How a Five-Ring Event Can Turn Into a Three-Ring Circus

From February 12-28 and March 12-21, 2010, Vancouver and Whistler will play host to The XXI Olympic Winter Games and the X Paralympic Winter Games. Yet while a veritable whirlwind of excitement and activity surrounds the build-up to this international contest of winter sport supremacy, the famous Olympic torch casts a long shadow – one that comes with an inevitable list of cons as well as pros. Here are some of the bigger issues that have come with this particular Olympiad…

While the Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC) includes 53 different departments, each committed to a particular aspect of this Game’s needs, a combination of human error and unforeseen circumstances have lead to financial issues that threaten to be this Olympics’ biggest legacy. In September of 2006, British Columbia’s Auditor General cautioned that the 2010 Games could potentially break the bottle on its $600 million budget. Vancouver Mayor at the time, Arn van Iersel outlined a list of potential issues that he estimated could bring the budget’s grand total to a whopping $1.5 billion. Yet despite the writing on the wall, faith in the original budget seemed, for the most part, to remain intact. Now, over 2 years later with the Games less than a year away, it seems that hindsight is indeed, 20/20.

With the country sliding into its first recession since 1992, Vancouver may be forced to borrow $458 million plus to complete the 11-hundred-unit Athletes Village by its newly scheduled November ’09 deadline, effectively doubling the city’s debt to approximately $928 million. Vancouver was left holding the ball when New York’s Fortress Investment Group terminated funding after costs ran $125 million over budget. Taxpayers old enough to remember the fiscal fiasco of the 1976 Montreal Summer Games are breaking out in a cold sweat as they begin experiencing déjà-vu’s so many years later on the West Coast. The only comfort at this point is the potential post-Games recoup with the athlete housing projected to sell as profit-rich waterfront condominiums. But even this is reliant upon the presumption of a healthy sellers’ market. The liability of the Vancouver taxpayer will directly hinge upon what these properties fetch and right now, the average home price in Metropolitan Vancouver is down 15% in the last 6 months. Many experts feel that the market will recover substantially by the time realtors are hosting open-houses but in the meantime, it’s the taxpayers posteriors that are exposed, not the developers; not the organizers. And if the real estate market has taught us anything in the last few years, it’s been to presume nothing…

But on the street-level, more visceral problems exist. Any Vancouverite will attest to the fact that just below the veneer of glamour this sparkling Pacific Coast metropolis exhibits lays an all-to-visible underbelly of poverty, drug addiction and homelessness. Just walk fifteen minutes from the uber-trendy West End and you’ll find a very different scene at Hastings and Main. With tens of thousands of visitors flocking here next year, the city clearly has to do something about its homeless crisis. A feeling of resentment pervades most opinions as Olympic costs skyrocket while social programs, low income housing and needle-exchange sites remain shamefully underfunded. There’s a genuine concern that the Games will not be seen as a reason to finally solve this problem but more as an excuse to sweep the problem under the rug. Ask anyone who’s walked past the derelict East Side squat-houses, peered down a barb-wired alleyway or seen city parks peppered with shopping carts and sleeping bags and they’ll tell you – this is the time for something more than a band aid. City Mayor Sam Sullivan has empowered the BC Attorney General to create an initiative designed to clean up Vancouver’s streets, pre-Games. The Project Civil City Initiative’s goal is to reduce drug-dealing, homelessness, even panhandling by 50% come Game time. However, with the growing Olympic tab landing squarely on the city’s shoulders, many fear that despite the nobility or sincerity of said sentiments, these efforts will be cursory at best or bullying of the less fortunate by law enforcement at worst.

These concerns parlay into other Games-centric developments. An Olympic city needs comprehensive transportation routes capable of handling the massive amount of foot and vehicle traffic the area will experience. Already, the very necessary upgrades to the once-treacherous Sea to Sky Highway have run above $1 billion while the Translink Skytrain line to Vancouver International Airport (YVR) has cost almost double that. Many fear that if the homeless crisis isn’t adequately dealt with, this will only provide easier access to suburbs that to date, have been relatively untouched by drug-addiction and subsequently, by crime. The housing crisis has knocked the value out of many suburban property nest-eggs, but one can only imagine what a general degradation of the neighbourhood and a rise in crime would do. For many Vancouverites whose investments are tied up in property, this is a genuine concern.

A worry that directly relates to those visiting Vancouver during the Games is the inflation of hotel and private renter rates for the duration of the Winter Olympics. Many property owners in and around Vancouver and Whistler stand to make a year’s worth of rent over the few short weeks that the Games will be here – a sense of entrepreneurialism that verges dangerously close to extortion. Thankfully, many of the vacation rentals have controlled ceiling rates. Yes, accommodation prices naturally raise during an international event but visitors shouldn’t have to take out a second mortgage on their home just to stay in someone else’s for 3 weeks.

These issues don’t seem to attract the public eye the same way as glamourous news bites . In fact, the blogosphere seems to have cornered the market on the fair and objective perspectives and opinions that surround these Games — something we apparently can’t expect from Big Media. Seven Canadian media giants including 49 daily newspapers have created a consortium to share news resources for the 2010 Winter Olympics. (Can you say non-objectivity journalism?)

Whatever the case, it’s important to acknowledge the rainbow that inevitably comes with every raincloud. Even Beijing, with its smog conditions, traffic problems and media blackouts pulled off a relatively glitch-free Summer Games.

The question is how much is our rainbow going to cost us?