As much as I am interested in the festivities of the Olympics its worth finding out why people are protesting it too.  Protesting the Olympics here, as we have seen in London, are a good opportunity to publicize the cause and to also motivate its followers.  So what are they protesting about?

The main organization that seemed to cause disruption on the opening day of the Olympics was “No Olympics on Stolen Native Land“, please go to their FAQ section to find out more about them.  Also, another group calling themselves the Poverty Olympics is drawing attention to the high level of homeless people in Vancouver, in fact this is something that shocked me when I arrived here.  Homeless numbers do seem to increase in the cities that host the games because they push out people and build multi-million dollar buildings where their homes used to be.  Others are also protesting about the large sums of money which has been spent on the Olympics especially during a poor economy.  Also some protests are against the Royal Bank of Canada‘s investments into Tar Sands projects and the impact it has on the environment, RBC is an Olympic sponsor.

Unfortunately the peaceful protests have been overshadowed by rent-a-mob, a bunch of anarchists who are determined to vandalize and scare communities just for the sake of it.  The group/s involved in this today use the “Black Bloc” concept where they dress in black attire with masks so they cannot be identified, they surprisingly have a number of Facebook groups which are highly disturbing, I am surprised these haven’t been taken down.

I found the following protests to be quite disturbing:

• Stephen Harper was due to visit a Chinese Cultural Centre but protesters tied yellow tape round the building and put chains on the doors, this trapped innocent people inside.  This is a horrible thing to do, what if there was an emergency like someone being ill or a fire.  Source: Globe and Mail
• The destruction of personal and corporate property, plus violence against the police in a riot that occurred this morning.  CTV Edmonton has disturbing raw footage from the riots.

The violent side of the protests are a terrible shame because some of the causes are justified and have good reason to lobby Government.