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'Pigeons' squawk over mayor's comments on homeless

Last Updated: Wednesday, April 25, 2007 | 4:50 PM ET

CBC News

Three protesters wearing feather boas and large paper beaks demonstrated outside Ottawa City Hall Wednesday morning in a flap over Mayor Larry O'Brien's comments about homeless people.

In media interviews last week, O'Brien compared homeless people to pigeons, and said if people stopped feeding them they would go away.

Protester Jeremy Dias said he was offended by Mayor Larry O'Brien's comments likening homeless people to pigeons.
(CBC)

Protester Jeremy Dias, who heads an organization that works with homeless youth, called the mayor's comments "scandalous."

"We as a youth organization … were very much offended by what he said," said Dias, director of Jer's Vision: Canada's Youth Diversity Initiative.

"Homeless people are persons, not pigeons.… The majority of them don't use drugs, the majority of them aren't dangerous to the general population."

He added that contrary to O'Brien's claims that the homeless are bused in from Perth and other surrounding communities, Ottawa's homeless live in the city.

Dias and two young women handed out pamphlets to councillors and other passersby and put up a poster highlighting the features that distinguish people from pigeons.

This story is now closed to commenting.

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