The Dominion - olympics

Gaming the Budget

Tim McSorley — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 05:08:41 +0000

Full cost of Olympic security even higher than we thought

TORONTO—The amount the Canadian military spent on its portion of securing the 2010 Vancouver Olympics was more than double the publicly stated cost of $212 million, indicate files obtained by The Dominion.

Initially, the Department of National Defence (DND) only publicly stated the much lower "incremental costs" of its Olympics operation, know as Operation Podium. Incremental costs do not include the salaries and other expenses the military says they would have spent anyways. When taking the “full costs” into account—including salaries for members of the Canadian Armed Forces—the number jumps much higher.

“The number we're going with is $212 million, that's the incremental cost,” said Lieutenant-Colonel John Blakeley. “The incremental costs are the additional costs.” He did not disclose the full cost of Operation Podium during the interview, but according to data on governmental websites, the full costs for Operation Podium reached nearly $470 million.

If the entirety of DND expenses are taken into account, the overall security budget for the Winter Games breaches the $1 billion mark, well above the government's 2002 budget of $175 million. “Incremental costs are basically the costs excluding salaries,” said Steven Staples, a military analyst and president of the Rideau Institute. He explained it is usual for the military to use the incremental cost instead of the full cost when publicly stating budget figures.

“This is an old argument back and forth—should you be using full costs? Should you be using incremental costs? We often use full costs here [at the Rideau Institute] because you can't do missions without people, but the military is trying to diminish the apparent cost. They go with incremental and they say 'well, we would have [to pay] these troops anyway,'” said Staples. “In our work we tend to use both.”

A chart published on the website of the Vice Chief of Defence Staff in March 2010 listed cost estimates for the Canadian Forces operation to secure the Olympics Games. Full DND cost was listed as $471 million in the 2009/10 fiscal year. The chart also listed the publicly stated Incremental DND cost which came to $216 million in the 2009/10 fiscal year.

Blakeley said that if the Canadian Forces were paying soldiers regardless of where they were deployed, their salaries should not be included in the cost of operations.

“I think you do need to look at the full cost,” counters Staples. “Wouldn't it be great if we could buy cars from General Motors and not pay for the labour that was involved in building [them] and only pay for the steel and rubber and plastic? But we don't. We have to pay for the whole cost.”

“Generally if you want to do more military missions, you need to recruit more troops and pay for them. That is a cost associated with doing those missions, and should be included,” said Staples. “Similarly if you weren't doing many missions I don't think you would have these troops hanging around, in fact you would let them go back into the economy just like any major company does.”

The budget for Olympic security released in February 2009 totaled $900 million. This figure only budgeted $212 million for the Department of National Defence. There was no indication that this was only the incremental cost. By including DND full costs the total reaches $1.15 billion.

It has become increasingly difficult for Canadians to keep track of the ever-changing budgets, even four months after the Games.

“I guess I believed that $900 [million] was the full number, but it changed so often I have a hard time being surprised that it's more, which is horrible because we should be outraged and shocked that it went so far over budget and that we can't believe these numbers,” said Myka Tucker-Abramson, a Vancouver resident who opposed the Games.

This revelation comes as questions arise over the cost of securing the three-day G8 and G20 summits in Huntsville and Toronto. The government originally released a $179 million security budget for the two meetings. Known as Operation Cadence, the Canadian Forces operation to secure the summits has an estimated budget of $72 million in incremental costs, as published on the website of the Vice Chief of Defence Staff. In late May the government released a new security figure of $933 million. When the full cost of Operation Cadence is taken into account, as opposed to the incremental costs, this figure is pushed to over a billion dollars.

Following public outcry and pressure from opposition parties over this massive increase, Auditor General Sheila Fraser says she will investigate the G8/G20 budget. No such investigation is being held for the cost of Olympic security.

“It seemed like the budget was limitless, that any Olympic project, be it security or infrastructure, could use as much as it wanted,” remarked Tucker-Abramson. “Given the recent cuts to public education, health centres on the Downtown East Side [of Vancouver] and all the cuts that women's centres and other vital social services have faced due to unavailable funds, the money budgeted for security was shameful.”

Tim Groves is an investigative researcher and journalist based in Toronto.

Olympic budget burning up

Police to Receive 'Olympic Legacies'

hillarybain — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 06:42:01 +0000

Vancouver, Richmond Police Departments to move into Games-related digs

VANCOUVER—As soon as the 2010 Olympic Games are over, the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) will be moving into the facility now occupied by the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (VANOC). The Richmond Police Department (RPD) will be taking over the headquarters of the Integrated Security Unit, a 2010 Olympics-specific police unit that comprises the RCMP, the VPD and RPD, and the Canadian Forces.

“This move has been long anticipated and we are very pleased that the timing was such that our new building will be a valuable and cost efficient legacy of the 2010 Winter Games,” said VPD Chief Constable Jim Chu in a January 18 press release.

The move to reward police with new office space doesn't surprise critics of the Games.

"It's very appropriate that the police would move into the VANOC headquarters, since [VANOC is] their little puppet master for the duration of this Olympic regime that they've imposed on the city," said Gord Hill, the editor of no2010.com and member of the Olympics Resistance Network.

"They also got other facilities...including the Force Options Training Centre near Clark Drive and First Avenue," said Hill. "So you see a real expansion of the police forces here in the city, as a result of the Olympic security budget they put in place." The Force Options Training Centre was scheduled for to be complete for the Olympics.

Chris Shaw from 2010 Watch told the Vancouver Media Co-op that rewarding police with new equipment and new offices paid for by taxpayers was typical of the Olympics.

"[International Olympic Committee President] Jaques Rogge was very clear about this, he said you get a 'Security Legacy' and he's exactly right," said Shaw. "Unfortunately most of us don't want that."

The federal government will contribute $5 million to upgrading police facilities, and the City of Vancouver will contribute $10 million, money that critics say could have been better spent.

That the 2010 Olympics would leave a positive legacy for Vancouverites, specifically for poor people in Vancouver, has long been forgotten.

In addition to the boost for local police, tangible Olympic legacies for Vancouver will go to real estate developers like Bob Rennie, who developed and is marketing the 2010 Athletes' Village through his company Rennie Marketing Systems, and to the corporations that got in on the flurry of Olympic spending while the getting was good.

Dawn Paley is a journalist based in Vancouver.

For up-to-the-minute Olympics resistance coverage, check out the Vancouver Media Co-op, and the 2010 Convergence website. Follow the VMC on twitter!

VANOC's HQ

Map

Defence Industry has its Sights on the Olympics

hillarybain — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 06:07:45 +0000

A look at some of the companies cashing in on 2010 security spending

VANCOUVER—The security budget for the 2010 Olympics is upwards of $900 million, an amount that has generated criticism and backlash from Games opponents and cash-strapped Canadians alike. But, while activists lament what could have been done with such a massive sum, local and international security and defence companies aren't complaining.

So, which companies are cashing in on the 2010 Olympic security bonanza? There's no master list, and many contracts have been granted with little fanfare, but the details of some recipients of the Olympic security spoils are known.

Part of the security services have been donated by Olympic sponsors and suppliers. Panasonic was responsible for providing cameras for video surveillance at Olympic venues, and Garrett provided 1,650 metal detectors for the Games. Other security tasks were contracted out by various government departments.

The largest single security contract awarded to one company went to Contemporary Security Canada (CSC). They were awarded a $97.419-million contract by Public Works and Government Services Canada, along with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to provide 5,000 private security guards at the Games.

CSC is a consortium of private security companies, including US-based Contemporary Group, Alberta-based United Protection Security Group Inc., and Aeroguard Security Ltd. Contemporary Group has netted security contracts for every Olympics since 2000.

A public company based in Edmonton, United Protection, has hired personnel under the Temporary Foreign Worker program and operates a special initiative to hire First Nations people to provide protection for energy projects in areas with a high percentage of Indigenous population. In 2007, the company signed a letter of intent with the Lil'wat Nation for policing the 2010 Games.

United Protection personnel also guard the Devon Energy Corporation's Jackfish tar sands extraction operations and pipelines in Central and Northern Alberta, as well as the Keephills-3 coal-fired power plant, located 70km from Edmonton, which is jointly owned by EPCOR and TransAlta.

Cruise ship company Carnival Corporation may be one of the less-expected beneficiaries of the Olympic security budget. They are set to receive $76 million for providing floating accommodation for police during the Games.

Other security contractors have locked down smaller yet still significant rewards for their goods and services. Among these is Honeywell Canada, granted $30.5 million by the federal government to supply and maintain "intrusion detection equipment" for use at Olympic venues.

Weapons manufacturers Thales Canada and Lockheed Martin were awarded a contract for an undisclosed amount in order to develop two "passive coherent location radar" surveillance systems for the Games.

Iavor Georgeff, responsible for Software Integration and Quality Assurance at VANOC, was a software engineer for Thales Australia for over two years. Thales Canada is heavily involved in Canada's Afghan war operations, and Lockheed Martin is the biggest recipient of defence contracts in the US.

Richmond's MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. received a $4.8-million contract to set up and manage “perimeter intrusion detection solutions” for the 2010 Olympics. The company is a partner with Israel Aerospace Industries in a $100-million federal contract to build an unknown number of Heron surveillance drones, used over Afghanistan.

Though they might not be getting a direct piece of the security budget pie, Rheinmetall Canada are demonstrating their overhauled Air Defence Anti Tank System (missile launchers with command post) in Vancouver during the Games. Once the five rings leave town, the system will be heading to Afghanistan.

After the Games wrap up in Vancouver, it will be on to new places, and perhaps more importantly, on to new sources of funding for another epic security mobilization: The 2012 Olympics in London have been called the country's largest security operation since the Second World War, and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has already taken a consulting contract to ready Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Olympics.

Dawn Paley is a journalist in Vancouver.

This article was produced by the Vancouver Media Co-op. For up-to-the-minute Olympics resistance coverage, check out the Vancouver Media Co-op site, and the 2010 Convergence website. Follow the VMC on twitter!

Defence Map

Do You Believe?

dru — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:25:13 +0000

Introduction to the Dominion's special report on the Olympics

Sports are used to sell us fast food, beer, electronics and war. They indulge and legitimate base chauvinism. With unparalleled drama, they give voice to our desire for collective achievement, while distracting us from the daily facts of alienation and political disempowerment.

But beyond the alcohol-fueled appreciation of hot man-on-man violence, beyond the support-our-troops, go-team-go narrow-mindedness, we can still catch a glimpse of something beautiful.

From the muck of hyper-competitiveness and commercialism, ad agencies have dredged up images that harken back to a half-real utopia of the dedication of parents driving their kids to hockey practice, the sacrifice and hard work embodied by Bobby Orr’s surgery-knit knee, of getting back to the essence of the game, working hard, having fun, giving your all for the love of sport.

The honest purity of sport is what makes the Olympics so popular. Watching athletes at the peak of their abilities, distilling all of their effort and skill into one moment, is undeniably compelling.

The honest purity of sport is also what makes sport such a powerful political tool. It can be used to legitimate whatever agenda those in power might want to push forward. Roman Emperors knew this when they built the Coliseum, just as the Olympics’ corporate sponsors realize this today.

The rhetorical power of sports is notable in the measures taken to prevent athletes from using their ability to call attention to political causes not supported by the sponsors. John Carlos and Tommy Smith raised their black-gloved fists after winning Gold and Bronze in the 200m dash in 1968. They were stripped of their medals, banned from the Olympic village, and kicked off the US Olympic team.

During the Games in Vancouver, Richmond and Whistler, possession of anti-Olympic signage can earn you a $10,000 fine, and police are allowed to search your home without prior warning.

When athletes say that they want to keep politics and sports separate, it is self-preservation first, and purity second.

And for those who are informed, it is disingenuous. The Olympics are providing cover for an array of actions that would be politically unpalatable under normal circumstances.

In what follows, we document some of these unsavory advances, including taxpayers having the wool pulled over their eyes, increases in surveillance and militarization, land theft, the setting of new precedents in rolling back civil liberties, and the large-scale implementation of social cleansing.

In another sense, the Olympics represent a high-stakes bet that the province of British Columbia can sell a big lie to a global audience. The province has never signed treaties for the use of the vast majority of land it today claims. Many First Nations live in third world conditions, with funding for schools and services often at a fraction of their non-native counterparts. Realizing this, the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games doubled down, incorporating Indigenous imagery into all aspects of its marketing. So thorough has this exercise been, that it prompted the Globe and Mail to declare, “The Canadian aesthetic has become aboriginal.”

In the lead-up to the Olympics, the province unsuccessfully attempted to push “Rights and Reconciliation” legislation onto the Indigenous nations of BC. Grassroots resistance killed it off.

As billions of viewers turn their gaze towards Vancouver between February 12 and 28, 2010, what will they see? Will it be the commercialized veneer of the “Aboriginal aesthetic”? Or will they see the ongoing land theft, enforced poverty and the repressive measures that are used to maintain the current state of affairs?

Canada’s political and corporate elite are spending billions to ensure that the odds are stacked in their favour. Others, less funded, will attempt to expose the big lie.

Who wins depends, to a large extent, on Canadians’ willingness to believe the lie.

Do you believe?

Olympic Torch Dispatch #1

Moira Peters — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:03:08 +0000

First dispatch from the Torch Relay kickoff from Victoria, on occupied Coast Salish territories, October 30, 2009.

This is a joint production of Victoria Indymedia, B-Channel News, Vancouver Media Coop, and subMedia.tv.

Blacklisted

dawn — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:05:41 +0000

A letter from Dustin Rivers

VANCOUVER—Many will ask, “Why are you against the Olympics?” “Why are natives against the Olympics?”

For me it’s simply about the hypocrisy of this Olympic machine. It is a very stark form of colonialism in modern times. The objective of the colonizer has not changed in the past 200 years. The monster still wants to devour us, take our lands, and appropriate what little we have. With organizations like the Four Host First Nations, Olympic organizers have designed the operation in a way that it has our people aiding in the colonialism and oppression. This is not a new tactic. In the late 1800’s, the state created hereditary chiefs to aid in the Indian Agents' control of the communities. We are told they are helping our people. In the end, however, the environment and spiritual destruction, the twisting of our culture, and the oppression of our people are not worth it. No Olympics on Stolen Native Land.

It seems only a handful of people will truly benefit from the Olympics. Millions of dollars have, supposedly, been poured into our community. But only a small group of people and their friends and family are benefiting. Ironically, some of these people are a part of my family, but I stand by my principles.

One of the worst parts of the Olympics for me is how much our culture is being sold off and commodified into merchandise and money. A handful of artists have benefited from this. I was asked, “How come you're not applying for the Olympic arts opportunities?” Our children must know that some collaborated, and others resisted. And so I resist the 2010 Winter Olympics, and I’m not afraid of who knows that.

The myth about Skwxwu7mesh involvement in the 2010 Winter Olympic Games is quite large and troublesome: The land deals, the money-transfers, the real benefits, the history of how it all come together, and who’s doing what and what they are really doing. Perhaps in time I will work on exposing this myth, and speak the truth. The truth about my nation is that many are fed up with the 2010 Olympics and the lies fed to us by our own politicians. They claimed this would be the best thing for our people, and even use the words of dead chiefs to support their arguments. My community sees little for this, and in the end, it won’t be worth it.

I also have the police approaching me wanting to find out information about the 2010 Resistance. I’ve been told that my name has come up in Police meetings as “someone to watch during the Olympics.” What I say to this is: I know my rights, I know my intentions, I know what I believe in, you don’t scare me. Stop targeting indigenous people who are standing up for their rights.

In solidarity with those who think the Olympics is not worth it. For my ancestors who believed in something better then this. For my ancestors who didn’t die for us to be wealthy capitalists. For the future generations who must know that some resisted.

Dustin Rivers is a Sḵwxwú7mesh-Kwakwaka'wakw writer and artist. This piece was previously published on his blog, http://liberatedyet.com.

Street Sweeps

Victorians Heat Up over Torch Launch

dawn — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:47:45 +0000

"Corporate festival" will showcase poverty and homelessness

VICTORIA, LEKWUNGEN AND WSANEC TERRITORIES—At first glance, Victoria, BC appears to be an idyllic setting for the official launch of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Torch Relay.

Only a short trip across the water from Vancouver, Victoria is known as a sleepy, prosperous, tourist-friendly city. Yet beneath this façade, Victoria is becoming a hotbed of local resistance to the Olympics, which is fueled – in part – by deepening poverty.

"Gordon Campbell called the Olympic Torch Relay 'an incredible opportunity to showcase' B.C." says No2010 Victoria organizer Kim Croswell. "The fact that he thinks there’s something to ‘showcase’ tells me what circles he’s running in."

Under the banner of No2010 Victoria, local anti-poverty and environmental groups have been using the Olympic spotlight to "showcase" the critical issues that they are working on throughout the community. Growing public outrage at the colossal cost of the Games and the Torch Relay festivities have added fuel to the anti-Olympics fire.

"The Olympics are contributing to everybody’s poverty," says Rose Henry, a Coast Salish elder-in-training whose life experiences led her to become one of the city’s best-known anti-poverty advocates.

"They're creating a bigger deficit and taking seed money that has been there to help overstretched social service agencies that are already struggling with their finances."

Henry estimates there are upwards of 1,600 homeless people in Victoria. "But there's only 375 beds available during winter months," she adds.

"Beds are like winning the lottery. And so people are criminalized; they’re getting ticketed for sleeping in public places, having a backpack or sitting on the sidewalk."

Henry is an organizer with the Committee to End Homelessness, a grassroots group led by and for members of the street community. The Committee has already expressed concerns that the Games will make life more difficult for homeless people living in Victoria. "We're seeing the number of people growing because of Olympics," says Henry. "We're having people leaving Vancouver thinking that life is easier in small town Victoria. But Victoria doesn't have same services as Vancouver, and the issues are just as big."

No2010 Victoria organizer Linden Stewart says that people involved in different movements have been coming together to use the Games to draw attention to the issues they’re working on.

"Victoria is a middle-class town. Maybe some people aren't impacted by 2010, but the folks in their backyards are. It’s important to demonstrate locally so that people who don’t normally think about these issues do."

While critical media reports in Victoria tend to focus on the escalating costs of the 2010 Games, local anti-poverty organizers are trying to push the debate beyond the digits.

"There's an incredible amount of financial, human and environmental resources going into an event that excludes a large population of marginalized peoples in our province and our country," says Heather Hobbs from Harm Reduction Victoria, a local group that works for justice and dignity for illicit drug users.

"Instead of focusing on addressing the needs of the most marginalized communities, resources are going into once-in-a-lifetime event," Hobbs says. "The event arguably won’t benefit marginalized people but will contribute to a legacy of homelessness and poverty."

Harm Reduction Victoria made headlines earlier this year when it began operating a "Guerilla Needle Exchange" to mark the one-year anniversary of the eviction of the city's only fixed site needle exchange.

"We're hearing from people who use drugs that they aren’t able to access services that they need in order to adequately house themselves and meet their most basic health care needs," says Hobbs.

"People hear that there's all this money going into Olympics, and it's very frustrating and infuriating when they continue to be on streets and have nothing to eat."

Harm Reduction Victoria is also using the Olympic Games as an opportunity to bring the issues faced by drug users into the local anti-poverty organizing mix.

"In activist movements there hasn’t been lots of attention paid to needs of people who use illicit drugs," says Hobbs. "So when we come together to talk about these issues, we realize how we can support one another and integrate our concerns in each others' messages."

Bringing groups such as Harm Reduction Victoria and the Committee to End Homelessness together to share the stage in denouncing the Olympics is one objective of No2010 Victoria. The collective organized a teach-in on local issues in March 2009, which featured groups such as the Prostitutes Empowerment Education and Resource Society (PEERS) and the Society of Living Intravenous Drug Users (SOLID). The plans for the Olympic Torch Relay send-off also centred on ongoing local struggles.

“We’re very conscientious about bringing struggles together”, says No2010 Victoria’s Croswell. “We’re imagining a grassroots groundswell to acknowledge our own communities instead of a corporate festival.”

Tamara is a community organizer, researcher and independent journalist whose work focuses on international and local poverty-related issues.

Raven with Torch

Real News Network: Resistance to the 2010 Games

dawn — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 16:44:56 +0000

The Real News Network has a new piece up about resistance to the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.

Canadian Pacific Rail attacked in Toronto- Molotovs and Fires

Lia Tarachansky — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:24:36 +0000

CP11.jpg

The following is a communique posted on various sites and listservs.

[The contents of this post have been removed, due to the potential for police seizures, affecting our ability to continue serving this site. To read the original communiqué, go here.]

CP Spirit Train will roll into Cooksville GO Station on Thanksgiving weekend

Lia Tarachansky — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 19:21:36 +0000

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TORONTO, Oct. 8, 2008 /CNW/ - On Monday, October 13, the Canadian Pacific Spirit Train will bring Olympic spirit to the Cooksville GO Station and surrounding community with a free festival from 1:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Six-time Juno award winner Colin James headlines the event, while Olympic and Paralympic athletes bring the excitement of the games to this traveling outdoor festival promoting the Vancouver 2010 Games.

GO Transit is proud to have the Cooksville GO Station in Mississauga as the location for this festival stop. "We are happy to work with Canadian Pacific and help encourage national pride for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games," said GO Transit Managing Director Gary McNeil.

This free, all day event has something for the entire family to enjoy from musical performances to interacting with Olympic and Paralympic athletes. Visitors can also enjoy many activities and explore various exhibits. The Kids' Zone will offer workshops where families and kids can build their own mini Olympic wooden Inukshuks in honour of the Vancouver Olympic emblem. Other activities include trying out sledge hockey, a challenging Paralympic sport, or creating a video postcard message for Canadian athletes at the video booth.

For more information on the CP Spirit Train village, please visit
www.cpspirittrain.com for up-to-date event details, including concert and performance schedules, and an in-depth look at CP's historical involvement with the Olympics.

Photo Essay- Edmonton 2010 Olympics Resistance

Lia Tarachansky — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 04:09:56 +0000

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For a Full Photo Essay, please click here

"It's All About The Land"

hillarybain — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 13:07:50 +0000

Native resistance to the Olympics

"We are preparing to disrupt the Olympics any way that we can. We want to let the world know that our land is not for sale," said Kanahus Pelkey, at a February 1 talk held at the Native Friendship Centre in Montreal.

It was one of many stops on an extensive speaking tour of the Great Lakes and East Coast regions of Canada. The speakers included Pelkey, of the Secwepemc and Ktunaxa First Nations, and Dustin Johnson, of the Tsimshan First Nation -- both members of the Native Youth Movement (NYM) in British Columbia. The packed room saw many people sitting on the floor and standing for several hours.

The aim of the tour was to raise awareness about Native resistance to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, while underlining the importance of restoring traditional Indigenous knowledge and arousing a sense of responsibility in First Nations youth to defend and maintain their people and territories.

The quickly-approaching mega-sporting event is acting as an unwelcome catalyst for many First Nations people living in BC, a number of whom have been embroiled in bitter land rights battles with the Canadian government for most of their lives. Vast areas of unceded land that Indigenous communities depend on for hunting, fishing and general survival are at risk. Rivers, mountains and old-growth forests are being replaced by tourist resorts and highway expansions spurred by the 2010 games. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent to build new resorts and expand existing ones in order to attract and accommodate tourists, Olympic athletes and trainers.

Indigenous communities in the Interior and on the coast of BC, including the Secwepemc people of Skelkwek'welt and the St'at'imc people of Sutikalh, have long voiced their opposition to the establishment of Sun Peaks and Cayoosh ski resorts on their land. Strong and organized shows of resistance have been disregarded, ignored and covered-up by the BC government in attempts to capitalize on territory for which treaties were never signed. One of many examples of this occurred in 1990, when the province began an expansion of Highway 99, upgrading a logging road that cut through the Melvin Creek watershed. In order to complete this project, it was necessary to expropriate a portion of the Mt. Currie reserve. When the Lil'wat people of Mt. Currie blockaded the road, 63 arrests were made and highway construction continued. Not long after that, the government announced it was seeking proposals for a ski resort in the area -- a project that would only be made possible with the expansion of the highway.

Plans for the Cayoosh Ski Resort on St'at'imc territory were begun in 1991 by Nancy-Greene-Raine Resort Consultants Inc. (Greene-Raine is an Olympic medalist and former board member on Vancouver's Olympic Bid Committee.) What many refer to as a 'camp' was set up at Sutikalh in May 2000 to stop construction of the $530-million ski resort. Eight years later, Sutikalh is one of the only re-possessed Territories where people live 365 days a year, even in February, in five feet of snow. It is a village and not a camp, far from the government-sanctioned reserves.

One NYM member remarks: "It is a strong point of Indigenous resistance and serves as a great example to Native people that we can still survive on our land, free of the system.

"Sutikalh needs more attention. The resort is still planned for the area. Many times the word is not spread about the struggle on the land because all those involved are on the land where there is no form of electrical communication, so a network must be put in place to help give an international voice to those isolated places that need the most support and resources." *

Sun Peaks Ski Resort, on the other hand, has forcibly pushed ahead with construction on Secwepemc territory, including the thorough clear-cutting of mountains to make way for ski runs, development on the drainage basin for commercial and residential real estate, and an 18-hole golf course. Invaluable mountain lakes, creeks, trap lines, hunting grounds, salmon stocks, animal habitats, sacred sites and important food and medicine harvesting areas have been destroyed.

"Right now they're using recycled sewage waste to make man-made snow for their ski resorts," says Pelkey.

There have been over 70 arrests in the fight against Sun Peaks. Most of these have been elders, women and youth from the NYM.

"The province bulldozed our home on International Human Rights Day. They hired Sun Peaks employees to tear down our sweat lodges. So you get an idea what happens when Native people stand up and fight for their freedom. We announced it to the media, and all the corporate media, they showed up at Sun Peaks, but the roads were deactivated. They [Sun Peaks] made big, huge ice blockades so no vehicles could get through. And Sun Peaks resort has many, many snowmobile businesses, but all the businesses were given orders by Sun Peaks not to rent any snowmobiles to any media, or anybody that day," said Pelkey.

A log cabin that the Secwepemc had built on the outskirts of Sun Peaks to fight encroachment on the untouched land from other directions "was burnt down to the ground," she said.

The Secwepemc people, rendered homeless and faced with the threat of arrest if they continued living on their land, retreated. Many had endured previous arrests for similar involvements and did not want to risk imprisonment with no chance of bail.

When fresh ski trails were inaugurated shortly thereafter, the public did not hear about what had come to pass between the Secwepemc First Nation and the B.C. government. The provincial and federal governments have refused to accept Aboriginal title or even enter into negotiations to create co-jurisdiction, despite legally binding promises to do so.

The Secwepemc held a protest at the Sun Peaks Resort on this season's opening day, November 17, 2007. As well as protesting the resort, they also called on the Austrian National Ski Team to boycott Sun Peaks because of the many human and Indigenous rights abuses the resort continues to perpetrate. The team had chosen Sun Peaks as a training facility leading up to the 2010 Games. Despite being confronted by Arthur Manuel of Indigenous Networks on Economies and Trade, who visited Austria in June of that year to expose the team to the abuses taking place on Secwepemc territory, Austria opened the 2007 ski season by formally inviting Felix Arnouse from the Little Shuswap Indian Band (representing few, according to an international statement issued by the Skwelkwekíwelt Protection Centre) in a media stunt to conceal the opposition of the Secwepemc First Nation.

In what many First Peoples see as an additional display of public disrespect and mockery of their cultures, the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) created a trio of Olympic mascots that happen to be misappropriations of beings sacred to many Native people: a Sasquatch, a sea-bear and an animal guardian spirit.

"They know that's the way that it's going to make money. People want to come from all over the world, 'Oh, Native American, oh, what are the Native Americans doing?' But we want them to know that we're protesting," says Pelkey.

According to the 2005 Greater Vancouver Homeless Count, there are 300,000 (official) homeless in Greater Vancouver, 30 per cent of whom are First Nations people, despite the fact that they make up just two per cent of the city's total population.

"The UN human rights index will show Canada [ranked] right near the top, but registered Status Indians will be in the 50s, near any third world country," says Pelkey.

The number of homeless in Vancouver is predicted to triple by 2010 due to the large-scale closure of social housing and low-income hotels in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES). Closures have been spurred on by the Olympics in an effort to create more space for tourists and corporate investors. Three hundred low-income housing units have been lost in the last two years alone due to rent increases. (The province of B.C. does not impose rent controls.) According to the 2001 Canada census, over 126,000 people in Greater Vancouver are at risk of homelessness.

Dustin Johnson traces the Olympic tradition back to ancient Greece in identifying the birth of current patterns of marginalization: "All the lower classes, slaves and women were prohibited from participating... You go back that far, you can trace exactly the kind of effects that imperialism has had on our people... The worst forms of colonial culture are being promoted by the 2010 Olympics. Crass materialism, selfishness, outright greed. It's dangerous -- [if] you maintain these cultures, you maintain a disconnection from our territories, from our land, from the spirit world and from our cultures."

A June 2007 report by the Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) found that two million people worldwide have been forcibly displaced in the last 20 years to clear space for the Olympic Games.

When deciding where to hold the 2010 Olympics, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) faced a choice between Pyeongchang, South Korea, and Vancouver. While South Korea pitched itself as the 'peace' candidate, Vancouver sold itself as the 'safety and security' candidate, presenting the province of BC as a place where everybody gets along: rich and poor, rural and urban, Native and non-Native. Crafting just such an image, Mayor Sam Sullivan's November 2006 innovation, "Project Civil City," proposed to eliminate homelessness, the open drug market and the incidence of aggressive panhandling, with the goal of reducing all of these by 50 per cent by 2010. There have already been severe security crack-downs on the street; however, in an effort to accomplish this goal on time, over 10,000 police, military and security personnel will occupy Vancouver and Whistler during the Games, creating what many First Peoples have come to perceive as nothing short of a police state.

"You may think that Canada is a free country, but to us it is not. When you go out into the city, it's no different than prison, because the police can come and arrest you at any time," says Pelkey.

In 2003, Pelkey, forcibly separated from her baby boy, spent two and a half months in prison for her involvement with the Sun Peaks blockades. During her time there, she met many First Nations women who had been imprisoned for prostitution and drug abuse. Most of the women's stories involved sexual molestation during childhood; many women had experienced these abuses in residential school environments, while others were the children of residential school survivors.

The Olympic tradition of catering to the elite as a means of social control can be described as a policy of "sex, screens and sports," a phrase coined in reference to the 1988 Seoul Games, according to Johnson. A massive influx of prostitution, coupled with the pseudo-legalization of the sex industry for the benefit of businessmen and elite athletes, has always been an Olympic tradition, the Seoul Games and the 2004 Games in Athens being prime examples.

Among those who continue to be brutally criminalized by the police and simultaneously marginalized and taken advantage of by society in general are the city's sex workers, a community in which First Nations women are vastly overrepresented.

There are currently 500 (documented) First Nations women missing across Canada, 76 of whom are from BC.

"They're not all completely dysfunctional and degraded human beings," said Johnson. "Some of them are from good families, who've just been kidnapped outrightly by the most depraved, colonized peoples.

"You actually see, at some of the elementary schools in Vancouver, sexual predators, just waiting around to try to kidnap young Native kids. Some of these kids end up in the sex-slave industry, they get shipped all over the world. This is the kind of industry that VANOC and the people that are organizing the Olympics in Vancouver are trying to continue; they're trying to increase that just for the purposes of the 2010 Olympics. This is something that needs to be not only exposed, but stopped."

Meanwhile, the BC Coalition of Experiential Communities (BCCEC), the first sex worker cooperative in Canada, has been attempting to pressure the government to create legal brothels for the upcoming Winter Olympics in 2010. The move had the support both of Mayor Sullivan and VANOC, but has been refused by Canadian Justice Minister Rob Nicholson. Despite the decriminalization of sex workers being one of the BCCEC's primary motives, the issue is controversial both among Canada's political elite and among sex workers themselves.

Pelkey and Johnson stressed that their concerns are about much more than the 2010 Olympics and its effects. They acknowledged that "the Olympics will come and go," choosing instead to emphasize the fact that this globalized event can be used as a powerful tool for mobilization. Drawing attention to First Nations resistance, dating back to the 15th century and very much alive today, is among their top priorities. According to Johnson, Native resistance to the 2010 Games grew significantly following the death of Aboriginal Rights activist and respected Elder Harriet Nahanee in February 2007. The 73-year-old Pacheedaht woman died a week after serving a prison term for her protest of the Olympic-driven Sea-to-Sky Highway expansion, causing an uproar among youth in Canada's Native activist community.

Indeed, some of the effects of the powerful, growing Native opposition to the Games can be observed in the increasingly restricted access to Olympic events leading up to 2010. Due to the consistent disruption of VANOC/ IOC-organized celebrations by protests and demonstrations, many high-end hotels are now reserved exclusively for corporate sponsors like Visa and Coca Cola, and are entirely closed to the public.

In one of Vancouver's better-known anti-Olympics rallies held in February 2007, VANOC and the Vancouver Board of Trade were celebrating the unveiling of a "three-year countdown clock" in the downtown business district. Native people from all over B.C. participated in an anti-Olympics rally at the event, together with non-Native members from the Anti-Poverty Committee (APC). In a move garnering much sought-after media attention, a masked protester jumped on stage and grabbed the microphone from a VANOC official, shouting "Fuck 2010! Fuck Your Corporate Circus!" before being cut off and arrested.

Non-Native shows of solidarity with the First Nations anti-Olympic movement continue to grow, evident by the emergence of demonstrations such as the first annual Poverty Olympics, held on February 3 in Vancouver's DTES, with staged events like the 'poverty-line high jump,' 'the welfare hurdles,' and 'the broad jump over bedbug-infested mattresses,' to name a few. The objective was to embarrass the province into taking action against increasing poverty rates. Among other events being organized for the purpose of strengthening essential connections between Canada's First Nations and outside communities is the Massive Convergence scheduled for February 2010. Thousands are expected to arrive in Vancouver, many coming all the way from Mexico, for the purpose of banding together to counteract Canada's racist policies, to come up with solutions, and to commit to action.

Pelkey remarks that many non-Native people she has encountered on the tour have expressed bewilderment at what the best way to show their support might be.

"It's all about land and that's what everyone has to understand here," she replies. "It's about land and freedom. Non-Indigenous people should support that. Not always just the physically being there in the communities, sometimes that might be intrusive... understand the Nations that you're in, know what Nation you are occupying... and respect that."

"Building a collective, open movement from the ground up," adds Johnson. "That's what really needs to happen, in a lot of people's opinions and their beliefs, and it's really helping because it's promoting the culture of the human."

*On May 1 the eight-year anniversary of the re-possessed Sutikalh territory will be marked with an annual gathering. Anyone wishing to show support is welcome and encouraged to come. For more information, write to nymcommunications [at] hotmail.com.

Cayoosh Mountain Range

Kanahus Pelkey

No Olympics on Stolen Land! Great Lakes & East Coast Speaking Tour

dru — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 00:29:06 +0000

camo2.jpg

[FYI...]

With Kanahus Pellkey from the Native Youth Movement and Dustin Johnson

With the 2010 Winter Olympics scheduled to occur on unceded Coast Salish, St'at'imc and Squamish territory in two years, the spectacle surrounding them continues to wreak havoc on Indigenous people, poor people, and the Earth. In the spirit of resistance to colonialism, with the 2010 Olympics as a main target, Kanahus Pellkey of the Native Youth Movement and Native youth Dustin Johnson are touring throughout the Great Lakes and East Coast in January and February 2008.

"By them choosing to have the Olympics here, it's opening up our land, our sacred sites, our medicine grounds," says Kanahus Pellkey. "We want investors to know our land is not for sale." Pre-Olympic fever occupies the province of BC, and the economic excitement has massively accelerated gentrification and the building of highways, resorts, and condos. The construction of infrastructure for the 2010 Olympics itself is adding to extensive destruction of traditional homelands of the local Indigenous peoples.

In October 2007, more than 1500 Indigenous people representing communities across this hemisphere held the Gathering of the Indigenous Peoples of America, on Yaqui territory in Vicam, Sonora, Mexico. They stated in their final declaration, "We reject the 2010 Winter Olympics on sacred and stolen territory of Turtle Island–Vancouver, Canada." This speaking tour is strengthened by this momentum, and by the knowledge that hundreds, if not thousands of Indigenous people now plan to attend the Olympic Games, not in celebration, but in resistance to the danger the Olympics poses to Indigenous lands, identity, culture, health, livelihoods, and to future generations.

"Full Confrontation with the State"

dru — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 05:39:36 +0000

Vancouver's Anti-Poverty Committee escalates opposition to 2010 Olympics

Vancouver's Anti-Poverty Committee (APC) has been getting a lot of negative media coverage. So why are they more popular with the public than ever?

"Without a doubt, the APC is enjoying more public support now that we're in full confrontation with the state than when we were just complaining about it," says David Cunningham, one of the group's organizers.

"Full confrontation with the state" is hardly an exaggeration. Earlier this year, the group quickly progressed from noisily disrupting Olympic press events to an "eviction campaign," targeting the Vancouver Olympics Committee (VANOC). In May, the dramatic eviction of VANOC member Ken Dobell from his office was front-page news across the province.

When Cunningham was arrested for "uttering threats" related to the evictions, police lured him to an isolated site by pretending to be a journalist with the free daily paper 24 Hours, a tactic that was roundly denounced even in the mainstream press.

"So many people are pissed off at the Olympics that any type of display of anger, most people can sympathize with," he says. "They're finally accepting direct action as a viable political alternative."

It may not exactly be universal support, with a range of virulent blog posts deriding Cunningham as a "lazy bastard" and worse, but there's no denying that these actions have made the social impact of the Olympics a priority issue for the public.

"As far as municipal political parties go in Vancouver, the APC is bigger than any of those groups. We've got more members and we carry more physical presence," says Cunningham.

On October 14, the APC had been planning to march to and occupy one of the many vacant buildings in the Downtown Eastside to draw attention to the role of the Games in the deterioration of already abysmal housing conditions in the neighbourhood. The night before, the advance team of people sent to prepare the building were violently arrested and threatened with tasers and dogs, according to Cunningham.

"With all of the advance propaganda, the police had locked down the Downtown Eastside prior to the demonstration," he says. "We thought we could slip in under the radar and we were wrong."

"It's important to recognize that these are hotel units," he adds. "We don't pretend that these are decent housing, these are just rooms. But given that people are living and literally dying in the alleys behind this building, it's a step up from the gutter."

Six people, ranging in age from from 18 to 64, were arrested and charged with breaking and entering with concealed instruments. The arrests and subsequent protest against police brutality are the subject of the short Burning Fist Media video "They Came in the Night".

The APC is now holding town meetings in various communities across the city to determine their next steps.

"It's common knowledge that the Olympics are socially cleansing not just the Downtown Eastside, but poor communities throughout Vancouver," Cunningham explains. "But that in itself poses a problem to us because now we're in a situation where people have that analysis, so how do we motivate them into direct political action?

"I guess realistically what APC is after is transforming this protest movement into a community of resistance. That's what pragmatically we need to confront the Olympics."

Their day-to-day work with the poor and Indigenous people who will be most affected by the Games is part of that transformation, as are alliances with groups like No One is Illegal and Native Youth Movement. They are working together to organize a large-scale convergence against the Olympics in February 2010.

"First and foremost, this convergence is an anti-colonial showdown," Cunningham explains. "We don't believe it's Vancouver-specific. The colonial juggernaut that is the 2010 Winter Games is something that will affect all of North and South America."

In October, an international delegation of 1,500 Indigenous representatives in Sonora, Mexico, unanimously agreed that the Olympics, as a colonial genocidal institution, posed a great risk to Indigenous cultures. They called for a boycott of the Games and for Indigenous people from around the world to travel to Vancouver for the protest.

It's a bold move on the part of organizers to announce a gathering that is still more than two years away. As the Games creep closer and the level of resistance rises, so too will the heat. Cunningham anticipates direct involvement from CSIS and the military.

"By the time we get to February 2010, it'll just be part of the continuum of protest that's happening now. With that, there's an escalation of surveillance and police repression," he says. "It's our responsibility to continue escalating that resistance into revolution."

"We're pretty clear. We're talking about overthrowing the government. We're not living in revolutionary times, but we have a revolutionary analysis and a revolutionary objective."

Visit apc.resist.ca and www.no2010.com for more information.

Marcos and Mohawks

Dobell Eviction

More Homeless than Athletes in Vancouver in 2010

dru — Mon, 28 May 2007 06:25:27 +0000

The Tyee has published the first in a series about the 2010 Olympics.

People of Aboriginal identity accounted for 30 per cent of the region's homeless population, while making up only two per cent of the total population.