNTDOWN, By BOB MACKIN, Feb 12 08

Anti-Olympics protesters didn't get beyond the Hyatt Regency's driveway in their bid to shut down the Vancouver Board of Trade's two-year countdown lunch.

Dozens of Vancouver Police officers were waiting behind barricades yesterday at the hotel driveway when more than 100 protesters marched from the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Dozens more reinforcements were inside the hotel or scattered among the streets to direct traffic after protesters earlier caused a brief traffic jam near the Omega countdown clock.

Police kept protesters out of the hotel where Premier Gordon Campbell celebrated the countdown a day early with more than 1,000 business people.

The rally outside was as much about dissenting First Nations leaders as it was about Vancouver 2010. Native 2010 Resistance's Angela Sterritt said VANOC's Four Host First Nations alliance has little grassroots support.
 

"They do not represent the poor, the homeless or the common indigenous people," Sterritt said. "They represent the rich and continue to collaborate with the government and corporations for profits that will never benefit the indigenous people."

The Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh bands are only halfway through the six-stage treaty process. Lil'wat is not participating.

After his speech, Campbell said the Four Host First Nations are setting a good example for aboriginal relations.

As for the opposition among indigenous people, he said: "First Nations are like the rest of us. Unanimity is not something that can be found very often."

Many in Campbell's audience started the day at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver where Visa International senior vice-president Scot Smythe opened the B.C. government's 2010 Business Summit. Smythe said "something magical" will happen when the the Beijing Summer Olympics are over and the next Olympics are Vancouver's Winter Games.

Sport will replace politics, "communities look past problems [and] excitement grows."

Visa has been the official Olympic credit card and a sponsor since 1988.