As a student, Oppenheim was involved in the Edible Ballot Society which satirically advanced eating ballots to highlight the democracy gap in electoral politics. He was arrested at the 1997 APEC protests on University of British Columbia campus. He withdrew from the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP following the refusal of the Prime Minister to testify. His group was responsible for smuggling a siege catapult into the medieval city of Quebec during the Summit of Americas, 2001. It was used to lob teddy bears.