Today in Verbatim, This contributing editor Andrew Wallace interviews Dave Zirin, sports editor of U.S. progressive weekly The Nation and host of Edgeofsports.com, a blog and radio show that examines the collision of politics and sports. He’s the author of several canonical books on that topic, most recently of A People’s History of Sports in the United States, and before that wrote What’s My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States and Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics, and Promise of Sports.

As always, this is a transcription of the biweekly This Magazine podcast, “Listen to This.” You can hear the whole audio interview here, but we’d also encourage you to easily subscribe to the podcast through iTunes so you never miss an episode.

Q&A

Andrew Wallace: You were in Vancouver prior to the Olympics and I read your piece in Sports Illustrated. I was wondering if you could elaborate on the sense of discontentment that you experienced there before the Games.

Dave Zirin: I was there just a couple weeks before the start of the Games and what I found, walking around the streets and just talking to people is that it seemed to finally settle in on people just how much the Games were going to cost, how much of an inconvenience it was going to be, and just how shut out of the party a lot of them were going to be.

I spoke to one person who was so excited, and had been saving for a long time to go to one of the hockey games, just to find out that he wasn’t even close to what it would actually cost to get a ticket to go. That sense, you could see it just weighing on people in a really serious way. Also, this is a media term, the optics were just terrible. When I was there it was announced that funding for physical education programs were being cut, letters were going out to 800 teachers because of budget overruns. To have that on the front page of the local newspaper while the top flap was all about Olympics, Olympics, Olympics, happy, happy, joy, joy, it definitely bred a feeling of discontent.

Andrew Wallace: But do you think now, we’ve had the Games for the last two weeks and the hype machine got in motion and with the spectacle and excitement of it do you think that all of that will be forgotten?

Dave Zirin: Well it’s interesting; I think a lot of it was forgotten during the Games because there’s a rush. You’ve got so many people there and it’s such a big party, but if history is any guide, now is when you’re really going to get the second shoe dropping because the bill is going to come due. The amount of money, all the accounting is going to be on the table.

When Vancouver first got the games, one local politician said publicly that according to his figures and his estimates it would be a $10 billion influx of funds into the city. PriceWaterhouseCooper, the independent accounting firm, said right before the games started it would probably be more like less than a billion. That’s a huge drop off, now what are the final figures going to be? Once the dust is cleared and all the accounting tricks and obfuscation has been cleared off the table. That’s usually when you see politicians losing their chops, so we’ll see what happens.

Andrew Wallace: Right, one guy, Christopher Shaw with No2010, he said that he thought it would be the equivalent of the Montreal, maybe not equivalent in scope, but of the Montreal Olympics which everyone calls “the Big O” because I think with all the interest, they were still paying back over $100 billion in debt to the city.

Dave Zirin: Yeah that’s right, in Montreal, the lead up to the Games was similar. I mean it’s so interesting, you go back and you look at previous games and it’s always the same promises and it’s almost always the same results too. Before the Montreal Olympics a local politician said that Olympics cause deficits about as often as men have babies and yet, the Montreal Games of course, it didn’t get paid off until 2006. It took 30 years to pay off the debt. Will Vancouver be that bad? It’s hard to say, but one of the things is that the Olympics, and the financing of the Olympics, is always held hostage to the larger economic forces in society and in the world and I think that’s one of the things that really hurt in Vancouver is that this was the first “post-global recession” games and we’ll see what kind of effect that has in the long run.

Andrew Wallace: What do you think the implications could be for future Olympic events then, because I think what’s really interesting is what happened in Chicago recently, that their was such a backlash to that bid, right? So are we seeing a change in the tide there of how people feel about the Olympics?

Dave Zirin: Yeah, I mean I also think one of the things you’re going to see is the Olympics rely heavily on the BRIC countries and their satellites. By BRIC countries you know: Brazil, China, India (and Russia), and I think that their going to rely on countries where dissent can be smashed with as little publicity as possible and where a lot of these projects can be pushed through with as much hypocrisy as possible. I think that’s going to be the unfortunate future of the Olympic games unless we really do have international solidarity movements for people who want to keep the Olympics out and I think that’s going to be the only thing that leads to what I think is the only sensible solution for the Olympics which is to have a permanent winter and summer site and to eliminate the bid process all together.

Andrew Wallace: That’s interesting, what problems would that solve?

Dave Zirin: Well it would end the bidding process and that’s where you have the root of the IOC’s power and the root of a lot of corruption and lies that surround the Olympics.

See, the best way to understand it is that the IOC is like McDonalds headquarters and what they demand of every city is that they be a franchisee. That means if you’re a city and you decide say, democratically, through your city council that you’re going to have strings attached to the Olympic bid, that you’re going to have civil society at the table, that’s a favourite phrase, but at the end of the day though, if the IOC says “well, actually no,” then that’s just the way it is.

I spoke to a lot of people in Vancouver, very well meaning progressives who were pro-Olympics when they first heard about it, precisely because they got a ton of promises from local politicians about this seat that the table. But it was a mythical seat at the table and they became fierce Olympics opponents precisely because they were shut out of how a lot of the infrastructure spending would happen. And I think that’s the reality of the Olympics and if you had a permanent site it would just eliminate this kabuki theatre all together. Being on the International Olympic Committee would be little more than a ceremonial post, which is what it should be instead of what it is now, which is a position of a frightening power almost like a free-floating state with absolutely no oversight.

Andrew Wallace: And with charitable status right?

Dave Zirin: Yeah exactly, a non-profit that makes billions, I don’t even know how that works.

Andrew Wallace: So what do you think that means for say something like Rio? I mean, how does the progressive movement get in there and start speaking to the issues that could happen in Rio, because you know the things that are exacerbated by the Olympics are things like police corruption, political corruption and those are endemic problems in Rio right?

Dave Zirin: Yeah, huge issues in Rio with police brutality, huge issues of gentrification particularly the clearing of the favelas. I mean there’s already been a very dramatic gun battle where a police helicopter raided one of the favelas and someone in one of the favelas got a lucky shot off and the helicopter hit the ground—huge fire, explosion, right outside of Rio itself. I think the Rio example is going to be really interesting because, on the one hand you have a Brazil of that is ground zero to the World Social Forum movements in Porto Alegre, you’ve got the worker’s party in Brazil, that’s sort of on the one hand. But on the other hand, you also have the World Cup coming to Brazil just two years before the Olympics. They’re going to be able to push through a lot of the infrastructure, spending and policing that they need to do for the World Cup and that’s going to be interesting because it’s one thing to oppose the Olympics in Brazil. It’s another thing to oppose the World Cup. That might be a much tougher political needle to thread.

Andrew Wallace: That all being said, if we look at the Olympics that just happened, do you want to point out what you think your three most significant stories within the Olympics that went beyond the X’s and O’s of the field were?

Dave Zirin: Yeah, one, first and foremost, is the death of Nodar Kumaritashvili, the Georgian luge slider, which really resulted from the fact that he and the other luge sliders had no access to be able to practice at Whistler because of Canada’s Own the Podium campaign. And the fact that the people who were in charge of the International Luge Federation, the FIL, they created this track up there in Whistler that, for a year, people have been warning about, that it’s too fast and it’s too dangerous, it’s too much like trying to turn luge into the X-games, some wacky spectacle of lightening speed.

So people were talking about it for a year, and the predictable happened, somebody died. And the Olympics just go on as if it didn’t happen, including NBC news, issuing a dictate to NBC sports to stop showing footage of Nodar’s death. They didn’t want it ruining the party. But it symbolizes so much of what’s wrong with the Olympics. The Olympics speak about standing for these ideals of ethics and sportsmanship, but in reality it’s “go for the gold all the way and go for network profits all the way,” and it’s an absolute farce. So that’s a big one is Nodar Kumaritashivili.

But there are other stories that complemented the Olympics as well. Not all of them are bad stories by any stretch. The other ones I would say though are like the protest movement that occurred, the fact that for all the debates and discussions about the protest movement, organized largely through the Olympic Resistance Network, I mean it was something that was an Olympic protest movement that was open, and out and on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, so they got a remarkable about of publicity and I think really put a marker in the ground for future cities.

So those are stories that I’m going to remember that took place off the field of play. Beyond that too, I’ll just throw another one out there, It was really quite shocking the amount of homophobia by broadcasters against U.S. skater Johnny Weir and how accepted it was. I mean, like broadcasters saying over the air that he should be gender tested, all kinds of things like that. That he was ruining figure skating. It’s just unbelievable; he wasn’t macho enough for figure skating? Are you kidding me? It’s just ridiculous; to have that amount of homophobia in figure skating just really set my eyes back.

Andrew Wallace: Were you impressed with how Weir came back? I thought his comments in the interviews after the original homophobic comments were made were quite interesting and quite strong.

Dave Zirin: Weir’s never been shy, that’s for sure. He’s never been shy, but I still regret he didn’t make it to the top five. He came in sixth, because Lady Gaga was going to come and perform, and be there in person, so that would have been a lot of fun. So we were denied that.

But I think it’s still an important story because of these issues. Particularly the issue of gender testing in Olympic sports, its something I’ve written a lot about in the last year with South African runner Caster Semenya being a part of that story and it’s something that the International Olympic Committee–you can tell they’re trying to shift away from it in a number of ways, but as of this interview we’re doing right now, I mean they still have a Neanderthal view of gender testing. Although they’re moving it away from having it in their rules that the idea of being a “man” is this inherent advantage in sport, which is at least somewhat of a step forward. They still operate on a very strict gender binary and haven’t quite figured out what to do with people who don’t fit into their little compartments.

Hockey players at McGill University, Montreal, 1901.

I grew up in the Greater Toronto Area, home to the most diverse region in all of Canada, perhaps the world, in a Hong Kong immigrant household (caveat: my Man U-loving dad raised me on soccer). I’m intensely proud of that fact. So it ruffles my feathers that, hockey so often precludes all other events — a men’s hockey semi-final quarter-final win over Russia (at that big sporting event that shall not be named) garnered more media and spectator attention on a day in which four medals were won in non-hockey events.

Hockey, Wikipedia tells me, is the national winter sport of Canada and has a well-known history that predates European arrival. But in modern-day Canada, the idea that the sport represents us all seems anachronistic.

I tweeted as much yesterday, saying “Heres the thing about hockey: its a rich cdn’s sport. It irks me to no end one of the least accessible games somehow represents my nat’l ID. … That, and up until recently, it was (and arguably still is) a boy’s game. It just doesn’t represent us all.” The debate that ensued seemed to strike a nerve, which you can read in its entirety here and here.

The Canada-Russia game averaged 10.3 million viewers—a third of Canada’s population. I don’t doubt the popularity of hockey, but it’s the modern incarnation of the sport that irks me.

As I tweeted earlier, it doesn’t take much to figure out that hockey runs hundreds, maybe even thousands, beyond what more “democratic” sports cost: high-performing soccer cleats run about $200, plus another $100 for jersey, shorts, socks, shin guards. Basketball: $40 ball, $150 shoes. Hockey: high-end skates can run $600 — never mind the cost of pads, sticks, helmets, pants, jerseys, neck guards and everything else.

My boyfriend, a lifelong hockey fanatic and a player in his adolescence, took umbrage with my assessment. He says in his small town in New Brunswick, almost every kid, boy or girl, played the game. If they couldn’t afford it, coaches supplied hand-me-downs, freebies or communal team gear.

True, you can still enjoy a game of outdoor shinny on hand-me-down skates and sticks. And the game itself is still a rush to watch. But we don’t live in a Tim Hortons commercial — even a rec league requires all that equipment, and from it, the hockey industry — from the $300 Leafs tickets to Bauer and Nike — generates billions of dollars from it.

For a disadvantaged Toronto kid, charity, waived fees and mentoring seems to be the only way into the game these days, the Toronto Star found, quoting NHL goaltender Kevin Weekes: “The pricing is such that our sport is becoming an elitist sport.”

Playing at a rep level and up requires several thousand in registration fees, cost for travel, and that’s not even counting the gear. All totalled? $10,000 a kid. As the Star pointed out, this leads to kids—talented ones—dropping out because of the financial burden.

Any sport that requires such a money sink is self-stratifying. It’s a terrible social phenomenon happening not just in amateur sports, but also in skyrocketing university tuition, extra fees required even in public school, laptops and other technological gadgets that are now virtually mandatory in academic and professional spheres. It also means at the highest level, the NHL, as in many other places in life, those that succeed are the ones that can afford it. It’s disheartening that all these opportunities are moving further and further out of reach of low-earning Canadians families.

In recent years, more leagues, presumably aware of this problem, have started offering bursaries to players—but I’m sure the effects are analogous to university bursaries vs. tuition freezes and reductions.

@bmo, a gentleman I was talking with on Twitter, mentioned how sports such as football institutionalize the outfitting of players—high schools supply all the equipment. An online search turned up nothing on socioeconomic statistics of incoming players in any major leagues, but I’d be interested to see if there’s any correlation between how sports are funded and who ends up succeeding. For a country whose diversity will only increase, not to mention an NHL looking for a wider audience, this isn’t a passing concern.

The costs associated with modern youth activity isn’t just hockey, obviously. It’s just as wrong that serious coin must be spent for extracurriculars such as soccer, basketball, dance, gymnastics, horseriding, ballet, skiing or swimming.

The difference is, no one’s calling these the national sports of Canada. When it’s put on a cultural pedestal, it demands a fairness and accessibility that befits the morals of the country it represents. I think most Canadians believe we are a fair, free and equal country. Hockey, if it ever did represent that, doesn’t anymore.

The spirit of a nation comes from its people, emblematic of their shared experience, ethnicity, history or culture. Our spirit is that we lack all these, and instead take polite pride in them all. We are not one dish, one national dress, one language, one music (I would defect if Anne Murray or Celine Dion were our national chanteuses). How, then, can Canada reduce its sport to just one?

The Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games open tonight with much fanfare, pomp, jollity, glee, grandeur, ceremony, flourish, and setting things on fire. We’ve spent, oh, about the last six weeks moaning about the whole thing, from the overblown budget to the bogus environmental claims, the sponsor bloat to the unsettled aboriginal land claims, the out-of-control homelessness in Vancouver to the erosion of civil liberties, blah, blah, blah. Hearing ourselves complain about it is almost as irritating as hearing people (and there are plenty of them out there, apparently) saying how wonderful it’s all going to be. Our friends and families—and maybe you, too—are sick of hearing our complaints, and the whole mess is going to go ahead anyway, no matter what we do or say.

So: Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re just going to shut up about the whole thing for the next two weeks. Live and let live. The news is going to be absolutely chock-a-block full of Olympic blather, and while we probably can’t tune it out, we can opt not to be part of the problem. Therefore, This Magazine’s website will be, starting today, a totally Olympics-free zone, continuing through February 28. We’re not going to talk about it, not going to complain about it, not even going to acknowledge the Games’ existence. We’ve said what we have to say. Drop by and say Hello if you need a little refuge from the media carpet-bombing you’re in for everywhere else. See you on the other side!

Inside the new Canada Line SkyTrain cars.

This week, I’m coming to you live and on location from Canada’s Olympic city and the place of my birth. I’m fortunate enough to be staying at my father’s apartment across the street from the athlete’s village, so I’m literally in the center of the action.

I can see the environmentally friendly generator that turns the athlete’s poo into renewable energy from my window, and the Aussie’s Boxing Kangaroo flag that had Jacques Rogge’s panties in a bunch is still flying proudly from the windows of the Australian team’s condominium. But for all the ways THIS Magazine rags on the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, (and we do rag) it seems as though these games are at least setting a new standard for one thing — accessibility.

Arriving here I got to ride what is arguably the crown jewel of the 2010 games’s legacy. For those who don’t know, The Canada Line expands the city’s SkyTrain system from downtown Vancouver into Richmond and ends at the airport.  Just having the system connect to YVR means getting into the city from the airport is leaps and bounds easier than it would otherwise be if you have an assistive device. It’s cheaper too. A wheelchair cab can run you various multiples of ten depending on where you live in the Lower Mainland, while a ride on the SkyTrain from the main terminal costs $7.00. (Although, a few extra coins than the rest of the line.) The signage at the airport and in the elevator clearly marks the path to the skywalk and into the station in big, bright yellow letters. Inside the train is where the Canada Line really earns its medal as the accessibility standard for similar systems.

In the past,  accessible spaces were usually only big enough for manual chairs to fit into and you had to flip up an existing seat in order to park inside. Now, there’s a space for bikes on one side of the train and a long space on the opposite side. It has a handrail and is designated accessible, so it can easily fit electric chairs, scooters and possibly a small all-terrain vehicle. It use to be that poles lining the centre of the cabin meant scooters and large electric chairs were forced to drive on and back off through the same door, but the train itself is wide enough that one could turn completely around in a circle without getting stuck or obstructing other passengers.

There’s only one aspect of the Canada Line that really bothers me. Thankfully, it is limited  to the airport station. The accessible gate that lets people with disabilities and people with strollers onto the platform cannot be controlled by the passenger. In an effort to control traffic, the passenger presses a button that signals a Translink employee on the other side of an intercom and they open the gate for you. Able-bodied passengers that don’t need the gate simply pass between two vertical metal poles without incident — poles that are too narrow for a large wheelchair, forcing those with disabilities to use the gate and rely on the employee.

Coming from a city where transit employees are known to sleep on the job, I can see a scenario where someone is coming home late and inevitably there’s no one on the other side of the intercom to help them. I don’t want to have to give some indifferent able-bodied union employee so much power over when and where I can go at such a crucial point in the process. I do not like to rely on people, when I think there’s a strong possibility they will let me down. I wish deeply that the aid of an employee was optional, so my freedom of movement wasn’t more restricted than other passengers, just because I needed to use the gate.

However, having people with strollers who need to use the gate may make officials much more vigilant than they would otherwise be if they were only dealing with people with disabilities. Besides, I have to remember that the Translink system has much more credibility with Vancouver’s disability community, thanks to how much they’ve done already, so I can’t automatically assume they’re going to screw it up and not be on the ball.

After all, the Olympics haven’t even started yet, and I still have many more venues to assess, including BC Place, GM Place (Canada Place) and Thunderbird Stadium. Once things have ramped up, than we will truly see how good VANOC’s accessibility plan is.

I have to point out though, over the weekend I walked without my scooter to the new Olympic Line Bombardier train, that shuttles passengers between False Creek and Granville Island, on the assumption that it wouldn’t be accessible and (oh, how jaded I’ve become) and was pleasantly surprised to see that it was. It’s nice to know there are still places in the world where officials anticipate the need, rather than react to it. I’m glad I can go home again and know accessibility doesn’t have to be a fight at every turn, it’s just second nature.

This edition of Verbatim is a transcript of Andrew Wallace in conversation with Harsha Walia of the No 2010 campaign. The original podcast of that interview is available here. Andrew is also joining us as a blog columnist, writing about the intersection of sport and society with Game Theory. The first column appeared yesterday. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes for new interviews every other Monday.

In today’s Verbatim, Harsha Walia talks with Andrew about the present circumstances of the Olympic protest movement on the eve of the Games, and the future of the social organizations that have met and collaborated to critique the event.

Q&A

Harsha Walia: The Olympic resistance network is a network that was established approximately two years ago in Vancouver Coast Salish territories to basically build resistance to the Olympic games. The games were costing $7 billion while public services are being cut. The games have resulted in an approximate 300-fold increase in homelessness in Vancouver’s downtown east side, which is the poorest neighbourhood in Canada.

So there’s a lot of growing discontent around those two issues in particular about the Games. But for us, we also have a much more radical analysis around the Games as a corporate industry, where we’re seeing corporate sponsors getting sweetheart deals. They’re getting bailed out, in the context of the economic recession, as workers are losing jobs – corporate sponsored projects with the Olympic village are getting multi-billion dollar bailouts.

And also, an anti-colonial analysis which is that the Games are being held on unceded Coast Salish territory throughout B.C. and that the Games have provided an even greater impetus for the ongoing theft of native land for development projects like ski resorts.

Andrew Wallace: And can you explain the slogan “No Olympics on Stolen Native Land”

Harsha Walia: Yeah, there are several pieces to it; one is the obvious, which is that the Olympics are taking place on unceded Coast Salish territory.

Andrew Wallace: And can you explain what “unceded Coast Salish territory” means?

Harsha Walia: Coast Salish territory are the indigenous territories that Vancouver is in, so Burrard/Tsleil-Waututh, Squamish, and Lil’wat, which is in Whistler area, and so Coast Salish is actually the anglicized name given to all the different indigenous nations, of which there are many, along the costal area of B.C.

Unceded is the legal reality, let alone the moral reality, that B.C. in particular is all untreatied land. So from a legal perspective B.C. is still unsurrendered indigenous land. There are no treaties that have been signed, with minor exception, in the province of British Columbia. So that’s the specifics of “unceded.” “Stolen” is a much more popular term, which is that all of Canada is stolen land and we all reside on occupied indigenous territories.

So that’s the basis of “No Olympics on Stolen Native Land.” It’s something that VANOC (Vancouver Organizing Committee) and IOC (International Olympic Committee) and all the Olympic elites know because they know that this resistance to the Olympics is so strong in indigenous communities that they have had to create the Four Host First Nations which is basically a native corporate body made up of a few token indigenous people. But Four Host First Nations primarily employs non-native people and it’s a corporation. It’s a business, and so that corporation does not necessarily represent the consent of any of the indigenous people. It’s just called the Four Host First Nations, but some of the Indian Act chiefs – and as we know the Indian Act system is a colonial system that particularly facilitates the selection of chiefs that are in line with the government agenda.

So it’s something that they know very well, the government elite and VANOC know very well, and that’s why they’ve tried to have the Four Host First Nations as a façade of native consent to the Games. That’s why “No Olympics on Stolen Native Land” really foregrounds and highlights the fact that the Four Host First Nations certainly does not represent all indigenous people and that there’s a groundswell of indigenous resistance from urban to rural communities.

Andrew Wallace: And since we’re talking about the Four Host, on the website you said or someone said, “They’re either ignorant of the issues, or greedy.” Which is a fairly harsh critique. What is the bone contention with Four Host, because it does represent some.

Harsha Walia: I don’t know about the ignorant or greedy comment, and it’s not even about specific individuals, although specific individuals come to light. Phil Fontaine for example, who is the former Grand Chief of the Assembly of First Nations and through the AFN gave grand consent to the Olympic games is now a formal advisor to the Royal Bank of Canada and is working closely with corporate interests.

The Royal Bank of Canada is the most devastating, finance is the most devastating industrial project on the planet. Which is affecting primarily indigenous people. The issue in terms of the Four Host First Nations is to highlight the fact that, first of all, no body of people represents all indigenous people. Native 2010 resistance or indigenous resistance doesn’t claim to represent all native people so certainly Four Host First Nations cannot claim all native people

Andrew Wallace: What are the larger goals of this. Clearly, the way you’re speaking and the vocabulary you’re using goes beyond just the Olympics. It seems part of a larger social movement. So what does ORN want to achieve?

Harsha Walia: I think that is really important because a lot of what we get [from people] is that “yeah, well the Games are coming anyway.” So for us it’s like “yeah we’re going to do our best to make sure the Games don’t happen entirely without a hitch.” That everyone who comes to this town and international media and people in this city and people in this province know that the effects of these games are not all positive.

In fact they’re only positive for real estate developers and the corporate and government elite. (We want to) do our best to try to engage people with why the Olympic games and the Olympic industry are negative. But much beyond that, our goals around protesting, disrupting, boycotting, all of those – and educating about the Olympic games are about building strength for social movements in the long term.

Seeing how things like the Games are rooted in processes of capitalist exploitation and things like exploitation of labour, ongoing colonial extraction of resources on indigenous land, environmental degradation, militarization, $1 billion in security.

The Olympic games facilitates this police state for Canada, so it’s seen as this moment of exception where “oh my got let’s spend off this money” because we’re so worried about a terrorist attack. In many ways it’s no different than all these Western States who use fear mongering to spend billions of dollars to fortify a military police state. So all of these kinds of things are going to be here after the Olympics are gone.

One thing that we’re very much aware much aware of, we’re anti-Olympics, but we see this as a struggle that is going to continue beyond the Olympics. Homelessness will still be on our streets after the Games are gone. We’re still going to be in debt after the Games are gone. All the CCTVs, closed circuit television cameras are going to be here when the Games are gone.

Andrew Wallace: What you call a “Police State,” can you give examples of, and explain, what do you mean by that term? How does it become a police state?

Harsha Walia: For me, the police state that we’re seeing is an encroaching police state. There are many of us who would argue we already live in a police state, particularly for people who are the most marginalized or people who live in poverty, people who live on the streets, folks of colour, etcetera. But increasingly in British Columbia, we’re seeing this police state affect everybody.

Attacks on civil liberties, so to give some examples: in Vancouver bylaws are being passed that greatly restricts basic freedom of speech. There are signage bylaws, some of which because of public opposition are now being turned. But things like saying you can’t have any anti-Olympic signs in your doors or you can’t wear anti-Olympic t-shirts. If there’s an anti-Olympic sign in your window you could get fined $10,000, all these kinds of crazy bylaws that really affect basic civil liberties and freedom of speech.

There was an elderly gentleman who clipped out something that pissed him off about the Olympics, a budgetary expense because there is so much money being sunk into the Olympics, and he sent it to his MLA and the next day he had the Vancouver integrated security unit at his door asking him questions.

So part of this police state is that as part of the Olympics we have this Vancouver Integrated Security Unit, which is RCMP, CSIS and the Vancouver Police Department who have basically tasked themselves to spend vast amounts of money to basically interrogate people who are opposed to the Olympics. This includes people like this gentleman, to people who are much more active in an activist role.

So we’ve had a Vancouver Integrated Security Unit visit the homes and work places of at least 60 activists without arrest warrants, without any real basis for a visit. They basically want to interrogate and intimidate people, in violation of their basic civil liberties.

Andrew Wallace: You work here, in the downtown east side, and these are the people — the worry is — who will feel that effect the most. So on a day-to-day basis, have you seen it, just walking the streets and talking to people? What are the stories that you’re hearing?

Harsha Walia: Absolutely, you’d be hard pressed to walk in the downtown east side and find anyone who supports the Olympics. The primary reasons for that are that one, people are directly experiencing homelessness and whether or not it’s directly traceable to the Olympics the reality is those are the facts. You know, a 300 per cent increase in homelessness and a housing crunch ballooned in this neighbourhood. Second of all, an increase in criminalization of poor people. We’re seeing an increasing number of cops on the streets; there are beat cops who just patrol the streets everyday. People are given tickets for ridiculous things, so you get a bylaw ticket for $60 if you spit on the street. If you Jaywalk you get a ticket, you know these things don’t happen in other neighbourhoods, even though these bylaws are technically on the books, they’re only enforced in this neighbourhood.

Andrew Wallace: How do you achieve change in a more concrete way besides just building the analysis, is there anything that ORN is planning on doing, or is doing?

Harsha Walia: The gauge of success is not just been whether or not we stop the Games, I think there gauge of success is multi-fold: One, is just being able to strengthen our social movements because there is going to be a long-term impact of the kind of work that we do and I think there has been successes.

So for example, there have been some housing victories that have been won in this neighbourhood. There’s certainly not enough, but they have only come because of resistance to the Games and the increasing amount of poverty and homelessness as a result of the Games in the downtown east side.

Some of the changes that we’ve seen in response to some of the bylaws that I was mentioning, the proposed bylaws affecting civil liberties have come because of resistance to the Games. So I think it builds a spirit of vigilance at a basic level for people to be vigilant about the kinds of things that are being passed by the government and the impact of corporations on our society. A greater number of British Columbians, at varying levels, are much more critical and skeptical of these kinds of things and that’s the first step to building a more politicized consciousness and action.

Andrew Wallace: It seems largely, the public debate around things like the Olympics is just in two very extreme absolutes, you’re either for the Games and everything that comes with it, or you’re not.

Harsha Walia: I don’t know if that’s true. I think it was true for a long period of time, but we’re increasingly seeing people who are just discontented with the Games and they may not be opposed to the Games in the sense that we as activists are where we also have these other kinds of analysis. Recent polls suggest that upwards of 40 – 50 percent of British Columbians think that the Games are bad for B.C. from an economic perspective. So they don’t necessarily have a social justice perspective, they have an economic perspective and at least have the analysis that the Games don’t benefit ordinary British Columbians. Part of that is the recession, but not just that, even prior to that we were seeing this small emergence.

Andrew Wallace: So you’ve seen a transformation in their thinking:

Harsha Walia: Yeah, I think so, and polls would indicate the same. So everywhere from small merchants and small businesses that feel impacted by the Games because large corporate sponsors are getting contracts and advertising space. I think there is generally, increasingly a sense that the Games are an industry and that there really is no benefit of the Games for ordinary British Columbians, which was the whole ideology of the Games, was that the Games benefit everybody.

Andrew Wallace: So after the Games, what happens to ORN? What do you guys do? Because the Games are going to happen.

Harsha Walia: Yeah, the Games are going to happen. We’re going to do our best to make sure the Games don’t go as smoothly as they would like. After the Games I’m sure part or our time and our resources will go into legal defense. We can expect massive, massive police oppression during the Games. There’s no reason to believe Vancouver will be any exception to prior Olympic games. And again, $1 billion going into security measures, already a huge amount of police surveillance and intimidation of activists, so there’s no doubt there will be a lot of people suffering from police oppression.

Vancouver 2010 Anti-Olympic mascot Bitey the Bedbug. Photo by Lotus Johnson.

On January 11, a coalition of advocates in Vancouver’s downtown eastside voiced a cheeky cry for Stephen Harper to prorogue the upcoming 2010 Winter Games. Though more marketing ploy than genuine call to action, the move is nonetheless a signal of things to come. In the few remaining days before the Olympic torch arrives in Vancouver, protestors have vowed to ramp up anti-Olympic activity. And, of course, the IOC, VANOC and even the City of Vancouver will be doing whatever they can to stop them.

But just as the call to prorogue packs more bark than bite, Olympics protests scheduled for the lead up to—and during—the Games will likely amount to little more than well-meaning disruptions. The window for real change on anything Olympics-related closed a long time ago, and Vancouver’s infuriating “Olympic Bylaws” make doing anything remotely radical prohibitive. The spectacle that comes with the Olympics offers an important opportunity to raise awareness for the plight of Canada’s poorest postal code, Native land claims and the egregiously irresponsible use of public dollars that is the 2010 Games—but grassroots advocates already need to start looking to the future. Yes, the Olympics is here now. But what happens to that progressive momentum once the Games has come and gone?

When I spoke to the Olympic Resistance Network’s Harsha Walia in her cluttered downtown eastside office over the holidays, she called the Olympics a “social catalyst.” Activists of all stripes, with varied missions and agendas, have come together in protest. The problem, though, is that Vancouver 2010 has given birth to the organizations at the front of the anti-Olympics movement right now—No 2010, 2010 Watch and ORN—as the 16-day event comes and goes, so too will they. Other established advocacy groups have continued to champion their own causes, using the Games as a flagpole to rally around, and it is the efficacy of their efforts in the Olympics’ wake that will present a chance for actual reform.

Because the real legacy of the Games won’t be the revamped Sea-to-Sky Highway or new sports infrastructure in Richmond. And it certainly won’t be the 250 units of social housing the city has promised from the freshly constructed athletes village. The real legacy will be debt. Crippling public debt. According to 2010 Watch’s Christopher Shaw, the Olympics are quickly shaping up to be Vancouver’s very own “Big Owe.”

And that debt could put more pressure on existing grassroots groups, especially when funds are cut and the world’s eyes aren’t on Vancouver. Sport can be a powerful platform for awareness—but it also comes with a short attention span. It’ll be difficult for the organizations that have been so vocal in the run up to the Games to maintain the force of their voice once the Olympic spotlight has moved on.

However, with another large-scale sports event taking place on Canadian soil in five years—the 2015 Pan Am Games in Toronto—there exists a ready-made excuse to preserve the cohesion and unity of purpose the anti-Olympics movement has created. If the fervent opposition to Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics and the trepidation around Rio receiving the same Games is any indication, the public is increasingly aware that global sports competitions are not the benign, benevolent forces they’re billed to be. The world is starting to understand who really reaps the benefits and who really pays the costs. And, perhaps, that is where Olympic detractors should be looking. Perhaps that could be the 2010 Games’ “other” legacy.

City of Vancouver tells you how to shake hands.

The Olympic madness just keeps on rolling in Vancouver. It was just two weeks ago that the Vancouver Public Library was sending out helpful reminders to confiscate guest-speakers’ Telus jackets and cover Sony logos with electrical tape. But now the micromanagement has exploded to a whole new level.

Vancouver city officials this week issued a 140-page “protocol manual” for volunteers who will be interacting with foreign dignitaries during the Games. If you are a brainless incompetent who doesn’t know how to smile sincerely, stand up straight, or hold a mid-level diplomat’s umbrella properly, then this is your lucky day! CityCaucus.com originally got their paws on a copy of the guide and wrote it up, and there are some snippets of advice that are pure gold.

How to smile!

A smile denotes warmth, openness, and friendliness. Smile “gently” and with sincerity. Be careful not to overdo it. False smiles can look artificial, and never-ending smiles may invite suspicion.

Stop fidgeting!

Minimize your use of hand gestures. Using your hands to emphasize a point is fine, but overdoing it can be perceived as being too excitable or dramatic.

Avoid playing with your hair, tie, or jewelry, biting your lip, drumming fingers, unconsciously snapping the clip on a ball-point pen, and jiggling coins or keys in your pocket.

Dress to impress!

It is important to wear clothing that fits properly. Never dress in clothes that are too tight, they may make a slim person look gaunt and a large person look heavier. […] Avoid wearing short socks. If they are too short, they may show bare leg when you sit down. Wear knee-high socks or stockings that reach above the calf. Socks should match pant colour. […]  Do your [suits] have razor sharp creases all the time? Do they fit properly? If not, have them tailored. The extra expense is worth it for the increased respect your impeccable appearance earns you. Do you keep an extra [suit] within easy reach? You never know when an accident will dirty our uniforms.

… And it goes on like this, for 140 pages. Lean forward to show interest. Make eye contact but don’t stare. Wipe that creepy rictus grin off your face. Don’t tug on Barack Obama’s sleeve, or the snipers will instantly shoot you.

City hall belatedly posted the PDF of the guide online, so you can gaze into the dark heart of etiquette-insanity yourself. Now stop jangling your keys! Jack Rogge will be here any minute!

Here’s a nauseating little snippet of Kavanagh’s list of “Do’s and Don’ts”, as reported by the Tyee:

“Do not have Pepsi or Dairy Queen sponsor your event,” read guidelines sent to VPL branch heads and supervisory staff last fall. “Coke and McDonald’s are the Olympic sponsors. If you are planning a kids’ event and approaching sponsors, approach McDonald’s and not another well-known fast-food outlet.”

Among other things, the memo reportedly goes on to say that if  librarians have a guest speaker in from, say, Telus instead of Olympic sponsor Bell, they should make sure they’re not wearing a Telus jacket or other logo-wear while they’re speaking. And if there is any audio-visual equipment being used, make sure it’s from Worldwide Olympic Partner Panasonic. But Jean — what if it’s a Sony brand CD player? The horror! Kavanagh is a step ahead of you with this helpful tip: “I would get some tape and put it over the ‘Sony,'” Kavanagh [told the Tyee]. “Just a little piece of tape.”

The president of CUPE 391, which represents Vancouver’s librarians, told the Globe and Mail that these rules are non-starters:

Alex Youngberg, president of the library union, says the memo is contrary to the spirit of a public library. “There’s something in my library to offend everybody,” she said. “And that’s our job. Our job as library staff is to not ever censor any information.”

C’mon Alex, why be such a Debbie Downer? Catch the Olympic Spirit! Catch it! NO REALLY — CATCH IT. CATCH THE SPIRIT.

The January-February 2010 issue of This is now in subscribers’ mailboxes and on newsstands coast to coast (for the first time ever, we’re also being sold this issue in 30 Canadian airports — let us know if you find us on the racks in your travels!). You’ll be able to read all the articles from this issue here on the website in the weeks ahead, but buying an issue from your friendly local independent bookstore is a great way to read the magazine. We also suggest subscribing to our RSS feed to ensure you never miss a new article going online, following us on Twitter or becoming a fan on Facebook for updates, new articles and other intertubes-related hijinks.

On the cover of the January-February 2010 issue is our special Olympics-related package of articles, bundled with love by Cate Simpson, Kim Hart Macneill, and Jasmine Rezaee, your complete rundown of 9.2 billion reasons to be flaming mad about the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. We’ve got an in-depth interview with Christopher Shaw, head of 2010 Watch, citizen watchdogs of the Games’ excesses, cost overruns, and civil liberties infringements; plus our look at the issues the Olympic fiasco is exacerbating, including aboriginal land claims, creative budgeting, sponsorships, medals, police tactics, and more.

Also featured in this issue is Lisan Jutras’ meditation on racism, as she examines her own biases and struggles to find a cure for her own prejudices, and finds that 12 steps may be just the beginning. And Amanda Cosco reports on Denis Rancourt, the University of Ottawa professor who tried to give all his students A+ in order to fight what he saw as an unhealthy obsession with marks and grades. Amid the controversy, there’s a serious discussion underway about radically rethinking how students learn.

There’s lots more, including Jason Anderson on Awards Season; Raina Delisle on B.C.’s pro-Olympic curriculum, and the parents and teachers who are fighting it; Bruce M. Hicks has a modest proposal for squaring the circle of Aboriginal government, by turning all Aboriginal lands across the country into an 11th province; Nick Taylor-Vaisey on the Canadian Forces Artist Program that embeds painters, choreographers, and writers with Canadian troops in conflict zones; Jasmine Rezaee on Canada’s deadly trade in Asbestos sales to the developing world; Mariellen Ward on Slumdog Millionaire and the boom in “slum tourism” worldwide; Paul McLaughlin interviews Inuk sealskin clothing designer, lawyer, and activist Aaju Peter; and Denis Calnan reports on the opening of a new school that is transforming Sheshatshiu, the 1990s byword for troubled Innu communities.

PLUS: Brad Badelt on Biochar, Kim Hart Macneill on Canada’s most shameful world records and a new graphic novel from an innovative Nova Scotia publisher; Nick Taylor-Vaisey on the problem with road salt; Chris Benjamin on midwifery; Daniel Tencer on Roman Polanski; Christopher Olson on the death of the obituary; Navneet Alang on how the mobile web is transforming urban life; Siena Anstis on a new generation of African computer hackers; Graham F. Scott on the opportunity cost of the Olympics; and your letters on our Legalize Everything package

With new poems by Jonathan Ball and Verne Good; and a new short story by Michelle Winters.

Kristi Malakoff, Skull

The Ancient Olympic Games were held in Greece every four years and celebrated culture as much as sports. The founder of the modern Olympic movement, Pierre de Coubertin, placed an emphasis on culture as well, making it the “second pillar” of the Olympics, equal to sports. In the early 20th Century, the second pillar was honoured by hosting arts competitions that involved medals and featured art inspired by sport. In 1954 the art competitions were abandoned, leaving the second pillar’s future uncertain.

The concept of a “Cultural Olympiad” was introduced in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics to revive the lost arts pillar. Vancouver’s 2010 Winter Olympics also features a Cultural Olympiad or 400 events scheduled over 2 years that feature both local and international artists and musicians, festivals and films. According to the Cultural Olympiad Program Director, Robert Kerr, “The Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad is bringing the “Second Pillar” alive through three annual festivals of arts and popular culture, creating a diverse and dynamic showcase of some of the finest local, national and international artists of our time.”

Sounds good, right? Nope.

Though a Cultural Olympiad budget of about $20 million has been set aside, Vancouver’s art and culture landscape has only benefited minimally from Olympics funding. More importantly, the Olympics might even be responsible for the recent dramatic $77 million arts and culture government cutback.

Earlier this month the Direct Action Committee of the Alliance for Arts and Culture issued a press release stating that “the provincial government is planning to cut over 80% of what has consisted of only 1/20th of 1% of the provincial budget.  No other provinces in Canada have reduced support for a sector that, according to government statistics, produces significant returns on investment.” It’s no surprise that the arts and culture community has always been seriously under funded and often undervalued by policymakers. But the recent developments are startling.

In 1999, the B.C. provincial government assumed responsibility for the B.C. Lottery Corporation. At that time, the B.C. government promised to provide the not-for-profit sector, including artists, with one-third of net gaming revenue. This year the government has not lived up to its promise and, according to Brenda Leadlay, the artistic director of Presentation House Theatre, non-profit organizations in B.C. have been literally “chopped off at the knees.”

In 2008 gaming grants provided 6,800 not-profit groups in B.C. with $156 million and the B.C. Lottery Corporation reported a record $1.091 billion profit as of March 31. So the question becomes, with all this available revenue, what has happened with the gaming money? Why have some of the artists, festivals, community services that are most vulnerable and dependent on government subsidies been given the boot?

What makes the arts and culture community particularly angry is the abrupt cancellation of three-year grants that had been promised by the government. For artistic director of Touchstone Theatre, Katrina Dunn, these reversals are unacceptable, since the money that was guaranteed to her theatre company has already been spent.

Some hypothesize that the gaming money is being rerouted to cover Olympics related expenses in the city of Vancouver, although this story is uncorroborated for now.

According to Leadlay, many organizations will have to close their doors or risk running a deficit that can only be sustained for so long. As she puts it, this news is “really devastating.” While Vancouver is on display for both tourists and investors in 2010, and considering the copious amount of money that has gone into cultivating a sophisticated image of Vancouver—a vibrant, fascinating city with good food and great art (and no poverty or homelessness)—the arts community is gasping for breath.