The Load to 2010
part 2: Shut Down or Shut Up

Over the past few weeks, this page has turned a deaf ear to the groups calling to stop the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, because it's not going to happen. The Games will go ahead. The Games have the potential to be a financial, social, and environmental catastrophe, but they are going ahead. In fact, this page is going to argue that the biggest reason why there have been so many unresolved problems surrounding these games is that the most vocal Olympic opponents are in fact, a problem in themselves.

First of all, some of the arguments put forth by the likes of the Anti-Poverty Committee are a little shaky, the most dubious being 'No Olympics on Stolen Land'. That's a hard sell to the general public who have been repeatedly told that VANOC has agreements with the four First Nations where the Games are being staged. Usually when something is being stolen, the theives don't make a token effort to give something back, which in this case would be some modicum of economic development for the affected Bands. It has been argued that in supporting the Olympics, the Chiefs and Band Councils have defied the wishes of their own people, particularly the marginalized among them. Unfortunately, that's an issue for the Bands to decide, if right-minded British Columbian were angry about a Treaty Referrendum which dictated right and wrong to First Nations, we also have to let them reach their own decisons about the Olympics.

Secondly, the 'No Games' crowd has been as bad as VANOC (and their corporate and government enablers) in generating a polarizing, all-or-nothing hype about the Olympics: This is what happens when you have the Greens and the Anarchists leading the parade: the parade gets lost and tries to shout itself down. Instead of actually focussing on issues like social housing, transit and the environment with a view beyond 2010, the simplistic argument has been repeated that this is all the fault of the Olympics, which would be great if it was actually true.

Sorry folks, but I've pointed my Golden Compass at two different worlds: one where Pyeonchang is hosting the 2010 Olympics, and another where that honour went to Salzburg. Guess what? In both those worlds, Vancovuer still has homelessness, crime, weak infrastructure and poor public transit. What galls me is that the years that should have been focussed on to mitigate the negative impact of the Olympics are 2008 and 2009: People who think the Olympics are going to destroy B.C. could have been working to engage the public to elect a few people people to prevent that from happening. Instead they chose to storm the barricades and throw rocks at the Royal Bank.

It's not like the public is in love with these games either. The call for Olympic volunteers was made this week, and fell on deaf ears in the Lower Mainland, 79% of CKNW listeners polled say they have no interest in working for VANOC for free. Unfortunately, the opposition to the Games decided to focus on a winner-take-all shutdown rather than working to hold VANOC accountable to the promises that were made to the IOC and to Vancouver voters in the 2003 referrendum on the Olympic bid. Two years to the Games, and they can't generate any enthusiasm either.