The 2010 Olympics in Vancouver are threatening human well-being and self-determination as well as ecological devastation in many of the same ways as the tar sands gigaproject. The corporate sponsors include many of the same, from Royal Bank of Canada through to TransCanada Pipelines. The unprecedented expansion of the tar sands gigaproject as well as the 2010 Games are both building infrastructure with temporary foreign worker labour and under the auspices of un-democratic trade agreements from the Security and Prosperity Partnership [SPP] and the Trade, Investment & Labour Mobility Agreement [TILMA]. Both projects have directly and indirectly been tied historically and in the present to the ability of larger nation-states to wage war.
VANOC may axe Whistler ceremonies
By BOB MACKIN, 24 HOURS, Dec 24, 2008
A Whistler forest may have been cut for naught.
Medals are supposed to be awarded nightly at B.C. Place Stadium in Vancouver and the Celebration Plaza next to Whistler Village during the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Vancouver 2010 organizers -- faced with unprecedented recessionary pressure for a North American-held Games -- may cancel the Whistler ceremonies to save money.
Foreign Canada Line workers win multi-million dollar human rights case
By Kelly Sinoski
December 3, 2008
Vancouver Sun
VANCOUVER - A group of temporary foreign workers who helped build the
Canada Line have won a multi-million dollar award from the BC Human Rights
Tribunal after it found they were discriminated against by their
employers.
SELI Canada and SNC Lavalin, which was boring parallel tunnels under
downtown Vancouver, has been under the microscope since early last year
after a series of complaints to the Labour Relations Board, the B.C. Human
CANADA: Native Rights Concerns Cloud 2010 Games
By Jon Elmer
VANCOUVER, Dec 1 (IPS) - A coalition of indigenous elders, social
justice activists and community organisers is voicing opposition to
the upcoming Winter Olympics, promising to continue their protests up
to and throughout the 2010 games.
Taking advantage of a three-day media briefing hosted by the official
Olympic body in late November, the Vancouver Organising Committee
(VANOC), activists and native representatives invited the local and
Lone-wolf threat feared at Vancouver Olympics
Authorities see single terrorist as a key threat
Stewart Bell, National Post Published: Thursday, November 27, 2008
Ward Perrin/Canwest News Service
A federal study of terrorist threats to Olympic facilities in
Vancouver has raised the spectre of an attack by a "lone wolf," like
the anti-abortionist who struck during the 1996 Atlanta games.
The lone-wolf scenario is one of four terrorist threats listed in the
government intelligence assessment, a copy of which was obtained by
Controversy rocks lead-up to 2010 Olympics
Real News // November 26, 2008 (Video below)
2010 Olympics promotional train tour becomes target for protests across Canada
Mon, November 24, 2008
'It's killing us off'
Oilsands development a danger to aboriginal community: Band member
By KEVIN CRUSH, SUN MEDIA
Mike Mercredi, a community member of Fort Chipewyan, was on hand yesterday at Edmonton’s Native Friendship Centre to talk about the impact an oilsands development is having on his First Nations community.
Fort Chipewyan is facing a "genocide" from oilsands development, says a member of the First Nation.
Could jittery sponsors drop the torch?
Globe and Mail, November 18, 2008
ROD MICKLEBURGH // VANCOUVER
— Are economic vultures beginning to hover over the 2010 Winter
Olympics? Or is it business as usual despite concerns that many parts
of the world, including North America, are slipping into recession?
The questions are pertinent because more than half of the Games'
$1.63-billion operating budget is to be covered by corporate
sponsorships, and at least two key 2010 sponsors, Nortel and GM Canada,
are having an exceedingly tough time making any kind of ends meet.
Petro Canada is the "official energy supplier" to the Olympics. Perhaps that could shelve that disastrous project as well?
--M
Petrocan syndicate puts Fort Hills on ice
Consortium shelves oil sands project, citing global financial turmoil, lower oil prices and high financing costs
NORVAL SCOTT
November 18, 2008
CALGARY -- The Fort Hills oil sands project was going to turn Petro-Canada into a contender.
Its 140,000 barrels a day of new crude output would end years of underperformance. No longer would Petrocan's share price lag those of its peers.
TransCanada Pipelines is an official supplier to the 2010 Games.
This pipeline will provide enough gas to *almost triple* current already
insane tar sands production levels.
Lubicon lands will be destroyed so that the speed with which the
destruction of the tar sands advances through towards Fort Chip and
elsewhere can go up massively and much faster.
Little Buffalo still has no running water.
The lake has not been potable for a few decades now.
--M
TransCanada invades Lubicon Territory
... in order to "meet the public interest"?
Now this deserves a response.
Vancouver approves $100M bailout for Olympic Village developer
Last Updated: Thursday, November 6, 2008
CBC News
The Southeast False Creek development site comprises 32 hectares of land, seven of which will be temporarily transformed into the Olympic Village during the Games. The Southeast False Creek development site comprises 32 hectares of land, seven of which will be temporarily transformed into the Olympic Village during the Games. (CBC)
