2010 = 86: Wrong Answer

This week the local mediots are full of warm fuzzies about the 20th anniversary of Vancouver's Expo 86. This page was nowhere near Vancouver at the time, but it appears from what the World's Fair left behind, Expo ushered in a golden age of overpriced condos, a white elephant rapid transit system, a stadium no one likes going to, and highway tolls in perpetuity.

Yesterday, former Premier Bill Bennett (who's real claim to fame is being only one of two BC Premiers who had a General Strike on his watch), came out of hiding to rally our corporate overlords to try and generate the same kind of excitement for the 2010 Olympics that there apparently was for Expo 86. The big problem in that line of thinking, of course, is that a World's Fair and a Winter Olympics are two completely different events.

An Expo lasts six months, and is geared towards people coming to see it in person. An Olympics lasts two weeks, and is pretty much a television event with the crowds in the stands as glorified extras. A well run Expo produces economic spinoffs for its host city, while the profits from an Olympics are skimmed by the 'Olympic Family' of corporate sponsors and pseudo-royalty who make up the International Olympic Committee.

There may be good arguments that the likes of Bennett and Jimmy Pattison did a good job of putting on a show two decades ago, but Expo 86 was lightning (that struck a lot of homeless people) in a bottle. Nostalgia won't find construction workers, clear the protesters from Eagle Ridge Bluffs, or get an arena deal with GM Place any time soon.