Sidney Crosby Seals Gold Victory For Men's Hockey: Who Cares? Photo: The Star-Ledger

Canadians can now stop the hand-wringing, and finally we can hoist the red and white high towards the clouds, but how large was our Vancouver Olympic victory really? We did win more gold medals than any other country in Winter Olympic history. In terms of sporting success and country size, our victory was actually much larger than most people think. With a population nine times larger than ours (which means a much larger young population base from which to select top athletes) and with significantly larger financial resources, the U.S. won only 11 more medals, and they actually won significantly fewer gold medals than Canada. Put another way, Canada won 0.466666′ gold medals per million people (the medal some people consider the only one worth winning), while the United States won only 0.033333′ gold medals per million people. Yes, the Americans won the most medals, but they did not win 9 times more medals which their population would suggest they should. Furthermore, most of these medals were not the more prestigious gold medal category. When factoring in population and financial considerations, some small countries actually do extremely well in Olympic events, even if the medals won are few in number. So given Canada’s small stature and her gold medal record, even when considering the home-field advantage, we accomplished truly Olympian athletic feats: we actually did more than own the podium.
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Team Canada wins gold in Women's Hockey (photo: AP)

The Vancouver 2010 Olympics are now over, with the nation receiving a classic showdown of hockey supremacy in the form of the men’s gold medal game between arch rivals Canada and the United States to top things off.

A little more than a week ago, with the medal count looking very different than it did at the end of the Games, Canada’s much trumpeted and controversial ‘Own The Podium’ campaign was enduring a litany of criticisms that it had failed to produce the Olympic hardware that it was specifically designed for.

‘Arrogance,’ many said, ‘unrealistic,’ ‘overreaching,’ ‘doomed to failure,’ were among the chants coming from both domestic and international skeptics for whom the program was a contentious and decidedly un-Canadian effort to dare secure more medals for this country at a Winter Olympics than ever before.
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Opening ceremony for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games (photo by Reuters)

After years of painstaking planning, construction, advertising and anticipation, the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics finally opened on Friday February 12.

Athletes, the media and sports enthusiasts from around the world gathered at B.C. place for a nearly 3 hour spectacle that showcased the unique, multicultural element these games have vowed to represent.

Unfortunately for the city of Vancouver and its Olympic Organizing Committee, the games have been subject to a slew of criticism.
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A hoop dancer performing at the announcement of the 2010 Aboriginal Pavilion. Photo from www.canada2010.gc.ca

This is somewhat after the fact, but I’ve been thinking about the Olympic opening ceremonies over the past few days, and the topic came up again at a recent dinner with friends. This was the first time we had gotten together since the start of the games, and we were reviewing our overall impressions of the festivities. The consensus was that the ceremony was technologically impressive and that K.D. Lang’s performance was the highlight of the evening.

My dinner companions and I thought that the opening ceremonies didn’t show the world anything about Canada that they didn’t already know (wheat, whales, plaid, fiddles, snow) and that it was biased toward Western themes.   As easterners – and by “easterners” I mean Atlantic Canadians, and not Ontarians or Quebecers – we felt that the east was not as well represented as it could have been.
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I am a pragmatist. I am not a Gordon Campbell-hater. He’s done some things I strongly supported, like crushing a rather frivolous teachers strike and saving money while he did it, and he made some harsh but fiscally necessary decisions in respects to health care. I have parted ways with him, however, over the HST debacle which some people still don’t see gives increased borrowing power to successive provincial governments via the de-facto 7% they will extract from each home sale, and be able to hold and invest for a fiscal year (in some cases a tad more) until they are obligated to turn this GST over to the Feds. “What” you may ask “will be the incentive to reduce PST in BC if they are already doing short term investing with GST from the same transactions?” Well anyway…

I am also not an Olympic hater. Not to say that I like them either. I really do not care about what kind of ball or rubber cookie young people from the lower classes are going to chase about on ice or grass or snow for the amusement of the bored and easily amused Euro-American middle class. I with only one exception I will expound on later, will not watch a single minute of the games, successful or otherwise, because I do not feel them any more relevant than the colors of Elizabeth May’s sweaters. Generally speaking, unless strong moral obligations present themselves, I am a fiscal conservative. So if the Olympics irritate a few Birkenstock-clad dreadlocked hippies, I really don’t care, but if they are going to bleed the province of what is ultimately my money, or infringe on the rights and freedoms of BC residents, then I am going to take serious issue with them. So, unlike the Olympics of 76 or 88, though perhaps because I have not really cared to look into these, I do take issue with the 2010 games.
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Photo Credit: Toronto Star

The coming year will be integral to the rebuilding of Canada’s international image. Regardless of one’s views concerning the Copenhagen climate summit, it is unarguable that Canada’s position in the world has been damaged due to it. The perceived image of Stephen Harper’s government put forward by the majority of the international press was overwhelmingly negative. More importantly, it was seen as a fall from grace by a country popularly looked upon as America’s more liberal, and green, cousin, particularly in Europe.

I recently attended an orientation for a job at the 2010 Winter Olympics. As expected, one of the central themes was the history and tradition of the Olympic Games, from their beginnings in ancient Greece to the global brand of the new millennium. However, it was one particular aspect of the presentation that strikes a chord with Canada’s needs coming into 2010. I was informed that the Olympic movement is a celebration of three pillars: Sport, Culture and Sustainability. It is this last pillar that it is necessary for Stephen Harper and the government to grasp in the forthcoming year.
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Photo Credit: No2010.com

While many aboriginals in Canada are joining in the celebrations and taking part enthusiastically in Olympic planning and promoting, there is a group in Vancouver who stand firm in their opposition of the games saying they are “big business at the expense of the natural world.” The Olympics Resistance Network (ORN) established in Vancouver and mainly based in the Coast-Salish territories is focusing its efforts on stopping the holding of Olympic games on stolen native land.

The ORN holds that “BC is unique in Canada in that most of the province is unceded, non-surrendered Indigenous territories,” and that promotional and Olympic construction on this land (especially in the mountains) desecrates and disrespects sacred indigenous land. “The mountains, pure & undisturbed, are essential to the survival of all people…The mountains are the most spiritual place for us,” the ORN stated.

In addition to their most-touted line: “No Olympics on Stolen Land,” many ORN members are angry at what they are calling the misuse of funds. To them, the billions of dollars being spent getting Whistler and Vancouver ready for the Olympics is a slap in the face while poverty-stricken first nations people are “paying with their lives with inadequate housing and health care.”
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Women will not compete in ski jumping at the 2010 Games. Photo Credit: Media Canada

On December 22nd, the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear the appeal of the female ski jumpers who wished to compete for the first time at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, ending the women’s court battle. The SCC gave no reason for its decision.

The unfortunate legacy of exclusion of women’s ski jumping from the Winter Olympics will hereby continue in Vancouver.

Upon hearing this news, my first inclination was to accept the IOC’s rationale: that women’s ski jumping lacked sufficient participation to be included in the Olympics, on a national and an individual level. Not enough gals, not enough countries, and a simple equation.

After all, this is Canada’s Olympics; our Olympics. Surely a country that prides itself on tolerance, multiculturalism and gender equity would not idly allow gender discrimination to prevail in Vancouver, the most populous city ever to host the Winter Games.
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Photo Credit: Aftermath News

The City of Vancouver, The Vancouver Police Department (VPD) and the provincial government have chosen to begin installing video surveillance cameras in preparation for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic games, with no guarantees that they will be dismantled or removed after the games’ completion. The VPD and pro-surveillance advocates use a continual comparative to London and the city’s use of closed-circuit television (CCTV) to prevent crime, and the success the program has delivered. The BC Civil Liberties Association has a contrary viewpoint, concerned about the intrusion on privacy the program facilitates in comparison with the real benefits in solving and addressing crime. I think it is time to take a moment to look at some “British facts” regarding CCTV cameras.

London’s 2008 metropolitan police internal report obtained through a Freedom of Information request by the Liberal-Democrats notes that Great Britain has over 4 million CCTV cameras country-wide, both publicly and privately operated. There are over 1 million such cameras in London alone, 10,524 of which are funded by taxpayers, making London the most “watched” city in the world. Yet their crime solution rate is currently no better than Vancouver’s. The average person in London can expect to be observed on CCTV camera over 300 times in an average day. With only 1% of the worlds population, Great Britain has 20% of the worlds CCTV cameras in operation and the 2008 report from the metropolitan police admits that only one crime per year is solved for every 1,000 CCTV cameras installed in the UK.
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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.
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