After 11 years of bringing you local reporting, the team behind the Vancouver Observer has moved on to Canada's National Observer. You can follow Vancouver culture reporting over there from now on. Thank you for all your support over the years!

RCMP step up security for Bush and Clinton Surrey meeting

Photo by Pete Souza via Wikimedia Commons

The RCMP will be "strategically deployed" to keep #Occupy protesters at bay when former U.S. presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton meet in Surrey Thursday.

Bush and Clinton will speak to a lunch-time crowd at the Surrey Regional Economic Summit.

The two will share their "invaluable perspectives on the new realities facing North America and the world’s major economies" for $599 per person.

The Canadian Press has the story:

VANCOUVER - Mounties will be "strategically deployed'' to watch protests Thursday as controversial former U.S. president George Bush attends an economic summit in British Columbia in the midst of the activist-led Occupy movement.

Several dozen officers are expected to close roads around the Surrey hotel where Bush will engage in a lunch-hour conversation with former U.S. president Bill Clinton, a talk open only to ticket holders.

A justice group will also attempt to launch a private prosecution against Bush in tandem with earlier calls from Amnesty International for the federal government to put him under arrest.

The groups say Bush should be investigated for war crimes and torture under Canadian and international law.

The demand fits in with the wide and varied objectives of the worldwide Occupy demonstrations against corporate greed, which moved from Wall Street to major Canadian and international cities on Saturday.

Organizers cancelled a speech by Bush in Switzerland last February fearing disturbances fuelled by a Geneva-based rights group pushing for his arrest.

More in News

Views from a refugee camp: Who gets into heaven?

I have just returned to Vancouver Island from Greek refugee camps where I met a Yazidi man named Jason who told me about his escape from ISIS in Iraq.   His story begins on a desert road where a...

Vancouver's bicycle sharing grows as 15 new stations installed

Mobi bicycle by Shaw Go in Vancouver. Photo by Christopher Porter from Flickr Creative Commons

International Women's Day Concert celebrates female musicians who turned tragedy into triumph

Every March 8, on International Women's Day, we hear about the achievements of brilliant, talented women around the world. But how often do we learn about the physical and mental disabilities or...
Speak up about this article on Facebook or Twitter. Do this by liking Vancouver Observer on Facebook or following us @Vanobserver on Twitter. We'd love to hear from you.