Less than two weeks ago, Bud Mercer, head of the Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit looking after security for the 2010 Olympics, raised with Vancouver City Council the specter of the violent clashes that rocked World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle and Quebec City.

To combat these forecasted dangers, the taxpayer is spending one billion dollars, at last count, and using 16,000 police and armed forces personnel!

To support this gross overkill, Mercer said, “I can assure council as I stand before you here today, that locally, provincially, nationally and internationally, there are groups that are considering or planning to engage in criminal protests during the 2010 Games. North America and Canada are not strangers to criminal protests during major events — the 1999 Seattle WTO, 2001 in Quebec City or the Stanley Cup riot. There are things that will happen during a major event that we have a responsibility to plan and prepare for…”

Mercer added that such precautions include more than 900 cameras to guard the perimeters of Olympic venues, the creation of “free speech” zones where protesters can legally demonstrate, and a 2010 security force of 7,000 police, 5,000 private security officers and 4,500 members of the Canadian Armed Forces.

More: https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2009/07/20/2010Freedoms/