[thought i put a note debunking this – but it seems to be missing. This turned out to be over-hasty in the heated debate over bike lanes – these guys, in a complicated way, WERE working for the city. Sorry for the overreaction]
The people who oppose bike lanes are doing a bit of a dirty tricks campaign… maybe.
These folks in the video were out claiming to be working for the city, acted a little shady when questioned, and yesterday were suggesting that “the city is thinking of getting rid of the bike lanes.”
Vancouver Sun articles critical of the bike lanes are being patrolled by comment deletionists, who report pro-bike comments as if they are spam, abuse, or illegal. Three reports is enough to hide a comment until a human editor can catch up with the situation, long enough for the article to drift off the front page, so that casual readers won’t see any bike-lane support.
YouTube – Fake car survey on Dunsmuir Viaduct.
By the way, the criminal code says:
http://laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/C-46/FullText.html
130. (1) Everyone commits an offence who
(a) falsely represents himself to be a peace officer or a public officer; or
(b) not being a peace officer or public officer, uses a badge or article of uniform or equipment in a manner that is likely to cause persons to believe that he is a peace officer or a public officer, as the case may be.
Punishment
(2) Everyone who commits an offence under subsection (1)
(a) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than five years; or
(b) is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.