Concerned citizens in Victoria recently got behind the Occupy Wall Street movement by occupying Centennial Square and the legislature lawn as a means of starting a long-overdue conversation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want us to offer solutions rather than just demand that other people fix it for us,\u201d says local activist Josh Steffler. \u201cEveryone has their own issue. This gives them a chance to start making change.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two separate \u201coccupy\u201d events took place in downtown Victoria on Saturday, October 15 in conjunction with hundreds of other events across Canada and the world, as part of a global day of action.<\/p>\n
The People\u2019s Assembly of Victoria (PAOV) formed after observing the Occupy Wall Street movement. There were only eight people at their first meeting, but that number soon jumped to 150. They occupied Centennial Square on October 15.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis event will further the conversation,\u201d says Michelle Buchanan of the PAOV media working group. \u201cNobody has the answers. It\u2019s all about the questions right now, and talking about how we can all pull together. The time has come to make some really big changes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another group sprung up soon after PAOV formed.<\/p>\n
Calling their event Occupy Victoria, this second group occupied the legislature lawn on the same day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought I should give people a place to talk about the problems that are causing people to gather in the streets,\u201d says Steffler, who did much of the legwork to make Occupy Victoria happen.<\/p>\n
Steffler got a permit for amplified speech at the legislature lawn and contacted politicians and community members to speak at the legislature.<\/p>\n
Steffler didn\u2019t plan on camping out, but he encouraged others to by setting up tents in parks around Victoria.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf people need to occupy, that\u2019s where they\u2019ll go,\u201d says Steffler. \u201cIt\u2019ll be organic.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Concerned citizens in Victoria recently got behind the Occupy Wall Street movement by occupying Centennial Square and the legislature lawn as a means of starting a long-overdue conversation. \u201cI want us to offer solutions rather than just demand that other people fix it for us,\u201d says local activist Josh Steffler. \u201cEveryone has their own issue. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-october192011"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=860"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":944,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860\/revisions\/944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}