I can understand the reluctance to change the name of something like that park. The unscientific, but still relevant, Globe and Mail poll has people rejecting the idea 6 to 1.

Vancouver, Washington is thinking of changing its name to Fort Vancouver to re-assert its own identity. That kind of branding exercise is difficult and highly controversial.

But when it comes to other re-branding in our region, it hasn’t been so controversial. Eradicating “Queen Charlotte Islands” for Haida Gwaii and changing the names of the water around here to Salish Sea are less controversial because of relatively less impact of those name changes compared to Stanley Park.

But we also saw a sad and not so ironic example on Canada Day of a sickly outpouring of racism, bigotry and stereotypes during the Stanley Park name change debate. I wasn’t surprised, but I was disgusted.

So the article below suggests some politicians favour going with an informal name change, and I tend to agree.

In the 1980s, I recall people starting to talk about Haida Gwaii and being corrected, but then defending their use of the term with a description of some significant, but generally disregarded BC history. Ultimately, we got some good education and debate about an important issue. Now we happen to have a political name change as well.

Lately, I’ve been corrected by some as I’ve been refusing to acknowledge Myanmar as the new name for Burma because I don’t recognize the junta that changed its name. I was told at various times that I am in no position to confer that status. Nonsense. I am a citizen of the world. I don’t have to be a nation to make that judgement, nor does anyone else.

So as I watched a quarter century of “Haida Gwaii” usage lead to political change, I would like to see some similar political consciousness-raising around the nature of Lord Stanley’s park, and along the way, we can separate the emotional relationships we have with Stanley Cup from the debate.

So I’m going with Xwayxway, pronounced “kwhy-kway” to see if a quarter century from now the kind of Canada Day bigotry we heard last week can evaporate and we can all understand a little bit more about how 96% of BC exists as unceded First Nations land.

At the opening of an aboriginal-themed village site in Stanley Park last month, a native elder suggested renaming the park Xwayxway – pronounced kwhy-kway – which was the name of a native village at the current site of Lumberman’s Arch in the northeastern part of the park.

The concept garnered some support, with some politicians suggesting the park could be known by both names. Ian Campbell, a hereditary chief and councillor with the Squamish First Nation, said he would pursue a formal proposal. And tourism groups said it would be possible to build marketing plans around the new name.

The idea also gained support as a way of acknowledging aboriginal culture and history. In B.C., residents could look to the example of Haida Gwaii, formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands. And the Salish Sea is now used as a name of waters also known as the Strait of Georgia, Puget Sound and the Juan de Fuca Strait.

via No name change for Stanley Park: Stockwell Day – The Globe and Mail.

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Sheesh. It’s about time.

China has finally walked the plank (or was prodded with sticks until they lept) and is now dog-paddling in the sea of flexible exchange rates. The word on the street?  China has decided it’s time to cease pegging the Yuan at artificially low rates against the US Dollar,  thereby allowing it to gradually rise over the course of time.

Well. That’s certainly special. What the heck does a free-styling Yuan potentially mean for Gord and Gordette McCanadiana?

The Financial Post has some thoughts. (You may wish to pack some hip waders to slog through the jargon.)

Ever the vaguely conservative optimist, I see this move as a potentially magical “unicorns & sparkles” scenario for Canada.

• We’re going to pay higher prices for our daily dose of imported, melamine spiked baby formula and sawdust enhanced dog food if it was made in a Chinese factory –> This should discourage some of the mindless purchasing of cheaply made import products that seem to saturate our market on every level, and encourage us to purchase domestic-made products.
• Levels the export playing field, allowing us to send Canadian made products/materials off more competitively than they have been for years *The flagging BC forest sector does a happy dance *
• Increase in export goods/materials = spin off jobs = spin off investments.
• Canadian GDP continues its upswing trend as the rock star economy of ye olde G20.

Alternatively, everything goes to shit really quickly, and we’ll be watching interviews with the Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse on CNN by early 2012.

I’m going to roll my dice and put my marker on the first scenario. Blow on ‘em for me, will ya?

• June 27, 2010 -- The BC NDP Channels Brian Mulroney (5)

What an interesting story about changing the name of Stanley Park to remove the colonialism. We now have Haida Gwaii and the Salish Sea. Removing colonial markers is about us as it is about the First Nations.

But I am thoroughly astonished, but sadly not surprised, at the degree of racism in the comments to this story. There are 16 comments now, only one in favour of the name change and many of those opposed spouting such racist bunk that it truly sours Canada Day.

More shame.

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That I was disgusted that the BC neoLiberal government was fishing around for bringing it back further entrenched my concern with the lengths they would go to disenfranchise human beings further.

So I was very happy to see that a modicum of democracy was able to steer a BC legislative committee stacked with provincial neoliberals–a modicum, supported by intense organizing efforts. Though I wouldn’t put it past this government to implement the municipal corporate vote despite the committee report. Remember the impending HST?

In looking at the details of the committee’s report [Report of the Local Government Elections Task Force (PDF 638KB)], I was thrilled to see a few things.

• 6,039 petition signatures for the corporate vote submitted by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business

I can’t be surprised they built a petition. I am happy to see they could only find 6,039 future corporate voters and their lackeys in the whole province of 4.2 million people to sign it.

• 2,354 member Facebook page against the corporate vote

Sure, it’s easy to build a Facebook group to push for something. But really it’s a huge effort to build a group and promote it to get this many people signing up in a short period of time. Not every movement can have the nation-wide hatred of abused prorogation behind it.

• 71% of the 920 written submissions commented on the corporate vote, with campaign finance being the topic of next greatest interest.  Many submissions touched on a wide range of other election‐related topics – from alternative voting systems to the date of the vote to elected officials’ accountability. The following identifies the general trends in those 920 written submissions:

1. Corporate vote – total: 223 for; 428 against
2. Local governments:  8 for; 23 against
3. Organizations:  11 for; 29 against
4. Individuals:  204 for; 376 against

I was especially thrilled to see an almost 2:1 ratio of submissions opposing the corporate vote to supporting it, with almost 3/4 of all submissions addressing it.

The following highlight a number of positive recommendations. Not to say that they aren’t controversial in themselves, but the fact that the elements and structure of our democracy are on the table is encouraging. I wonder if whichever of these changes come into force before the next municipal election will have an effect on what the public tolerates in other levels of government.

The report makes 31 recommendations for improvements to local elections to: ensure accountability; enhance transparency; strengthen compliance and enforcement; increase accessibility; and expand education and advice.

Key recommendations include:

* Establish expense limits for all campaign participants (e.g. electors, elector organizations and third party advertisers)

* Regulate third party advertisers, requiring them to register and disclose expenses and contributions

* Ban anonymous contributions

* Require sponsorship information on all election advertising

* Shorten the time for filing campaign finance disclosure statements to 90 days post election

* Establish a central role for Elections BC in enforcement of campaign finance rules and in making campaign finance disclosure statements electronically accessible

* Establish a separate Act for campaign finance rules in local elections

The Task Force recommends a four-year term of office to provide local governments more time to plan and implement their vision, and to reduce the potential for voter fatigue over time. It also recommends no general contribution limits, given proposed expense limits and the need to ensure that all affected by local government decisions can participate in local elections discourse

While it also recommends no corporate vote, the Task Force does recommend that UBCM, the Province and business groups work together to recognize the concerns expressed to the Task Force and to encourage effective local ways to engage with business, further strong relationships and foster a competitive business climate.

via Local Government Elections Task Force – Terms of Reference.

• June 4, 2010 -- Interested in Contributing to Politics, Re-Spun? (0)
• May 18, 2010 -- Pettiness: the Defining Quality of Politicians? (3)
• June 21, 2009 -- Ignore My Copyrights (0)
• April 27, 2009 -- No More Strategic Voting: Thanks STV! (0)

The recent controversy over the Vancouver School Board’s budget situation has been a bit of an interesting story to follow.  Much like every other school board in the province, the VSB has been wrangling with a considerable problem: the costs of providing a high-quality public education continuously increase, while the funding that comes from the provincial government doesn’t keep pace.

This isn’t a problem that only the elementary, middle, and high schools face; indeed, every public educational institution in this province, from the Vancouver School Board to Simon Fraser University must somehow find a way to balance their budgets in the face of increasing costs and stagnant levels of funding.  I’m certainly not an accountant, but the financial problem that all school boards — and our colleges and universities — face is a substantial one.  When costs increase and funding doesn’t match, then cuts to education need to be made because the provincial government has legally required all school boards, colleges, and universities to submit balanced budgets.   To repeat: all school boards, colleges, universities, and public educational institutions are required, by law, to submit balanced budgets.  This is a feat that even the provincial government itself couldn’t accomplish, instead, they amended their balanced budget law giving themselves a pass.

But the legally required balanced budgets aren’t the crux of this issue.  The true centre of the controversy was the fact that the Vancouver School Board stood up and spoke out about their financial issues.  They publicly called upon the provincial government to fairly fund education.  They postponed approving their budget because the legally required balanced budget would have meant substantial cuts to education and school closures.  They acted as advocates for education.

It seems that this was something that the province didn’t want the VSB to do.  The minister of education commissioned the comptroller general to investigate the school board’s management practices and report back with recommendations on how the budget could be balanced.  The submitted report essentially branded the VSB trustees as incompetent; apparently, they spent too much time discussing the impacts of underfunding on the school district, they spent too much time discussing how they could best advocate for education, and they didn’t spent nearly enough time just dealing with it and cutting education.  Of course, the issue of provincial funding was out-of-bounds for the comptroller general’s report.

It’s interesting to note what wasn’t out-of-bounds, though: the entire principle of elected school boards.  The report from the comptroller general noted that elected school trustees, for some entirely incomprehensible reason, felt that their job was to advocate for education.  And because education actually needs a lot of advocacy under the BC Liberals, the trustees had been engaging in advocacy.  So, the comptroller general suggested that the government should re-consider the ‘co-governance’ model of education.  Reconsider having elected school boards.

Why? Because, in my experience, appointed boards responsible for education don’t speak up as readily, and don’t embarrass the provincial government in the same way  when their funding is being slowly drained to unsustainable levels.

Elected school boards seem to advocate for their schools.  This seems to be dangerous — or at least distasteful — to the province.  So, the province should reconsider this arrangement, at least according to the comptroller general.

To understand this a bit better, it’s useful to compare the elementary, middle, and secondary school situation the post-secondary education situation.  And I will use a very familiar example: Simon Fraser University.  I graduated from SFU with a BA (Hons.) in Political Science and Labour Studies in June 2010, and I was an elected student member of the university’s Board of Governors from 2008 to 2010.

There are a number of similarities between the Vancouver School Board and Simon Fraser University.  The two have budgets comparable in size: the VSB’s is around $480 million, and SFU’s is around $420 million.  Because both organisations rely on employees to conduct their main activities, teaching, the majority of both budgets are dedicated to staff salaries and benefits.  Both organisations are public organisations, with funding from the provincial government being the primary source of funding.

Both organisations feel cost pressures in similar ways.  Each year, the costs of teaching increase: computers must be replaced, textbooks purchased, libaries updated, and so forth.  Inflation increases all costs across the board.  And while provincial funding tends to increase each year, it doesn’t match the increase in costs.  So cuts need to be made.

Both organisations have to make cuts in order to balance their budgets — the VSB is considering closing eleven schools, closing some programs, and increasing rents to nonprofit and community organisations, while SFU is engaging in round after round of layoffs, closing programs, and shifting more and more teaching from expensive faculty to cheap ‘temporary instructors.’  In both cases, the quality of education decreases.  In both cases, class sizes increase.  In both cases, education is at risk.

But there is a striking dissimilarity in how the two organisations respond to the problems of underfunding.

The Vancouver School Board trustees, elected by their constituents to both manage and ensure a high quality of education in their school district, have taken a public stand against underfunding.  They have loudly stated the obvious: if funding does not match costs, something has to give.  And unfortunately, what’s giving is the quality of education.  This is not good.

The Board of Governors of SFU take an entirely different approach.  No public pronouncements.  No public stands.  Instead, there are quiet pleas to an entirely indifferent Minister of Advanced Education.  Cuts are made.  Staff and faculty positions eliminated.  Programs closed.  Class sizes increased and quality of education decreased.  And no public stand is taken.  This is not good.

It’s not good for students in both cases.  Quality of education decreases in both cases.  And education is the key to a healthy society in so many ways.

But why is it that only the VSB takes a public stand?  The answer, to me, is contained in the comptroller general’s report to the ministry of education: the Vancouver School Board is elected.

The Board of Governors of Simon Fraser University is mostly appointed by the provincial government.  There are fifteen members of the board, and only five of them are elected.  Two are elected students, two are elected faculty, and one is an elected employee.  While the provincially appointed members don’t take orders from the province, their approach is entirely different to that of the trustees of the Vancouver School Board.  In my years on the Board, we spent a large amount of time talking about the issue of underfunding.  Each one of us acknowledged the severe challenges that it presented to the university.  All of us seemed to agree that this needed to be changed if the university was to be able to continue to provide high-quality education.

But we didn’t take public stands as a board.  The predominant thought amongst the majority of the board, those who were provincially appointed, was that advocating for funding wasn’t the role of the board.  Instead, the role of the board was to oversee the implementation of budgets that necessitated cuts because of provincial underfunding.  And maybe, if we were so concerned, we might from time to time write a letter to the Minister who would probably just tell us ‘too bad.’  The chair of the board and the president would meet with the minister privately, who would then likely just tell us ‘too bad.’

Despite all of us at least tacitly acknowledging the problems of underfunding, the provincially appointed members of the board were reluctant to take any public stand about the funding situation of the university.  They felt it wasn’t our role.  Instead, our role was, seemingly, to simply implement the cuts that the province mandated by underfunding the university.  Without public protest.

The trustees of the Vancouver School Board, on the other hand, seem to feel strongly that their role is to advocate for public education as well as doing the best that they can with what they have.  They have refused to simply implement the cuts that the province is downloading, at least without protest.  They are all elected by their constituents, and they feel a responsibility to them, a responsibility to education.  They don’t want to simply take a pronouncement that their underfunding is something that they simply have to deal with.

The difference here is that the Vancouver School Board is entirely elected by the people that their decisions affect.  They have a very consultative approach to governance, with the participation of stakeholders, including staff, parents, and students, as a primary goal.  They are democratically administering the school district, democratically managing and advocating for education.  Advocacy is a key role of democratic accountability, which seems to be incredibly different than the bounded realities of fiscal accounting that the comptroller general’s report considered to be the most important role.  The VSB is putting their advocacy for quality education above the passive implementation of provincial cuts.

Only a third of the Board of Governors of Simon Fraser University are elected.  The rest are appointed by the province.  They are overseeing the managing of the university.  They implement the cuts that the province passes down without public protest.  Public advocacy is something that they have identified as not being part of their role.

A foil exists in all of this: the province has the ability to fire the school board, and the province can replace its appointed members on the university’s board of governance at any time it wishes.  Provincial governments have fired school boards before, generally when there is a budget dispute between the board and the province.  Also, replacing provincial government appointees on university boards is something that happens regularly.  In 2001, after the province deregulated tuition fees, when the Board of Governors of SFU voted against raising tuition, the province replaced the Board.

The comptroller general’s report, as commissioned by the Ministry of Education, looked at the Vancouver School Board in the same way that the provincially appointed members of the SFU Board of Governors look at themselves.  The comptroller general ignored the democratically administered nature of education.  The comptroller general did not look at the issue of provincial government underfunding.  Instead, the business mindset influenced the report.

The comptroller general recommended that the provincial government review the ‘co-governance’ model of school district administration, the elected status of school boards.  The implication is that the university model is better.

But the university model is better in only one way: it implements the decisions of the provincial government, it cuts education, and it does this without public protest.  It is not democratic, and it is not responsible to advocate for education.

The controversy around the Vancouver School Board and its resistance to underfunding is being used by the provincial government as a way to bring up the idea of taking away our elected school boards.  Not because it’s necessarily a better way of doing things, but because appointed boards don’t publicly complain and protest harmful decisions from the province.

This controversy is about education and it is about democracy.  The province harming the former by underfunding our school districts and universities and colleges, and it is trying to do away with the latter to enable it to continue on its way.

Either we believe in our education system and we elect people who will democratically administer the most important thing that a society can do to invest in itself, or we allow cuts to continue.  The provincial government seems to have made its choice.  Have you?

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I take issue with the the city’s PR claims of sustainability, livability, an urban sanctuary and our awareness of our impact on nature.

I don’t care what kind of international awards we get for livability based on whatever contrived cosmopolitan criteria. We have a homeless crisis, an affordable housing crisis, an irrational worship of cars, a defunding of transit and green living alternatives, a glaring lack of useful green space on the east side, fervent disdain for pedestrians and people on bikes and a glaring lack of the word “upscale” in the description of how we’ve gentrified industrial land into “beautiful modern upscale neighbourhoods” just like Shanghai, as if they’re a model to emulate. How much does it cost to buy on Concord Pacific lands or the Olympic Village?

Our greenwashing civic spin is reaching across the Pacific Ocean to a degree that we should be watching more carefully.

Vancouver Pavilion Experience

The Vancouver Pavilion introduces the communities, the people and the ideas that earned Vancouver the reputation as the most livable city. Vancouver, like Shanghai, transformed industrial land into beautiful modern neighbourhoods between hosting Expo in 1986 and the Winter Olympics in 2010. The name “Urban Sanctuary” reflects the way the city enjoys nature and is aware of its impact on nature.

Vancouver warmly welcomes you to visit our small pavilion with big ideas about modern wood design and sustainable, livable communities.

via Blog | Open Dialogue – City of Vancouver.

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Despite their radical socialist leanings and connections to labour, Vision so far has tried to play ball with Campbell’s B.C. Liberals.

via 24 Hours Vancouver.

I honestly can’t think of one radical socialist Vision politician.

And then there’s this:

VSB Chair Patti Bacchus dismissed an independent review of Vancouver’s board of education that describes them as incompetent and overtly political.

The entire review was politicized to the teeth. Independent is bunk.

And how Rich Coleman connects to those other areas of relations between Vancouver and the BC Liberals would only make sense if Coleman were premier.

Otherwise, this piece is a good example of how the BC Liberals don’t play well with others. And don’t really care.

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But how does Vancouver ever become the first car-free city in North America? It’s all about systems theory.

Sure, elected leadership reflect dinosaur corporate interests. It will take us to “think outside the box” and embark on “grassroots mobilization” to self-actualize our “community organizer” vibes…and all the other cliches. But really, it’s about understanding the interconnectedness of everything.

And it isn’t necessarily about converting everyone who shows up to the festivals and getting them to sign a petition. It’s about living the community we envision. People will come. They will enjoy the day. The next day they will watch cars drive over all the great kids’ chalk art. A small part of their souls will be maimed.

Then next year we will have maybe more than four locations. Then we’ll have more than one day. Then people will finally stop griping about bike lanes in the downtown.

And through this we simply manifest the reality we want. Systems theory. Let’s see how the main areas of systems theory play out in car free days:

We move from understanding ourselves merely as isolated individuals to seeing ourselves as parts of a social, community whole. We are part of a hive mind. We have our own existence, but when we get to stroll down the yellow line of Main Street, we’ll see how our neighbours are a part of us.

We will realize that the objects in our communities are not distant items, but connected to us. When cars drive on our streets, we are separated from all these objects. Sitting on the pavement in the middle of Main and King Ed chatting with friends and sharing popsicles helps us see objects as part of us, not alien.

In the end, we become more attuned to our context. We get to question it from the perspective of sitting on the road instead of bolting across King Ed on a yellow light to catch a bus.

When we adjust our normal relationship with roads we get to move past the normal and embrace the rich quality of alternatives: what we can do with streets if we don’t let cars on them. Knowing comes from doing.

Instead of being humans with defined roles in an urban world, when we shift our relationships, we notice the patterns and processes that consume us. We enjoy different relationships and get to evaluate whether we really need the prescribed, unquestioned patterns we have endured forever.

Finally, when we take the rubber off the road we get a chance to build new patterns and relationships with the people, landmarks, shops, artists and green space in our road communities. We can’t get outside any box without experiencing an alternative. Imaginations can be powerful, but a car-free day is worth a thousand words.

And just like another great cliche bumper sticker: when the people lead, the leaders will follows. Eventually, the politicians will start showing up to car-free days because they’ll realize there is a serious constituency there. That’s where we earn the political legitimacy to force the leaders to follow our lead and start legislating car-free space.

And the fact that it’s all an open source, volunteer coordination effort is just icing on the cake. Actually, really, though, if it were all sponsored by Red Bull or Dasani, it would flop.

So what are you doing on Father’s Day? I know what I’ll be doing.

YouTube – Car Free Vancouver.

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Imtiaz Popat on “The Rational” and I, talking about the HST, the Vancouver Parks Board’s dance with class war and gentrification, and federal coalitions in the UK and Canada!

The video podcast of the conversation lives at Vista Video.

You can watch it in Miro, the best new open source multimedia viewing software: http://www.miroguide.com/feeds/8832

or…

You can watch it in iTunes: itpc://dgivista.org/pod/Vista_Podcasts.xml

or…

The podcast file is at http://dgivista.org/pod/COOP.Radio.5.31.10.mov

Enjoy!

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“But we know that VANOC is very vigilant about anything related to the Olympics. And you know what? We’re good citizens and if they’ve got an issue with it, fine with us, we’ll stop distributing the flags,” [CBC spokesperson Jeff Keay] said.

via VANOC halts CBC flag giveaway.

1. VANOC felt it was easier to make CBC stop handing out the flags rather than be the “no soup for you” party-poopers they are by accosting everyone entering an Olympic venue and telling them that they can’t bring in an item with a CBC logo on it. Bad PR. They’d end up with garbage cans full of Canadian flags, which I suppose is what happened until they realized they should just make CBC stop handing them out.

2. I don’t know if #1 is true because VANOC, in good soft fascist tradition, refuses journalistic transparency. They didn’t respond to Jane Armstrong’s request for an interview.

3. To be a good citizen, you need to fear VANOC.

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The rally was upbeat and inspiring, following days of the successful tent village.

Also, the enormous Canadian flag draping over the Hotel Georgia was the scene of some creative blowback: “FU2010″.

Some cutting in the top right corner

A closer look of FU2010

The tone of the day was concerned, passionate, upbeat and truly visionary as speakers and the crowd came together to explore a momentous step just days away when parliament re-opens to embark on a new era of social justice in Canada.

John Richardson, Executive Director of Pivot Legal Society spoke of overcoming fear and responsibly planning for the future:

MP Libby Davies spoke about housing being a human right, despite what I consider to be the gross excesses of the Olympics:

She also spoke about Harper’s lack of understanding of poverty and tendency to embrace budget crises as an excuse for inaction:

And she also spoke about what we need to do with her bill when parliament reopens next week:

In the end, when the 1,000 condos in the Olympic Village that cost $1 billion to build [or $1,000,000/unit on average] come on the market over the next few months, Metro Vancouver will experience a housing adjustment. Such a glut on the market will likely depress prices across the region. This can be good for people looking for affordable housing and for renters, despite the fact that few will be able to afford those 1,000 units. The ripple effect will be useful.

But there may be panic, dread, capital flight, or nothing but a different housing climate. In times of flux, there is great opportunity for change. It is within this context that Bill C-304 can make significant strides in addressing the crises of homelessness and affordable housing.

So pay attention to RedTents.org to see what you need to do to make our federal, provincial and municipal politicians do more than toss lip-service to housing issues.

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But then Saturday turned violent. But it is really not that simple.

Friday was the Olympics 2010 Welcoming Committee. Saturday was the 2010 Heart Attack, designed to stab the core of global corporate capitalism. While both events are related and orbited the protest convergence happening in Vancouver this week, their goals were quite different.

The Heart Attack was intended to invoke a seizure in the corporate masters who run the world through their well-subsidized politicians, funky psychologically-gripping marketing wing, and places like the World Economic Forum.

So it is not surprising that the Black Bloc anarchists from all over converged on Vancouver to take advantage of a chance to smash windows of Olympic sponsor corporations.

But before everyone gets too comfortable and over-simplifies Saturday’s violence, let’s explore a few things.

1. The open source software movement and virtually all instances of non-profit altruism on the internet are a form of anarchy; one does not have to smash a window to be an anarchist. While anarchy can mean confusion, disorder and chaos, it also means “a theory that regards the absence of all direct or coercive government as a political ideal and that proposes the cooperative and voluntary association of individuals and groups as the principal mode of organized society.” You may be surprised that you too agree with at least elements of this form of anarchy. Global corporations and their comprador politicians may repulse you in the same way they repulse the activists and anarchists on the streets on Saturday.
2. Global corporations use the Olympics and their nasty lawyers to secure unprecedented marketing space for their largely crappy products. Have a Coke and a Big Mac, why don’t ya! The Olympics are helping destroy the social fabric of BC through a massive funding shift; the corporations that force the athletes to pimp themselves in order to compete on the world stage are reprehensible. If you have read or seen The Corporation, you understand the psychotic nature of corporations. Do you condone their behaviour here, or here, or here?
3. Various people have been dissecting the meaning of violence after Saturday’s activities. They rightly distinguish between property damage and violence against humans. Corporations are not humans. Their shareholders are, but I would argue that most shareholders have no or virtually no awareness of the social ill their corporation visits upon the world. So we at least need to understand why some argue that there are different kinds of violence. Is it the same kind of violence to throw a newspaper box through the window of The Bay as it is for Coke’s involvement in the murder, kidnapping and torture of union activists in Columbia?
4. If you think the Olympics are for regular people and not the corporate elite, did you see any corporate media reporting on the fence that keeps people away from the Olympic flame? How’s that for disenfranchisement that symbolizes how there are first class citizens with access to the grand Olympic party while the millions of British Columbians who will pay for their party can’t even get close to the torch, which is supposed to symbolize…I don’t know anymore…something idealist?
5. For more disenfranchisement, did you know that leading up to the next municipal election, our anti-social, neoLiberal premier has floated the idea of letting business owners vote in municipal elections? In the premier’s words: “There’s an opportunity to adopt principles of the provincial Election Act including: disclosure, spending limits and other changes that will improve fairness, accountability, transparency and public participation. Perhaps it’s time to restore the voting rights for industrial and business property owners in our communities.” In the same breath that he mentions enhancing accountability and public participation, he wants to let corporations vote along with human beings. What is to stop me from forming an, I don’t know, internet consulting business, paying for a business license in every municipality in and around Vancouver, then voting in future municipal elections all over the lower mainland? If you think democracy should be reserved for real human beings, you may want to actively oppose this drift towards corporations getting even MORE human rights. Can you get a sense of the depth of a threat corporations are to human being culture, society, economics and politics?
6. The Bay has hundreds of years of history oppressing and violating people, complicit and instrumental in European colonization of North America. They happen to be an Olympic sponsor. They also happen to now be owned by NRDC Equity Partners, an American holding company, the great neo-colonial power of Canada [tar sands, anyone?]. You don’t need to wonder why they’re a target of anarchists along with RBC, the main financier of the tar sands devastation.
7. BC Solicitor General Kash Heed waxes ironically on the rule of law: “One of the hallmarks of any civil society is respect for the law. The very laws that protect our right to free speech and the right for peaceful demonstration are at risk when a small group in society think they are above the law.” One way to understand the Heart Attack and the severe opposition to the global corporate elites is to explore the hypocrisy in this statement, from a government known for undermining the rule of law. VANOC is above the law. Its accounting is secret. They are not subject to freedom of information requests. VANOC instructed the provincial government to legislate the striking ambulance paramedics back to work last fall. The IOC is an international organization that is above the laws of all nations. It pays tax to no one, obeys no democratic political constitution or charter. It rejected women’s ski jumping from the Olympics by criteria it derived itself; in doing so, it violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The BC courts ruled that this gender-based discrimination is illegal, but that it has no scope of authority over the IOC. The global corporations that fund and steer the IOC on its rampage around the world profit from these violations of the rule of law. How can they be punished or sanctioned? Do we really have the guts to use existing or enhanced legislation to revoke their corporate charters? Here is a longer list of corporate activities that are opposed to the social good. If you oppose the violent methods protesters used on Saturday, how would you prefer to reign in unacceptable corporate behaviour?
8. Kash Heed continued: “The [police] will continue to ensure that athletes and the public are safe from unlawful activity and able to enjoy the Games without concern.” In reviewing the difference between kinds of violence, is it reasonable to equate property crime with threatening athletes? Is that what was actually happening on Saturday?
9. VANOC and corporate greenwashing: consider the realities of climate change staring us in the face, requiring us to act in the next few years to avoid irreparable harm and violence to the livelihood of billions of the people. Examine the real record of environmentalism in the Vancouver Olympics. Put up a few green-only Olympic rings, spew some chatter about carbon offsets, then helicopter snow from Manning Park to Cypress Bowl and conveniently don’t count a variety of dirty energy sources and you’re ok. Since the Olympics has become a monstrous PR campaign anyway, truth takes a backseat to optics and marketing. Where is there corporate accountability?

So regardless of who was doing what on Saturday, criminal behaviour definitely took place. Smashing windows is a crime, but did it serve a larger political purpose? Was that purpose valid or not? Was it civil disobedience for a greater moral good? Are corporations committing crimes against humanity to a degree that we choose not to punish? And if you find the objects being protested on Saturday to be guilty of anything, what steps are you willing to take to reign in their aberrant behaviour if smashing RBC/Bay/McDonald’s windows is not acceptable to you?

And in the end, has the window smashing helped you move to a more informed place about the nature of unacceptable corporate behariour in the world? If so, there has been some social good that has come from the violent behaviour, whether anyone condones it or not.

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Whither/Wither Schools, Hospitals, Arts

I’ve spent the weekend reflecting on the success of various confrontations to the Olympic brand and the emerging global corporate feudalism.

I’ll start off with a recognition that I’m sitting here in my “I am a free speech zone” t-shirt, having celebrated Valentine’s Day and Chinese New Year and observed Vancouver’s Missing Women Memorial March, which saw eagles circling above.

Let them eat cake.

Friday’s Olympics opening day march was a significant success. Elders led the procession. Dancing was prevalent. Agents provocateurs were noted, whispered about, marginalized and videotaped. And our messaging was clear:

1. “No Olympics on stolen native land”: the vast majority of British Columbia, unlike the rest of Canada, is on unceded native land and BC has been a part of Canada for almost 140 years now.
2. “2010 homes, not 2010 games”: the policy choice to host the Olympics has directly impoverished hundreds of thousands of British Columbians.
3. “This is what democracy looks like”: marching through the streets is the active expression of democracy; it is neither illegal nor anti-social.

What is lost in all this is the subtext of class war.

First, watch this clip from Monty Python and the Holy Grail:

Funny, eh, but let’s not think we’re past this. We have purged the nobility from our social system, even though the queen is plastered all over our money. Nobility by birth, except in monarchist mags, has been supplanted by corporate and celebrity nobility.

Poverty Isn't a Game

We still have a class system. It’s not upper, middle and lower class anymore; that’s all too impolite. But if we examine income groups in Canada, we have a increasingly wealthy hyper-rich, a rather rich group that is doing quite well, a struggling middle class that is being milked by user fees and needs two incomes to have the same purchasing power as one income did in the 1970s, a growing working poor or subsistence lower-middle class who are a few paycheques away from homelessness, and a growing homeless yet working and pure poverty class. Too many of these lower strata are using food banks.

Through this, our culture endures rampant empathy-free zones.

Gordon Campbell and all the Olympics boosters have chosen to host a global party. The price they have charged society has been in closed schools, reduced mental health services, declining hospital services and cuts to all levels of healthcare, an affordable housing crisis that enriches those who already happen own expensive property in the sexy parts of BC, and an uncounted death toll of people whose lives have been truncated by the service cuts that were the “tough choices” to ensure the tax base of BC funds a global party for the hyper rich: corporations, their serfs, their customers, and those who could afford to bid on Olympics tickets or pay scalpers.

Oh, and we have had the lowest minimum wage in the country and the highest rate of child poverty for more than half the decade.

"Olympics: It's Not a Party for the Poor"

Let them eat fucking cake, hey?

Let’s go back to Friday night’s protest. The few thousand of us who rallied, danced and marched. We did not disrupt the Olympics or the culturally-impaired opening ceremonies. We posited a variety of statements and had good media pickup. We exercised our personal free speech zones and the legal observers were happily mostly bored.

The bottom line was that there is a price paid by hosting the Olympics. The corporate media and other global corporations who only symbolically underwrite the party while the taxpayers of Vancouver, Whistler, BC and Canada actually pay for it, all go on thinking it’s a great time, despite the 12 degree temperatures and shipping snow from Manning Park to Cypress Bowl. So much for green games.

There are those who continue to wear their blood red Olympics mittens and cram themselves onto our transit to get to their events, some of whom vehemently resenting having to take transit at all, and still have no idea the kind of suffering the vulnerable of BC have endured and will continue to endure for decades while we pay off this corporate debauchery.

I don’t know what to say to them. I want to take their pictures, as they are maybe the deluded masses who don’t get the simple connection that voting for Gordon Campbell in 2001 because he said he would cut their taxes meant he’d cut services for the vulnerable and increase user fees for the rest of us. They are also the people who think a party that costs $6b plus the Canada Line and the Sea-to-Sky Highway will not have a collections agent waiting at our house on Sunday morning while we clean up the half empty wine glasses and stale cheese plates. The empty beer bottles won’t pay the debt. My grandchildren will finally burn the mortgage on the excesses we’ll enjoy over the next 14 days.

Olympics as Parasite: "The IOC is a Global Parasite"

And the BC government opened the legislature last week with a warning to fear the March 2 budget. For once the government is telling the truth. We are going to be further debauched in that budget because while VANOC is above the law and keeps its books secret, the government knows how much was spent and they’ll use it as an excuse to cut more, privatize more and gouge any other public, communal asset left in BC.

And if you think I’m crazy, wait 16 more days. I dare you.

Roque Quatchi asks "What Happens Once the Party's Over?"

The best we can hope for is for the Olympics to not bankrupt BC financially because our leaders have already sold our soul and bankrupted our morality, and we’re all going to feel the lashes for decades to come.

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VANOC is like the host of a party that you never meet. You have no say in how they plan the party. They answer to no one. They spend all your money, but they won’t tell you how much you have to pay to get out of the party at the end. And once you’re in the party, you have to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to get into the rooms where “things” take place. Oh, and the party host drives an SUV: the jokes are going viral about how the Anti-Idling-By-Law-Ignoring VANOC SUVs are causing the elevated temperatures in Vancouver [sorry El Nino] that have melted all the snow on Cypress Mountain.

Why does any of this sound appetizing?

VANOC’s sense of what it takes to build a celebratory community culture is simply deranged. And we have only to follow the Olympic spliff torch as the Governator carries it on Friday.

Over a few hours last night I read of yet another American indie media member harassed at the border trying to get into Canada, the second instance in 4 days and only weeks after Amy Goodman was delayed on her way into Canada. Last night I also read and watched how VANOC security personnel tried to convince a reporter that taking pictures outside a nebulous security perimeter is not allowed.

I know I am a free speech zone, but what about the vague area outside venues? And who’s right? Me and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or VANOC, the IOC, an eager VANOC volunteer and a sanctioned or rogue member of VANOC’s 15,000 member security force?

In contrast to the soft fascism of global corporate Olympic “celebrations” for the rich and famous, we have the Decentralized Dance Party. These community enriching, mobile, public dances reflect what a healthy, vibrant social fabric looks like. You can watch some very well edited compilations of their parties here. I particularly enjoyed the Metrotown mall security having a hard time comprehending the dancers who co-opted the private “common” mall space for a public event, before the party drifted onto the Skytrain and Seabus. Information on their next dance this weekend is here.

There will also be a not-so-spontaneous “Dancing in the Streets” flash mob on Saturday to welcome the world. Despite it taking place in the context of the Olympics, it has the potential to actually be merely social and fully apolitical. I wish them well.

A party should not bankrupt, maim, impoverish or denigrate people or values–whether or not they can attend the party functions. Parties that do that are not for the good of society.

When we endure the Olympics and watch the corporate media and political boosterism of the whole show, we must use this core criteria to determine value: do these activities build community or destroy it?

I have my bias, but I’ll be looking for glimpses of anything positive. I can’t say I’m optimistic, though.

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I have only slightly more ability to tolerate the CBC over corporate media when it comes to promoting the Afghan occupation and how amazingly, incredibly awesome the Olympics are.

But yesterday, they ran this story: Protesters target Olympic torch run. It included this weak bit of journalism:

The protesters said Monday their group had been infiltrated by undercover police and said the infiltrators might try to cause trouble so that uniformed police could crack down.

VANOC admitted they had infiltrated a protest group a few months ago. There was no ruse “tried” at Montebello; there was no “alleged” in the agents provocateurs, especially those carrying rocks. Video footage at Montebello captured the “protestors” being confronted by real, peaceful protesters and then “arrested” by the police. After the video went viral on YouTube, the police admitted to planting agents in the crowd.

I hope CBC Olympic boosterism did not directly lead to this story’s watered down facts.

Connected to an easy ride on scandalous police tactics, the CBC missed some flagrant hypocrisy from the IOC.

When the IOC rejected women’s ski jumping from the Olympics, they violated our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. BC courts, however, rightly recognized they have no jurisdiction over the IOC, which is a wholly unaccountable international organization which answers to no government and will gleefully violate women’s rights in Canada because of whatever policy they hold on which events to include in their games.

Yesterday’s CBC piece, however, neglected to mention that evidence of the IOC’s flagrant disregard for the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Instead, they merely wrote this:

“We have to accept protests and there will be some and fine, let’s leave it. We are used to that,” said Gerhard Heiberg, a member of the IOC’s executive board, at a Vancouver news conference Monday.

“For us, it’s not an issue. We accept protest, we accept people protesting,” said IOC president Jacques Rogge.

“This is free, democratic freedom of expression,” Rogge said.

“What we want is no violence and we want the people to respect the laws of the country and then there is no problem.”

It takes a special kind of gold-medal gall for the IOC president to expect protesters to adhere to the laws of the country while his organization itself trampled the very same laws with respect to the female ski jumpers.

I am not surprised by this kind of nonsense from the IOC president, but I have a higher standard for the CBC. We simply cannot let this kind of IOC hypocrisy go unchallenged and we cannot let the CBC play down police use of agents provocateurs.

Our society cannot handle these kind of compromises. The Olympics is bad enough, but we need civil vigilance if we expect to retain the kind of democratic values Jacques Rogge so disingenuously speaks of.

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Samsung Olympic ad on TD building

There are many levels of debate about the value of Olympics: social, economic, cultural, political, etc. But one level seems to undergird them all: moral legitimacy, in which the Olympics is bankrupt.

For me it began crystallizing in late September, 1988. Ben Johnson won Olympic gold in the 100m, then lost it just days later because of the drug thing. After years of national angst over the cost overruns of the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, and enduring boycotts in 1980 and 1984, it seemed impossible to have pure sport.

Fast forward to this young year when Mark McGwire quite easily announced he was lying when he said he was drug-free when chasing the home run record years ago. Whatever. Cynicism seems too natural.

While I value competition and, more so, seeking personal bests, I honour athletes who compete. Sadly the context of the Olympics and its corporate and political masters have spoiled the entire concept. Similarly, I have great respect for Canadian troops wherever they are in the world, but supporting the troops does not mean I have to support the politics behind any given mission they are sent on.

What has happened to erode the legitimacy of the Olympics? Simply, neoliberal commodification.

• corporate endorsements for players to fund their training as government reduce funding
• the participation of professional athletes to enrich marketing potential
• exclusive corporate sponsors who have quite effectively lobbied the welcoming IOC for extensive protections
• exclusive media sponsors impeding information flows outside of their media
• the IOC as an untouchable international organization that can suborn nations to abandon elements of their constitution as we can’t/won’t stop the IOC from discriminating against female ski jumpers
• litigious domestic Olympic committees protecting brands of what are already some of the most powerful corporations in the world
• The Canada Line transit route promoted to encourage an Olympic bid at the expense of the Evergreen line for the northeast suburbs already in the queue, with significant climate implications
• Lies: the marketing of a tunnel under Cambie Street for the Canada Line that turned into the cheaper cut-and-cover; only $176m pitched for security when previous Olympics security budgets were over $1b

The games are now about corporate marketing.

A core goal of VANOC was to literally monopolize all outdoor advertising during the games to resell to exclusive corporate sponsors. The global recession softened sales. Now the BC government is spending more of our tax dollars to buy up leftover ad space to advertise that BC is a great place. No longer “The Best Place in the World”[tm], mind you.

Here are some other examples of decayed moral legitimacy.

During the last Olympic games, RBC ran ads bragging about how awesome they were in 1948 as they paid for the Canadian men’s hockey team to attend and win Olympic gold. How long before corporations start fielding their own teams instead of nations? A corporation is running for Congress in the USA and in BC, the premier announced last fall that the government is studying allowing non-human corporations to vote in municipal elections.

Last week, after criticism VANOC took down one of its website videos celebrating the torch run across the country. They chose to use Nazi footage from the 1936 games. They felt it might be controversial, so they blurred out the straight arm Nazi salute that is so visually repulsive. Both were horrible decisions. Both reflect a mindset that is so out of touch with standards of moral legitimacy. But I can’t be surprised by all this considering the overall mindset of the Olympics.

The Bay department store ripped off the Cowichan sweater design from the First Nations who “own” it, so it could contract out sweater production.

In Vancouver this week, venues and key sites are under military lock down with layers of concrete barricades and fencing. Military helicopters and jets buzz the skies. Military and private security forces live on cruise ships in East Vancouver. VANOC cars cruise the city, flagrantly violating civic anti-idling by-laws. And in a ecologically symbiotic nod to this illegitimate event, El Nino has produced spring-like temperatures making the Olympic mittens gimmick useless.

Polls in the last few months show around only 9% of Canadians are very excited about the games and recently only half of British Columbians think the Olympics will be good for BC, despite the common sense view that as we get closer people will be more excited.

Another common sense goes like this, the Olympics is a fish bowl of groupthink. Nazi footage in a promotional film? Stealing First Nations craft designs? Erecting ugly prison security around venues? A $10m Canada pavilion that looks like a strong wind could blow it over, when the log structure in Turin in 2006 cost only $6m [and has since become an albatross, itself a telling irony].

Then there is a story in the Globe and Mail the other day about how VANOC has banned athletes from being in advertisements during the games because it compromises the purity of competition. Oh, unless the ads are for the sanctioned corporate sponsors. Or, if in VANOC’s subjective judgement the ad campaign has been around long enough. Tim Horton’s has recently run some ads with Sidney Crosby, but in the article we read they are voluntarily pulling the ads during the Olympics in case VANOC decides to come after them. The chill factor extends to even Tim Hortons!

The best irony of that article, however, exemplifies this whole debacle. The writer characterizes Tim Hortons’ Sidney Crosby campaign as one about patriotism. Tim Hortons is now owned by an American company. Marketing is global now.

Later this morning we will see the beginning of actions leading to a massive convergence of dissent later this week to coincide with the opening of the games. This culture of critique is pervasive.

When the Canucks are in the playoffs, there is a palpable sense of energy around Vancouver. People buy flags to attach to their car windows. There is honking in the streets when Canucks score goals. Even people not too bothered with hockey get excited. This vibe is absent right now.

In the surreal world of neoliberalism, unaccountable international organizations like the IOC, corporate welfare programs and rational and moral contradictions, there is no irony left.

Oh, and a Chicago company got the contract to build the Canada pavilion in Vancouver.

So when we see the pablum, sanitized feel-good corporate media fluff pieces on Vancouver, think about how much packaging has already gone into the big show and how motivated the corporate media sponsors will be to paint this a smiles-only event.

Then we need to think about the athletes afraid to use Twitter, what lack of snow will do to some of them, and let’s think about the social costs of cleaning up the mess of this party.

As it is, no one has done the body count yet. As billions of dollars have been diverted from social programs, health, education, etc., how many people have suffered or died early because money that could have gone into hip replacement surgery or mental health treatment was diverted to a luge track. It’s a ghoulish research project, so it’s one that no one wants to talk about.

All I know is that the police state that is emerging this week will change Vancouver and Whistler and BC and Canada forever. The hands are pretty much dealt now. All that is left is in the playing.

And in a few weeks, we’ll know what kind of symbol the Olympic torch really is.

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But if the sociologists want to examine the mathematics of Olympic distress, here’s my equation from last year. In the spirit of Create Commons, feel free to suggest improvements!

((The Olympics corporate welfare program) + (obscene reductions in government spending for human beings) + (radical and radicalized groups who object to the billions wasted on this spectacle, and what in our culture it has steamrollered) + (sponsors and government groups that flaunt their glee in the faces of those suffering) + (an opportunity to capture attention on a global scale)) x (an unpredictable economic depression [ooops, Great Recession]) = a perfect storm of wariness.

Or if you’d like it less cluttered:

(a + b + c + d + e) * f = g

where,

a = the Olympics corporate welfare program

b = obscene reductions in government spending for human beings

c = radical and radicalized groups who object to the billions wasted on this spectacle, and what in our culture it has steamrollered

d = sponsors and government groups that flaunt their glee in the faces of those suffering

e = an opportunity to capture attention on a global scale

f = an unpredictable economic depression [ooops, Great Recession]

and g = a perfect storm of wariness.

Now, you do the math.

PS…I spent an hour in Grandview Park today. It now seems the black helicopters just live over that park now. But as one friend mentioned, there are enough helicopters that various of them could be living over other spots as well.

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Health Minister Kevin Falcon: “when we are making changes in health care delivery, it doesn’t mean it’s just a cut.” The provincial government decided to “change” the funding to the 6 health authorities in BC by negative $360 million. It’s certainly a change. To stress that it isn’t a cut means Falcon thinks the air coming out of his lungs is worth forming into these words because there is some value to it all, that enough people will believe he has achieved plausible deniability of cuts occurring.

Vision Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson: “The core traditions of the Olympics are very powerful, and we lose sight of that with all the corporate sponsorship, Olympic bylaws and the gigantic scale of the event.” What a nuisance, hey, so let’s get over our criticism of the following and just get that lovin’ feeling!

1. VANOC has bought ALL the outdoor advertising for Olympic corporate sponsors.
2. Corporations are going to wrap ads as mammoth building condoms around the tall buildings all over the place, with video ads broadcast on buildings–think Blade Runner.
3. BC neoLiberal MLAs and cabinet ministers get to use swanky private boxes in stadiums to watch events…paid for with our tax dollars.
4. VANOC has set aside $30 million for bonuses to ostensibly keep their employees WHO ARE ACTUALLY PLANNING THE OLYMPICS from quitting before the big show–hard to imagine; $30 million works out to around $23,000 for each of the 1,300 employees, though I doubt it will all be distributed equally.
5. The IOC business model requires communities to sanitize society of the ugly: homelessness, poverty, dissent; so, we have broad, sweeping legislation that threatens our civil libertiies.
6. The IOC will not allow women’s ski jumping regardless of domestic courts ruling the action unconstitutional.
7. Provincial legislation will allow law enforcement to come into my home to seize anti-Olympics signs, under penalty of up to 6 months in jail and $10,000/day fines, while neoLiberal cabinet minister Bill Bennett says that’s a reasonable thing to do when the Olympics are in town.
8. Officials can now round up the homeless and forcibly house/confine them during the games; this, in the context of massively neglecting effective social housing for the whole decade.
9. $1 billion to be spent on security with 5,000 imported rent-a-cops and military, not to mention the black helicopters that were buzzing the downtown east side this morning, with much more of that to come.

So what core traditions is Gregor Robertson waxing on about as he gets on a plane to go to Greece for the flame lighting? Nobility, competition, purity of athletic competition? Is that what the Olympics mean now? Or is it special rights for global corporations using the Olympics for a marketing bonanza at the expense of democracy, domestic constitutions and court rulings, and civil liberties?

People are coming around to the reality that the Olympics stink, that they aren’t worth the social, political and economic costs and that with the overwhelming majority of Canadians unable to acquire or afford tickets to the actual events…people are starting to feel duped. A recent survey shows only 9% are very excited about the show, while 71% or not very excited or not excited at all.

This is showing up in not enough people volunteering, signing up to rent out extra bedrooms to rich Olympic tourists, or applying for the scut jobs needed to make the whole thing function.

Well. I told you so.

As did the entire No Olympics campaign years ago. And now we all get to eat it…with the black helicopters flying overhead as I test out my remaining civil liberties as I wear my “I am a free speech zone” t-shirt wherever I can. I also have a “Democracy is Nice” sign I carry on the end of my hockey stick. I wonder which of those will be a security threat.

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But when it comes to my Charter rights, I don’t believe I need to be a lawyer to understand that former Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell doesn’t have the right to suspend my Charter rights, even if I gave him permission, which I would never do.

While the Charter includes right at the top a limiting statement making my rights “subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society,” I don’t believe the intellectual and political sanitation of communication to appease the International Olympic Committee is a reasonable limit or a part of a free and democratic society.

So as I’m following the dance of lawyers and cops around what kind of free speech zones I’ll be able to express myself in, I found David Eby’s piece today interesting, particularly in that it informed me of the [sadly not isolated] grand act of hubris of Larry Campbell in pledging to the IOC that I don’t need all my Charter rights at all times in all places during the Olympics:

the 2003 contract signed by Larry Campbell waiving Charter rights in Vancouver for the Games, and the bylaws passed recently by Vancouver city council giving that contract effect.

via A tale of two papers: Olympic bylaw coverage | David Eby.

Check out Section 47 at the bottom of page 23 of the Vancouver-IOC Host City Agreement to review such limitations. And read Eby’s piece on Section 47 here.

I simply don’t accept this.

Free speech violations as part of a sanitization campaign for global PR is not an acceptable limitation of my Charter rights.

This is why I am asserting that I am a free speech zone. And I’m proud that as I read David Eby’s piece today, I also received today my order form for the “I am a Free Speech Zone” t-shirt and underwear from COPE.

So it’s time now to order your shirt and undergear to remind yourself and others that you won’t tolerate the Olympics Sanitation Machine to come to my country and tell me I can’t express myself when the world is watching.

And our test over the next 6 months is to wear these t-shirts to events where the thought police would have some interest in controlling expression: places where the premier or prime minister may skulk around, Olympic venue opening parties, you get the picture. It’s time to see if our Charter still means anything now that the IOC ghoul is haunting our communities.

So buy your t-shirts and underwear. And wear them proudly because the phrase is part of the creative commons, something the IOC would never understand.

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