The Vancouver Olympic Blues
When I arrived in Vancouver, the first thing I noticed was the frowns.
The International Olympic Committee has leased every sign and billboard in town to broadcast Olympic joy, but they can't purchase people's faces. It's clear that the 2010 Winter Games has made the mood in the bucolic coastal city decidedly overcast. Even the customs police officer checking my passport started grumbling about "$5,000 hockey tickets." Polls released on my first day in Vancouver back up this initial impression. Only 50 percent of residents in British Columbia think the Olympics will be positive and 69 percent said too much money is being spent on the Games.
"The most striking thing in the poll is that as the Olympics get closer, British Columbians are less likely to see the Games as having a positive impact," said Hamish Marshall, research director for the pollster, Angus Reid. "Conventional wisdom was that as we got closer to the Olympics, people here would get more excited and more supportive." If the global recession hadn't smacked into the planning last year, with corporate sponsors fleeing for the hills, maybe the Vancouver Olympic Committee would be on more solid ground with residents. But public bailouts of Olympic projects have decisively altered the local mood.
I spoke to Charles, a bus driver, whose good cheer diminished when I asked him about the games. "I just can't believe I wanted this a year ago," he said. "I voted for it in the plebiscite. But now, yes. I'm disillusioned." This disillusion is developing as the financial burden of the Games becomes public. The original cost estimate was $660 million in public money. It's now at an admitted $6 billion and steadily climbing. An early economic impact statement was that the games could bring in $10 billion. Price Waterhouse Coopers just released their own study showing that the total economic impact will be more like $1 billion. In addition, the Olympic Village came in $100 million over budget and had to be bailed out by the city.
Security was estimated at $175 million and the final cost will exceed $1 billion. These budget overruns are coinciding with drastic cuts to city services. On my first day in town, the cover of the local paper blared cheery news about the Games on the top flap, while a headline announcing the imminent layoff off 800 teachers was much further down the page.
As a staunch Olympic supporter, a sports reporter from the Globe and Mail said to me, "The optics of cuts in city services alongside Olympic cost overruns are to put it mildly, not good."
But these aren't just P.R. gaffs to Vancouver residents, particularly on the eastside of the city where homelessness has spiked. Carol Martin who works in the downtown eastside of Vancouver, the most economically impoverished area in all of Canada, made this clear: "The Bid Committee promised that not a single person would be displaced due to the Games, but there are now 3,000 homeless people sleeping on Vancouver's streets and these people are facing increased police harassment as they try to clean the streets in the lead up to the Games."
I strolled the backstreets of the downtown eastside and police congregate on every corner, trying to hem in a palpable frustration and anger. Anti-Olympic posters wallpaper the neighborhood, creating an alternative universe to the cheery 2010 Games displays by the airport. The Vancouver Olympic Committee has tried to quell the crackling vibe by dispersing tickets to second-tier Olympic events like the luge. It hasn't worked.
The people of the downtown eastside and beyond are developing a different outlet for their Olympic angst. For the first time in the history of the games, a full-scale protest is being planned to welcome the athletes, tourists, and foreign dignitaries.
Bringing together a myriad of issues, Vancouver residents have put out an open call for a week of anti-game actions. Different demonstrations on issues ranging from homelessness to indigenous rights have been called. Protesters from London and Russia, site of the next two Olympics will be there. Expect a tent city, expect picket signs, expect aggressive direct actions. Tellingly, according to the latest polls, 40 percent of British Columbia residents support the aims of the protesters, compared to just 13 percent across the rest of Canada.
Harsha Walia of the Olympic Resistance Network said, "We are seeing increasing resistance across the country as it becomes more visible how these Games are a big fraud."
The Games will also coincide with the largest and longest-standing annual march in Vancouver, the Feb. 14 Memorial Women's March meant to call attention to the hundreds of missing and murdered women -- particularly indigenous women -- in British Columbia. The Vancouver Olympic Committee asked the Memorial March organizing if they would change the route of the march for the Olympic Games. As Stella August, one of the organizers with the downtown eastside Power of Women Group, said to me, "We are warriors. We have been doing this for 19 years and we aren't going to bow down to the Olympics."
One thing is certain: if you are in Vancouver, and competitive curling doesn't get your blood pumping, there will be quite the spectacle outside the arena.
[Dave Zirin is the author of the forthcoming “Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games we Love” (Scribner) Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.]
8 Reader Comments | Add a comment
sadly in regards to the Olympic games. the problems, notably economic, are magnified for each and every game. not sure how this ship can be righted while still providing the highest level of competition.
Dave, if Canada had a viable democracy they would have had a binding referendum to bid on the Olympics. Instead they got duped by the filthy capitalist neighbor to the south. Let me explain. Chicago was just a ruse the US never wanted this Olympic albatross. Now with Chicago losing on purpose the US has foisted this boondoggle on other unspecting cities such as Rio and perhaps Johannesburg.
So let us hope the Vancouver experience can lead to a shrinking of athletic competition worldwide. I am hoping the World Cup is next.
My love affair with Vancouver took a huge hit when it was announced as host city. It seemed very un-BC, but there were powerful forces at work. Visiting again, and seeing the run-up to congested chaos only deepened the damage.
Cities that host the Games end up broke - are there exceptions? Here's to Vancouverites offsetting some of the fiscal damage by giving the Games a major headaches (or three) on the global stage.
The good news is that this nonsense won't happen again in Vancouver for many years.
When conservatives cheered for Chicago's loss & were subsequently excoriated, I scratched my head. I never wanted Chi to win. Tho I'm happy for Rio & SA(World Cup), these spectacles are symptomatic of the Rigged Game.
I have lived in Vancouver for 3 years now. Coming from Toronto I always get the "ohh, Toronot, center of the universe," or "Onterrible,' and "so cold and mean." I have come to realise two things. Number one, out of the people in Vancouver who do say these things about Toronto, only about 1% of them have actually been to Ontario, yet alone Toronot. Number 2, the frowns you witnessed are nothing to do with the Olympics, I beleive they are always like this. I have had people say to me "you aren't from here are you?" And when i say no, they tell me I am too nice to be from here. Don't get me wrong, I have met amazing poeple out here, but overall the crowd is very cold.
Regarding the Olympics...I couldn't be happier and excited, and nervous. The highways and streets are horrible to travel. People don't know how to drive and do whatever they please, at the slowest speeds possible.
Also, the east side is the biggest shame. I understand people are upset that we are spending millions and millions on the games, but aren't taking care of our own citizens. Vancouver prides its self on naturul beauty and being green, but, its homeless are not even considered.
I find it humorous the amount of anger the west coast has against the east, and i basically think it is nothing but jealously. If the games were in Ontario, Quebec of Nova Scotia, you would not have been welcomed with one frown. Other proviences too probably....but unlike people from Vancouver, I won't judge other proviences that I am not familiar with.
I actually am embarrassed to live in Vancouver...welcoming the world this way!? unacceptable...back east, this would never happen....ever! People from this city need to get over themselves. I've been here for 1 year and find it so rude...Canadians are suppose to be some of the friendliest people in the world...but lets protest and not welcome the world....protesters need to give it up...they are lazy good for nothing cry babies...don't get me wrong, I believe in Freedom of Speech...but the games are coming, they are here....you aren't going to change that, instead, you look like east side losers. get a life. People before the games? I think people in East Van ended up there from the choices they made in their lives, and I don't think the rest of the city has to miss out on this ONCE in a lifetime experience because of a few bad apples. I understand some of these people are ill, and I support them and want them to be helped,...much more than they are now, however the majority of these bums did it to themselves. they paved their own road, when I was working full time and going to University and working 10 to 14 hour days and they were drinking and doing drugs. Can't afford school? work for it....loans,....scholarships. Not smart enough? Wal-Mart, McDonalds.....the list goes on...learn a trade.,...work work work....don't drink it away then have women's groups support you because you made that decision and have the rest of the city suffer because we should all pay you and not the Olympics.
I got 1 to 4 odds that the protests won't even be mentioned in NBC's coverage of the olympics. Any takers?
is all the apologists like chick up there who so obviously don't believe in democracy. Their "the Olympics are here now so every one should just shut up" arguments sound an awful lot like the "well the troops are there fighting now so we should all shut up and support". And the point chick, in case you missed it, isn't who doesn't work hard enough or not....it's the 6 BILLION dollars that could have been better spent...and a provincial government that when they got elected promised "NO MEGA PROJECTS". Of course you've only been there a year so I guess you don't remember that. Makes fast ferries look like losing a couple bucks on the street.
This is corporate welfare plain and simple. The promised low income housing will not materialize as the athletes village will be handed over to developers to make a profit thus completing another lie. It's a joke..plain and simple.
But in the end vancouverites have only themselves to blame. Even though the Larry Campbell plebiscite was non binding it would have certainly killed the games. I voted against it...but unfortunately only 39% had the foresight to know what would really happen. And I'm sure enough east siders got sucked in by the hype at the time to vote for it too. It was a 60% majority. I was born and raised in that city and I know it and the downtown east side like the back of my hand. I left shortly after that plebiscite. Be damned if those a holes will get any of my tax money for this crap.
What's sad is watching a city deteriorate into a mess of debt and filth. But hey...it will be a great party right?
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Dave Zirin is the author of the book: "Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics and Promise of Sports" (Haymarket). You can receive his column Edge of Sports, every week by going to dave@edgeofsports.com.
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