it is a grassroots movement that began
on Wall Street and is spreading to other
major markets now organizers are
planning an occupy Vancouver event this
weekend to press for political and
economic change but to what end do
demonstrations like this really affect
change Matt Berkowitz is the
spokesperson behind Occupy Vancouver and
he joins us now from our ctv vancouver
studios good afternoon mr. Berkowitz
thank you for coming on hi Jennifer
thanks for having me on I appreciate it
not at all can you tell us what inspired
you to put together and occupy Vancouver
events similar to the Occupy Wall Street
movement well the Vancouver events just
one of over a thousand events all over
the world now that was inspired of
course from the original event in Wall
Street and of course the problems that
plague our society today are not exempt
in Vancouver so that's where the
inspiration was to organize an event
right here in Vancouver okay so what are
you looking to change exactly basically
the whole point of this is to raise
awareness about the fundamental problems
that plague our society from the social
economic and political spheres to the
you know all the problems in society the
war corruption poverty environmental
destruction and basically to open it up
to open up a platform for people to
discuss the root causes of these
problems and pose possible alternatives
well the criticism of the wall street
movement and it's been going on for a
while now is that it really offers no
real solutions how do you respond to
fair criticism it's a fair criticism at
this point at this point it's basically
about spreading awareness about all
these problems there's many
organizations who are going to be in
attendance who are opposing possible
alternatives for example i work with
another organization called the
zeitgeist movement and we're looking at
a possible new socio-economic model to
propose to the general public so while
the Occupy movement explicitly doesn't
have you know one defined solution there
are many it's basically meant as a
platform for other organizations to
discuss their their possibilities all
right and we'll talk about the groups
that are supporting you this weekend but
I wanted to touch on the fact of the
issues in the u.s.
the economic issues for the most part
are different from Canada's in that we
appear to be on a little more solid
economic footing at this point so do you
think people are as incensed as they are
south of the border at this time perhaps
not but like i said the broadest social
problems war poverty income inequality
environmental decline these aren't
exempt sin in canada and actually right
now income inequality is getting even
greater at a faster rate in canada than
it is in the united states the erosion
of the middle class appears to be the
greatest concern if i'm not mistaken
well that's one of them I wouldn't
single it out as the greatest maybe but
it's certainly a major one okay what
kind of support are you expecting to see
this weekend you do have some big labor
organizations behind you tell us about
that well it originated from like
Facebook from facebook events and there
are thousands of people on that we had
an event last Saturday at W to which you
know there's about three or four hundred
people in attendance to that so I think
it's safe to predict that there will be
thousands for this and who knows how
long it'll last it's really just October
15th that it's going to start and
continue on indefinitely from there all
right when coover as you well know is
still living in the shadow of the
Stanley Cup riots are you concerned
about crowd control issues and what is
being done to ensure that things stay
calm there on Saturday I make a couple
of distinctions the the Stanley Cup
riots didn't really have a social
purpose other than it seems destruction
this has a purpose of raising social
awareness about the fundamental problems
in society and hopefully it can be
channeled into that it is a non-violent
movement of a couple people get out of
hand then it makes you know the whole
point of the event look like it like
that was the whole point of the whole
event rather than just a few
perpetrators Matt Berkowitz thank you
for your time occupy Vancouver taking
place October 15th thank you