Update: Five ‘Occupy The Ports’ protesters arrested

UPDATE: Five protesters were arrested for breach of the peace at Monday’s Occupy The Ports protests around Metro Vancouver. Vancouver Police say the protesters ended their day with a protest outside the Vancouver Jail on East Cordova Street.

The VPD says they were disrupting traffic on Clark Drive near East Pender in the afternoon and were arrested for their own safety.

All five were released at about 6 p.m. and no criminal charges have been laid.

EARLIER:
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – After the Port of Metro Vancouver was briefly taken over by protesters early this morning, about two dozen more demonstrators linked to the Occupy movement gathered at Callister Park in Vancouver.

Things were peaceful and police did not have to control the small crowd.

The signs and lawn chairs were back out as the protesters tried to show the public that the movement isn’t dead. They said they walked to the port for a number of reasons.

“Just eroding workers rights up here and down south. Port expansion and free trade zones at the Delta Port and expanding tanker traffic in the Burrard Inlet… an oil spill would devastate it,” said one protester.

Monday morning, about 20 protesters dressed in black held signs and physically blocked a ramp to the port at Hastings Street and Clark drive. They held a banner reading “solidarity.” Another man held a sign that read “Ports for people. Not for the global elite.”

Mya explained that the message is about equality and ecojustice. 

“We’re here to stand in solidarity with the [International Longshore and Warehouse Union] workers of the States and to stand against the growing disparity between the rich and the poor,” she said. “We’re also here to protest environmental destruction by shipping out natural resources through our ports, as well as the pipelines like the Enbridge and Kinder Morgan pipelines, shipping tar sands oils into Burrard Inlet.”

“We want to show people that we can stand together as a community. People can have power and it’s not just about corporatization of ports, we want to stand against that and against environmental injustice,” she adds.

It was one of many protests happening at the ports along North America’s west coast Monday.

No love for protesters

Not everyone is pleased with today’s movement. 

“Everyone has the right to protest, but there are people whose livelihood depends on access to the Port,” said President and CEO Louise Yako with the Trucking Association.

Federation of Labour President Jim Sinclair said trying to disrupt people trying to make living is not the right way to get a point across. 

“We felt that it was inappropriate to be trying to shut down the port and stop people from going to work,” he said. “It was an inappropriate tactic.”