An "Olympic" Misconception

I would like to take a few minutes to clear up an “Olympic” misconception. As a resident of British Columbia I have heard repeatedly during discussions in the media of the fact that a “vote” was held by the provincial government to give the people of the province a voice in choosing to host the 2010 games. This mantra is most loudly trumpeted by the provincial Liberals, The Vancouver Olympic Committee or zealot Olympic supporters when faced with protest or pointed questions over ballooning costs. I decided to review the facts. I present my findings here for your assessment. I think the results offer a startling view of the actual legitimacy of the games and the inclusion (or lack thereof) within the democratic process afforded to the people of British Columbia that is becoming all too familiar in politics today.

On the 22nd of February, 2003, a vote was held to validate the Olympic games to legitimize government and corporate desires through democratic means. Here are some interesting numbers: Only the 293,263 people of Vancouver were declared eligible to vote in “the plebiscite” for these Olympic games of which only 46% of the people actually voted. By simple math that means only 134,900 people voted out of a provincial population of 4,111,000 according to the Stats Can 2007 census – 3% of the provincial population. Remember ladies and gentlemen, it is the province of British Columbia that is paying for these games. The city of Vancouver is already in debt for a billion dollars over the failed athletes village. The city was forced not only to amend the city charter to allow the city to carry the debt as the developer, but is now looking to shed 158 full time employees, increase parking rates, and increase property taxes to cover this year’s budget shortfall. Olympic costs will not be tallied and released to the public nor reflected on a P&L until next year’s budget.

Out of the 134,900 participating voters, all were from Vancouver. Not included in the vote were the people of Whistler-Pemberton who are actually hosting the games, nor the other 1.5 million people of the suburban Fraser Valley, nor the people of the Kootneys, the Bulkley-Skeena, the Caribou, the Okanagan, the island or any other part of the province whom will all be paying the bills in increased provincial and municipal taxes and decreased provincial services. Vancouver decided for this province with a 64% yes response, which means that 86,336 people, or 2% of the province’s population, voted yes to these Olympic Games – all from the one very region positioned to reap the greatest benefit in tourist revenue, exposure and new infrastructure.

The numbers are so simple they speak for themselves, and clearly this is a case of democratic spin doctoring and nothing more. There was never a vote on hosting the Olympics by all the people paying the freight in this province. Now if the city of Vancouver, not the province of British Columbia, was paying for these games, then a plebiscite in Vancouver alone would be a democratic statement, but this is not the case. The Feds dipped a billion dollar finger into the Olympic debt pool but it is the province that is on the real hook. The four million people of this wonderful province are and will be responsible to pay for every last penny of the six billion dollars already spent on these games. Worse is that the six billion dollar figure does not include the hidden and skyrocketing security budget already topping a billion dollars or the billions spent our provincial Liberals are refusing to place on the books. For the British Columbia government, Vanoc or any person to say that there was a “legitimate vote” on the Olympics is a complete distortion of the facts.

So let the Olympic rings glow over our one billion dollar trade centre, whose cost overrun alone is more than the entire fast cast fiasco, which the Liberals in opposition used to topple the Provincial NDP. I hope the people enjoy them because not only will the 3% of the population who were allowed to vote for the games be paying through the nose for decades at now over seven billion and counting, not including the numbers the government fraudulently refuses to put on the books, but so will the other 97% of the population that were deemed unworthy to even present their ballots on this important decision. The prohibitively high cost of holding a province-wide vote was the reason given at the time… remember?

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at 9:11 pm and is filed under Olympics, Provincial Government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.