Due to the fact that I have a kid, I did have to go home and take care of the kid, since she was cold, hungry and was running amok in the Kidzone of OccupyVancouver.  I then headed back down at 6:00 PM by myself in standard street clothes.

The atmosphere was a lot different, and there was a ongoing open mic where people got to address their many, many issues.  At this point, the crowd was less than 500, but the tent city was growing.  As the General Assembly progressed, it was far easier for people to participate in the process, and the group were able to come to consensus at least seven times during the night.  There were definitely issues with the access discussion, but someone else can cover that issue, since I don't have enough time to dive into it myself personally.

However, a disturbing trend was developing where the Tent City, which is now almost half of the Art Gallery lawn, was on its own, and the occupants were not visibly participating in the meeting, mostly because they did not view the meeting as actually concerning themselves.  However, once again, there was a point about the Police possibly clearing out the Art Gallery Lawn at 10:00 PM, and they asked for the VPD to come up to the front of the crowd to do this.

As we've seen on Vancouver Media Coop before, there's been major debates about the best way to deal with the police.  The people at the general assembly view the police as people, where many of the campers, as well as people such as myself who have had run-ins with the VPD, view the police as a threat.  There was much debate about OccupyVancouver asking the VPD to not go into the tents of the people who were planning to sleep there overnight.  One thing became clear, and that is that nobody there knew the law.  I made the point that police officers are allowed to lie to people, and another person exclaimed that I was lying and that it was illegal.  This should concern not only those who hate cops, but any criminal lawyer who is worth anything, since the cops are allowed to lie to you, and you are not allowed to lie to them!

Anyway, there was a consensus that was made regarding this that people did not block.  This was in fact the most contentious part of the night, and was also the part that actually got the most participation out of everyone.  The Facilitators, wanting to avoid conflict, tried to shut down the meeting at least four times, but were blocked by the actual occupiers.

There's an unofficial statement that's currently going around where the VPD state that they are willing to allow the tents to stay indefinitely.  This is problematic where the VPD can dictate which laws it follows and which laws it doesn't, because there's no legal defence against the VPD sweeping in one afternoon and taking down OccupyVancouver.

After the meeting ended with a rough agreement, OccupyVancouver split into three groups, one that stayed in front of the Art Gallery, one that formed a large circle that was the facilitation committee, and the roving party with the LPFM radio transmitter.  I ended the night following them into the Granville Skytrain.  

The next General Assembly is at 12 at the Vancouver Art Gallery, and it's going to be very interesting to see how the daytime attendees of OccupyVancouver deal with the decisions made the night before.  Also, I volunteered for the OccupyVancouver Legal Committee, because it seems very understaffed, and people should know their rights for when they get arrested!  We'll see how that goes as well.