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Whistler will be the centre of activity, but some of the venues will be in Vancouver, Richmond and the cities are cleaning up and getting ready for the 2010 Olympics. This is part of the business district, close to Canada Place; General Motors Place, where a lot of the ice hockey will take place is just east of here and U.B.C., to the west. Towers seem to be going up everywhere in the city and the province seems to be thriving with the prospect of the Olympics coming to the area. The two pro teams, the B.C. Lions ; Vancouver Canucks play at centres nearby. Various forms of transport, including skytrain and the seabus are close. Yaletown, Chinatown and Gastown are within walking distance, as is Stanley Park. Whistler is about 70 K from here.

From http://flickr.com/photos/59492428@N00/326925841/

Life during the 2010 Games won’t quite be business as usual for local residents of host cities, say Vancouver’s Olympic organizers.

From road closures to parking restrictions to security cordons, people living around venues will have to modify their daily lives, but organizers promise they’ll at least still be able to go out and buy a carton of milk.

How they’ll get there, how late the store will be open and whether they’ll have to walk around a security cordon, is anybody’s guess for now.

Residents around Olympic venue sites are learning for the first time a little bit more about what impact the 2010 Games will have on their day-to-day lives.

A series of information sessions being held by Olympic organizers began Tuesday night in Whistler, B.C., and are expected to continue Wednesday with an event near the speed skating oval in Richmond, B.C.

More than 200 people packed the Whistler session to learn more about how the Games will affect the community.

The mountain resort will be home to all the Nordic events for the 2010 Winter Games.

There will be no public parking in Whistler Village during the Games and access to venue sites will be restricted to people with tickets or accreditation from Olympic officials.

People with tickets to events will be also given access to public transit, but details around that program have not been revealed.

BC Transit recently issued a call for proposals from transit management companies to oversee transportation requirements during the Games in the Sea-to-Sky corridor of B.C., which encompasses Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton.

According to the request for proposals, a special transit plan will be in place for the Games, which will involve up to 75 buses plus six mini-buses.

That’s in addition to extra buses being added to the existing fleets that serve Whistler and the other cities.

Getting around will also be made more difficult by the security requirements of the Games, being co-ordinated by the RCMP along with local police forces and the military.

Though barricades will not be placed around public areas, further details on how security will affect road closures or the areas around venues won’t be finalized for some time.

But Cpl. Manon Chouinard of the Integrated Security Unit told the session that as soon as there was information available that would affect the daily lives of residents, they’ll know.

“(Planners) are not leaving one stone unturned in order to be familiar and know what is around those venues and how we can minimize the impact,” she said.

“That is one of the No.1 priorities.”

When it comes to policing, response times will be about the same, Chouinard said, but extra officers will be added to areas like traffic security to help keep the roads moving in case of an accident.

Police officers throughout B.C. will also be pulled from non-security related obligations where possible, like testifying at trials.

The session was the first of 10 organizers are holding over the summer to give people living near venues a snapshot of how their daily lives will look during the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Tuesday night’s presentation was good on concept but short on details that many Whistler residents crave, said local businessman John Morrow.

Morrow said he’s attended a number of sessions now with both Olympic organizers and local business groups and is still confused on how exactly the daily grind of the city will be affected.

Business owners, especially those not working in services directly connected to the Games, need more details now, Morrow said.

“They are talking about delivering but they haven’t delivered yet,” he said.

“Until someone can actually say ‘this is what you are going to be given to work with,’ we can’t actually formulate our own business plan.”

From http://canadianpress.google.com

from http://flickr.com/photos/blackbird_hollow/2514647584/

Pivot Legal Society demands action on shelter stats

Vancouver - Pivot Legal Society is demanding that the City of Vancouver place a moratorium on tickets given to people sleeping outside in light of newly released shelter statistics that say homeless individuals, on over 40,000 separate occasions, were refused access to shelters in Metro Vancouver over a nine month period. Over 17,000 of these turn away incidents involved women and families.

“These turnaway statistics are alarming,” said lawyer David Eby of the Pivot Legal Society. “We have bylaw officers, police officers and security guards cracking down on people who sleep outside, but these statistics make it clear that there is nowhere else to sleep.”

The statistics cannot be extrapolated into numbers of homeless individuals, because neither the participating shelters nor B.C. Housing can say whether the same individuals are being turned away from multiple shelters on any given night or whether individuals give up after visiting just one shelter. The statistics on families and women may count families as one person, or may count children as well as parents, making those numbers less certain as well.

“We need a provincial investigation of the real number of people who can’t find shelter,” said Eby. “We’re calling for a moratorium on police and bylaw officers ticketing people who sleep outside until we figure out whether our shelter system has been overwhelmed by demand.”

There are currently 1,028 known shelter beds in Metro Vancouver, according to the document. The GVRD Homelessness Count indicated that there were 2,592 homeless people counted during its biennial 24 hour count in March of 2008.

Pivot Legal Society released two open letters, one to Sam Sullivan - Mayor of the City of Vancouver and Chair of the Police Board - calling for a moratorium on bylaw and Trespass Act tickets given to the homeless, and one to Rich Coleman - B.C.’s Minister responsible for housing - calling for a formal investigation into the capacity of Metro Vancouver’s emergency shelter system.

Source: David Eby’s Official Vancouver 2010 Olympics Newswire

Vancouver residents are getting their first peek at what life in the city will look like during the 2010 Winter Games, but the quick glimpse might not answer many major concerns.

Organizers have announced they’ll hold a series of 10 meetings beginning next week and over the summer in communities around Olympic venues.

“It’s the first step in sharing with the residents who live in communities where there is a Games venue what that experience will be like in terms of their work, their play, their day-to-day life and also give them a sense of what’s going to happen when,” said Renee Smith-Valade, vice-president of the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee, known as VANOC.

The sessions, which follow private conversations organizers have had with city officials and community boards, will address such topics as what time venues will open and close, what sorts of infrastructure will be built around them to support Games activities and what events will be taking place inside.

Vancouver organizers will return twice more to the 10 affected communities, once next spring and again next fall.

With the meetings beginning next week, VANOC will run ads and keep the information on their website current so people can plan to attend, Smith-Valade said.

Keith Jacobson, president of the Killarney Community Centre Society, said this month’s meeting is the first time his community-at-large has heard from VANOC and he was unaware until Tuesday afternoon that the meeting had been set for next month.

The east-end neighbourhood is home to a training venue for short-track speed skating, and the rink abuts a community centre that’s home to dozens of programs from day care to fitness classes.

What concerns him most, Jacobson said, is how security measures for the Games are going to restrict community activities.

“It’s a community centre and the Olympics are supposed to be a community event and if you close down the swimming pool, what’s the community going to think?” he said, adding that for services like day care, provision is needed year-round.

“You have to be respectful of the community during the Olympics. I understand security, I understand the threat of terrorism but you also have to keep in mind the community.”

Smith-Valade said specific information on security is still some months away.

“We’re not ready at a detailed level yet,” she said.

“Our goal is by fall of 2009, they will have a very clear sense of all of the information they will need to plan their daily lives during the Games but the information will come out in degrees and in stages.”

Clay Yandle, who lives near the curling venue in Vancouver, said he’s opposed to the Games but it’s the right thing for organizers to be reaching out to the community.

He said given that there’s still over a year left to go until the Olympics, he understands why organizers are only coming to his backyard now, but he feels the lines of communication should have been opened sooner.

He said the full implication of having the Games in people’s own backyard extends beyond the days of athletic competition.

“It’s going to be almost two months when it is said and done because there has to be some sort of giant security sweep that’s done well in advance of opening day and all that,” said Yandle, who also sits on the board of the Riley Park Community Centre.

“That’s something that I don’t think people realize.”

During the Games itself, he said, he and many of his neighbours plan to leave town.

Yandle said residents of Riley Park are more excited about the fact that after the Games, the curling venue will be turned into a community centre, though funding for that hasn’t yet been approved.

Tammie Tupechka heads a community group fighting against the Olympics’ use of an east-end ice rink called Britannia as another training venue, in part because of security concerns and because of the potential for service disruptions.

She said community consultation should move beyond the venue communities and into the community at large.

She pointed out that over this past winter, both Riley Park and Killarney rinks were closed for pre-Olympic touch-ups, leaving Britannia the only rink serving a wide population.

If it becomes a Games venue too, she said, where are communities supposed to work and play together during the Games?

Tupechka said Vancouver organizers have continually made promises that the community will be involved in the execution of the Games.

“VANOC wants to get whatever it needs done and I don’t think it really cares,” she said.

“They want to put the Olympics on, they want it to be a certain way and that’s the way it is. There is no connection with the community, with any community.”

From http://victoriastar.canadaeast.com/article/322047

Outside the Downtown Eastside Residents Association office on Hastings Street East in Vancouver, Canada.

Come to Grandview Park on Commercial Drive on Saturday, May 24th from Noon to 1pm to support a social legacy for the 2010 Olympics:

1) Support the development of 3,200 social housing units rather than a new roof for BC Place
2) Support legislative changes that would protect renters
3) Support the UN Human Rights Complaints Against Canada related to SRO Housing Conversions www.noplacelikehomevancouver.org
4) Support a $1 Homelessness Levy on Olympic Tickets and Merchandising to be matched by the Provincial and Federal Governments.

From http://flickr.com/photos/blackbird_hollow/2503580669/

Games enlists shoppers to help trace fake 2010 Olympic tickets. Secret shoppers on the prowl for illicit tickets will be part of a consumer protection campaign being launched next week by Vancouver Olympic organizers.

The Real 2010 campaign, aimed at building consumer awareness about the importance of authentic Games merchandise and tickets, kicks off with advertisements and coincides with an anti-counterfeiting conference in Vancouver.

Trade in counterfeit merchandise is illegal and puts consumers at risk, as fakes are not made according to the same safety, quality and sustainability standards as official goods, the Vancouver Organizing Committee said yesterday. The campaign will urge consumers to check for holograms attached to official merchandise.

Backed by the International Olympic Committee, VANOC will deploy secret shoppers to purchase tickets from unauthorized dealers, trace the origin of the tickets and disable tickets from unauthorized sources.

Scalped tickets have long been an issue at Olympic Games. About 30 per cent of all available tickets are allocated to members of the so-called Olympic family, including official corporate sponsors, national Olympic committees and other sporting organizations with Olympic ties. Large numbers of those tickets tend to wind up with brokers. VANOC has vowed to crack down on the practice.

From http://www.theglobeandmail.com

You can get rich — thanks to the Olympics.

Here’s the deal, now being circulated via e-mail to folks with the right sort of address. If you live in the desirable part of Metro Vancouver (more on that later) you can rent out your place for a small fortune.

As much as $14,000 per bedroom, promises the e-mail that is being circulated by some real estate agents and homeowners. So a three-bedroom home can net as much as $42,000 for the month of February 2010. Some visitors may even rent for two months or more.

Or at least that’s what the eye-popping e-mail, delivered from an “accommodations broker” south of the border, promises. It’s hard not to get cash-in-fever with that sort of loot in the offing.

So, with my scam radar turned on high, I investigated further. I mean, why not get some Olympic gold for myself?

The deal is that an unnamed contractor is compiling a database of properties that will be available. There are no guarantees. But if you;re in a “Tier One” location –Vancouver, West Vancouver, Whistler or Richmond — you can get up to $14,000 per bedroom. The payout is a little less in so-called “Tier Two” cities –Burnaby, New Westminster and Delta. If you’re living anywhere else, what they call “Tier Three” locales, well, they’ll take your name, file away a picture of your place and get back to you. Maybe.

What this is all about, of course, is that the Olympics is the biggest tourist event ever staged on Canada’s West Coast. Just about every single hotel room in the city is already booked by the “Olympic family.” If you are one of the 200,000 to 300,000 tourists expected to come to town, this means you’re likely going to have to deal with local homeowners, or these accommodation brokers, for a place to stay.

Sounds like easy money if you own, right? Well, I found turning your humble home into an Olympic-level auberge isn’t quite as simple as you might think.

If you want to turn your money pit into a nice little personal profit centre, you’ll need to squeeze two single beds into every bedroom. Then you have to have one full bathroom for every two guests. This means if you want to rent out a three-bedroom bungalow at that heady $42,000, you must have three full bathrooms. And who has six single beds?

Then there are the other demands. You’ve got to have a maid service or be willing to clean all those bathrooms yourself, or pay your kids to pick up a sponge. And does anyone really have enough crisp, clean sheets and fluffy towels for all those demanding strangers signing the big cheques?

Don’t forget to subtract that “accommodation brokers’” fee, as well, from your profits. I couldn’t find out what it is, but count on somewhere from 15 per cent to to 25 per cent off the top. Then there’s Revenue Canada: Expect to pay taxes; it’s income.

Make sure your insurance allows you to rent out to guests. If they burn the place down or slip in the hot tub after too many shots of Jagermeister, you may be facing a big loss or lawsuit.

read more - http://www.canada.com

photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/vancouvergo/

VANCOUVER — Jody Broomfield is a First Nations artist who sees only prosperity and potential for his community coming from the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Angela Sterritt is a First Nations activist who sees only destruction and despair.

The two points of view represent the schism among Canada’s First Nations about whether Vancouver’s Olympics are a force for good or for evil in their ongoing social, political and economic struggles.

“One of the big questions for (First Nations) is: Do you co-operate or do you resist?” said Bruce Miller, a professor of anthropology at the University of British Columbia.

“Lots of money has been put in to create co-operation . . . but the other thing about it is that this is the moment when they have the chance to make their voice really heard widely.”

As thousands of aboriginal people rallied across Canada on Thursday for a national day of action, the centrepiece of their protests in Vancouver was the Olympic countdown clock.

“We look on the extravagance of what the Olympics represent to us as indigenous people and, quite frankly, we’re pissed off,” said David Dennis, vice-president of the United Native Nations.

“So today, with our unity, with our warriors, with our women, with our chiefs, with our young people, we are standing united in telling the Olympics if they want a peaceful Games they have got to come and pay attention to the poverty that is in our communities.”

But while some aboriginal leaders promised to make the day of action events the start of an ongoing campaign to draw attention to the poverty plaguing First Nations, Sterritt has already been on the campaign trail for months.

She works with the Native 2010 Resistance Campaign which has been jumping from city to city for the last year to bolster anti-Olympic sentiment.

At the crux of their opposition is the contention that the Games are taking place on stolen land because, unlike most other provinces, B.C. does not have an elaborate land treaty system in place with First Nations.

They also say that the development racing across the province to prepare for the Olympics further entrenches economic and social degradation being suffered by their communities.

Sterritt argues that the idea that the Olympics is dividing First Nations communities is another one of “colonialization’s bag of tricks.”

“In that way yes, the media has been working hard to explicate the divisions rather than explain the real issues and impacts our people are facing as a result of the 2010 Olympic Games, such as the destruction of mountain habitat and the sacred waters, the high rate of homelessness and the policing and jailing of the poor, indigenous and racialized people,” she said in an e-mail interview.

Sterritt and other activists protesting under the banner of “No Olympics on Stolen Land” have promised to ramp up actions in the lead-up to the Games, and are hoping to have people from all parts of the country and even the world join in their movement.

Their claims about land issues and environmental destruction are legitimate, argued Taiaiake Alfred, a professor of indigenous governance at the University of Victoria.

But he said making the arguments about them now is bad strategy, he said. The Olympics are coming and there’s no way to stop them.

The larger issue at play is how indigenous people choose to define themselves, Alfred said.

“Do you see yourself in traditional terms in terms of relationships you have, or do you see yourself in kind of modern contemporary terms as an aboriginal person, as a part of Canada, one of the many ethnic groups in Canada, and therefore willing to move in the direction of harmonizing your systems and your way of thinking and your identity with everyone else and making the best of it?” he said.

Making the best of it is the goal of the Four Host First Nations, an official group representing the Lil’wat, Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations upon whose traditional territories the Games will take place.

The four bands have entered into an agreement with Vancouver’s Olympic organizers to help bolster aboriginal participation while at the same time allowing their communities to reap the untold economic benefits that the Games could bring.

Where Sterritt sees the Games destroying traditional livelihoods - she calls the group “window dressing for the atrocities our indigenous people face everyday” - the four First Nations involved see a valuable opportunity to harness the Olympic dollar to create change in their communities.

Aboriginal businesses are specifically being called upon to work on Games-related projects, money is being spent on increasing sports in aboriginal communities and the host First Nations group is developing college programs to train people for skilled labour jobs that will be needed during the Games and long after.

read more - http://canadianpress.google.com

Vancouver 2010 CEO John Furlong has applauded a decision to upgrade the interior of B.C. Place prior to the the 2010 Olympics.

Pre-Games upgrades include renovations to suites, seating, washrooms and concession stands, and the enhancement of the existing roof liner.

Premier Gordon Campbell also announced a new retractable roof will be constructed after the Games in 2011.

The announcement ended months of speculation that a new roof might be put on the 60,000-seat indoor stadium — which is home to the opening and closing ceremonies, as well as nightly medal presentations — in time for the 2010 Games.

The theory was that a retractable roof — estimated to cost $200 million — would help solve the problem of how to light an impressive Olympic torch indoors.

“BC Place Stadium has always been the perfect stage for spectacular ceremonies in 2010, offering the opportunity to stage special effects and spectator comfort unique to the Winter Games. The upgrades announced today will help ensure a great spectator experience,” said Furlong,

“We support the decision to complete the new roof after the Games, and are very familiar with the savings that can be found when construction is undertaken under the right timing, he added. “Outside of the sport venues, BC Place Stadium is where many of the most spectacular and inspiring moments of the 2010 Winter Games will happen. Memories will be made there and BC Place Stadium will permanently gain a special stature as a premiere Games venue. With the global exposure afforded by the 2010 Winter Games, a new retractable roof, post-2010, and as home to the Vancouver Whitecaps and the BC Lions, BC Place Stadium will clearly attract world-class professional sport and celebration events for years to come.”

The 2010 opening ceremony will take place in BC Place Stadium on February 12, 2010 and the closing ceremony, on February 28, 2010.

During the Games, nightly “Victory Ceremonies” will also be held there. This will be the first time in Olympic Games history that the Olympic Ceremonies will be staged in an indoor venue. The Paralympic Games Opening Ceremony will be held at BC Place Stadium, on March 12, 2010.

From http://communities.canada.com

Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/roz2007/1973308837/

The 100,000th British Columbia 2010 Winter Games license plate has been sold, just over a year since the introduction and sale of the first one. The milestone plate was purchased by Kelly Milroy of Westbank.

Westbank received his plate in a special ceremony from Olympic medalist Georgina Wheatcroft and Chris Gibson, Regional Manager, Sales and Marketing of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC).

Approximately 64,000 plates have been sold in the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley, 13,000 on Vancouver Island, 16,000 in the Southern Interior, and 7,000 sold in Northern B.C.

“It’s a personal commitment of support for the 2010 Games when a British Columbian buys and proudly drives with a 2010 plate, so selling 100,000 plates is a real milestone,” said Dave Cobb, Executive Vice-President of Revenue, Marketing and Communications at VANOC, the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the Games. “It’s also a very tangible sign that excitement is continuing to build throughout the province. Congratulations to ICBC and we hope British Columbians will continue to support this program, which will help us stage games the whole province and all of Canada will be proud of.”

The plates can be purchased at local Autoplan broker offices for an initial fee of $35 and an annual renewal fee of $25. Net proceeds support the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games and the Canadian Olympic Team. For more information, visit www.icbc.com.

From http://www.canadiandriver.com

from http://www.flickr.com/photos/dbarefoot/2068746851/

Vancouver Olympic organizers say they’ve wiped out plans by local ticket brokers to resell prized tickets to the 2010 men’s gold-medal hockey game at inflated prices.

“We’ve tracked down somebody’s source of tickets and eliminated that source,” Vancouver Organizing Committee ticketing head Caley Denton disclosed yesterday.

The tickets, with a face value ranging from $350 to $775, were being promised in advance by the brokers, even though VANOC has yet to print a single ticket for the Olympics, said Mr. Denton, vice-president of sales and marketing.

“We thought something was going to happen and we acted pro-actively to prevent it. They were trying to sell Olympic tickets to different corporations in Canada, and someone alerted us.”

VANOC has vowed to crack down vigorously on ticket scalpers, who are anticipating huge dividends from the 2010 Games.

The problem is a perennial one at the Olympics, because about 30 per cent of all available tickets are allocated to members of the so-called “Olympic family,” including official corporate sponsors, national Olympic committees and other sporting organizations with Olympic ties.

Traditionally, large numbers of these specialty client tickets have found their way into the hands of brokers, particularly for premiere events.

Long-established Vancouver ticket broker Mario Livich said VANOC’s tough talk doesn’t bother him a bit.

“There’s nothing they can do,” said Mr. Livich, CEO of the city’s leading ticket operator, Show Time Tickets, which has its offices across the street from B.C. Place, site of the Games’ opening and closing ceremonies.

“Reselling tickets is not illegal. It’s wrong for anyone to interfere with that, and if anyone tries, we’ll fight it.”

Despite VANOC’s early success against one scalping operation, he said that Show Time expects to do a landslide business buying and selling Olympic tickets.

“Every major broker around is going to be involved in an event of that magnitude. My gut tells me that 30 per cent of Olympic tickets are going to be available for resale for the big individual events,” said Mr. Livich, who added that he is not the ticket agent that VANOC is targeting.

Mr. Livich added that he intends to post prices for the tickets “relatively soon,” although he would not say exactly when.

“We know we’re going to have tickets, and we are going to have very active buying and selling. I guarantee it.”

read more - http://www.theglobeandmail.com