Occupy Vancouver’s List of Demands

November 4, 2011

Posted by Vancity Buzz | 27 »

Update: The General Assembly (GA) has denounced these demands. More on this as it develops.

Here is the list of demands originally published by the CBC earlier today. As stated they are ever evolving and as many might have expected, some of the demands are impractical. The idea was great and still has merit, but the protesters are simply going about it the wrong way. Thus, many citizens are fed up and now it looks as though the people of Occupy Vancouver are the 1%.

http://twitter.com/mpah M. Pah

I like how there’s a spelling error on #41

#OccupuyProofReading
http://twitter.com/Ciavarro Ciavarro

Had me right up until demand 59. Bolivian Earth Charter? WTF? That’s where I draw the line. Let’s release all the non-violent prisoners sure. But the Bolivian Earth Charter just goes too far…
http://twitter.com/VancityBuzz Karm

I can’t support that as my proofreading is usually pretty shit lol
http://about.me/kyle Kyle

25 seems good, and I like most of the environmental ones, but some of the others are pretty unrealistic.
Anonymous

Maybe they want to have the gov control your collage….. IMO the gov shouldn’t have anything to do with my collage.
Dude

We DON’T demand solid facts! What we demand is the total ABSENCE of solid facts. I demand that I may, or may not, be Vroomfondel.
Darien1

I demand less typos.
No

I like how corporate crimes should be prosecuted more rigorously, but all non-violent prisoners should be released. How will you punish white collar criminals? With fines? What a dream that would be for them. If caught stealing, pay to get out of it. If not caught, lucky you.
Wizit69

maybe they really are asking for control of collages not Colleges
Wizit69

Honestly If they have such a problem with Vancouver I don’t mind them leaving it.
Anonymous

I demand a nice big steak. Right now.
http://twitter.com/dwlonline David W Lemley

I demand these people Occupy Chilliwack and the media leaves them alone.
BL

They forgot the 60th demand: Removing “Contradiction” from the canadian vocabulary!
http://twitter.com/RicjandroHa Richard Ha

People still occupying the art gallery, your protest won’t due to many, many reasons. I’ll help list a few:
1. Your demands are impractical and by monetary means, impossible. (Credit default swaps, bonds, bank to bank debts, all $65 Trillion to be removed.) What’s ironic is that 99 percent of the protesters don’t even what all of the things listed on the draft.
2. Thinking that once the propaganda gets big enough, it will fairly class a person making $500k as well as a person make $0. Also you have no idea about taxation. Stating that the rich needs to pay, lets take a look at how much people making over $250,000 pays in taxes: Individual Income Tax: 52 %, Corporate Tax: 12.9%, Employment Tax: 32.2%, Estate Taxes: 1.1%, Excise Taxes: 1.9%. Take a moment and think about equality.
3. No leader

Protesters on Wall street, at the art gallery, or in any other country in support of this movement are stating that the answer is to end consumerism and raise taxes for the rich. How can people provide an answer to an issue when they don’t know what the question is. One of the most important reasons to why this movement will definitely fail is due to the fact that the protesters don’t want it to succeed. Take a look at the all people hashtagging their post about the protest on their Blackberry or their iPhone. Consumerism goes both ways.

If people protesting actually took the time to research the numbers they’d know that it wouldn’t matter if the government raised the taxes on the rich (Source: http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/124xx/doc12471/s1660.pdf). This means that even if the government tripled the income tax for people making $250,000 and up over 10 years, it still wouldn’t cover the deficit. Aside from that, the truth underlying all this is ~58% of taxes goes to healthcare and social security and ~20% goes to defense. (Source: http://www.fin.gc.ca/tax-impot/2010/html-eng.asp). What you don’t get is that taxes mean nothing to a government that can print money. People among the 99% that are without jobs even with a post-secondary education, protest the individuals that sold you the lie that an arts degree has marketable value and is worth incurring a $40,000. ”We the 99 percent” is a farce. If 99% of the population were this stupid, we all would have died a long time ago.
momofsix

Uhhhh really!?!?! You want legalized drugs and then free health care to look after all the junkies… mmmmm ya
Toaster

It started as a concept….evolved into a movement…..and ended as a joke.
Bob

that list has been discredited and disavowed numerous times by @occupyvancouver
Northshoreelly

There are many non-physical crimes and criminals. Just thought you should consider that fraud is usually non-violent, many people convicted of pedophilia never come into physical contact with other people either.
B Urban

Oh dear. Environmentalists. Such passion for noble causes, yet not all of their opinions are based on scientific evidence or a pragmatic approach to sustainability. For instance, GMOs are probably safe and have the potential to provide drought-resistant crops, edible vaccines, and nutritionally enhanced plants (among other benefits). The kicker is that terminator genes prevent wild growth of GMO crops (in order to keep GMOs contained and under control – a safeguard against the slight chance of “danger” that environmentalists are fearful of). Also, nuclear energy is by far the cleanest way to generate the energy demands of the current and growing world. If we phase out nuclear energy like the environmentalists want, what current technology can sufficiently replace it without causing more harm? We have to be realistic and pragmatic about the problems we face. Romanticizing and getting emotional (rather than logical) about these issues does very little in the way of actual improvement, in my opinion.
JayEmBosch

These are not the demands of #OccupyVancouver. They have not been formally suggested to the General Assembly, nevermind voted on or ratified. Over 50 items were written by a single individual without input from others. The editor of this blog has been personally contacted regarding this, and yet does not make mention of it on this blog. CBC also has ignored repeated requests for them clarify these alleged demands.
JayEmBosch

And the comment system just ignored the link I pasted into my comment.

http://www.facebook.com/OccupyVanCity/posts/270380192999586
Guest

Greed is good
Rfaraji

If you want to have your voice heard, pick realistic demands and go about them. I agree with you, the world is more f’d up now than any of use ever imagined. The simple fact that ANYBODY believes 9/11 was really a terrorist backed project, let alone the majority of people, still blows my mind. We have absolute idiots walking around in society and the real people behind this are pissing on us from above, but people are too occupied with the new iphone to care about what’s really going on. Life has become a freaking joke. Most Canadians could care less about what’s going on overseas, but sooner or later, the same thing will happen here.

Have a plan and an approach. The freaking cyclists in Vancouver managed to shut down bridges in this city by protesting to get what they wanted, lanes in downtown. Try protesting on lions gate bridge and burrard bridge at 5pm a few days and make people hear you. I think the real tragedy is that we are not all out there protesting, but I will not come sit in the rain at van art gallery and pretend like I’m bringing about change. The day you guys organize something meaningful that will have an impact, I will be there front row.

Not in a million years would I have thought that we as a society would let war after war happen over lies. Wake up people.
Sam Chua

Why not demand that the military and police force be replaced by a flock of yogic flyers…and that Canada put a man on the moon by 2013? It’d be equally realistic as this list of demands.
Sam Chua

as long as they’re camping in the STREAM parking lot.
Sam Chua

Occupy Vancouver has been discredited and disavowed many times by 99% of people living in Vancouver.
Abalone

We would be living in Utopia of all this came true. I don’t expect to live that long, but even any small changes would be welcome. Whose country is it anyway? If change doesn’t come about, how much longer can our planet survive? Maybe what we need is another French revolution and chop off a few heads.