Occupy Sault Ste. Marie

The Occupy Movement has gained steam in recent weeks and Saturday saw the movement represented in Sault Ste. Marie.

“Sault Ste. Marie has a lot of community issues that we would love to deal with and would love to be heard about,” said Danielle Fleming. “We have a lot of brilliant people who live in this city and there are so many opportunities that people don’t take advantage of. This is a chance for those great minds to come out and get talking to see where we stand and what we can do for the community.”

The group is using the protest to bring some local issues to light as well as show solidarity to those protesting in other cities.

“I don’t think that in a city of this size we should have any issues of homelessness,” said Fleming. “With the extreme weather conditions, that should be a major priority. Sault Ste. Marie has such a big voice and we’ve got our voice out so many times but it seems like lately it’s been lacking a little bit. It’s about empowering our youth to know what’s out there.”

In a release to the media earlier in the week, Occupy Sault Ste. Marie also said the event was, “to show our support and solidarity with Occupy Together and Occupy Canada. The event is meant to get the people of the community interested in and educated about our cause and what our goals are.”

Fleming added that the protest organization has been about spreading the word.

“The organizing part has just been getting the word out and getting the people to come out and hopefully it will take care of itself,” said Fleming. “As for the nation-wide protests, it’s great to be in solidarity with the rest of the nation and the world. This isn’t just Canada or the United States. This is over 82 countries in the world. Those are some amazing numbers.”

People began to join in Occupy Sault Ste. Marie and were up near 30 people around noon hour.

“The turnout is great,” said Fleming. “I’m really impressed with the amount of people that are here. I was here about an hour earlier and was getting a little bit uneasy about the whole thing. It’s really nice to see that one-by-one they started to trickle in.”

Occupy Sault Ste. Marie officially kicked off at noon on Saturday at the courthouse with the intention of staying on-site as long as protesters chose.

Tents were set up on the site by some protestors.

Fleming added that she hoped the group would participate in some other local events in the coming weeks in hopes of further spreading the Occupy Sault Ste. Marie message.