The death of 23-year-old Ashlie Gough at the Occupy Vancouver campsite on Saturday has mayor Gregor Robertson calling for protesters to take down their tents.

"I have directed the city manager to expedite the appropriate steps to end the encampment as soon as possible," Robertson said.

The mayor's political challenger, Suzanne Anton, called Gough's passing "a terrible tragedy" and pointed to it as another reason why she believes the tent city needs to be shut down.

"We've got the ongoing cost, we've had an overdose, now we have a death. What more does it take? This needs to come to and end," Anton told CTV News.

Gough was a Victoria resident who had come to Vancouver to participate in the Occupy protest. Her friend discovered the young woman in her tent Saturday afternoon and originally thought she was sleeping. But when Gough didn't respond, she was given CPR. The coroner has now confirmed that she was actually dead, not unconscious, when found in her tent.

The coroner is not releasing Gough's cause of death at this time.

"There are lots of rumours out there that this is a drug related death. But the BC Coroners Service deals in facts, and right now I cannot confirm that. We need to have toxicology results done and they will take a few weeks," Kate Corcoran said.

Niko Guerrra, who knew Gough, also told CTV News he is unsure of what caused his friend's passing.

"She might have OD'd," he said. "I didn't find any drugs, I know that she wasn't doing any heroin. Maybe I was wrong,"

Despite Vancouver politicians' positions to remove the encampment over safety concerns, many occupiers are settling in for a long haul. Some protesters have brought in new materials to build larger tents that would prevent people in potentially dangerous situations from going unnoticed.

"I personally have a personal responsibility, as well as a lot of other people here do, for the fact that we didn't make these upgrades sooner," Occupy Vancouver spokesman Eric Hamilton-Smith told CTV News.

Fire officials tried to prevent the erection of any new structures, and a notice was posted by the city warning against it. But the builders carried on.

"The only justification that there is to remove us from this site is if we pose a risk to human safety, and at the end of today there will no longer be any risk," Hamilton-Smith said.

With a report from CTV British Columbia's Nafeesa Karim