Gordon Campbell and VANOC are hosting a Countdown to 2010 Luncheon at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. Let us show them what we think of all their corporate plunder!

Monday February 11, 2008. Gather at the Vancouver Art Gallery @ noon. March arrives at Hyatt regency hotel at 12:30. (655 Burrard street, corner West Georgia)

The 2010 Winter Olympics will take place on unceded indigenous land in two years. The effects of the Olympics are far greater than the games itself- with the expansion of sport tourism on unceded indigenous lands and increased land tenure to corporations; increasing homelessness and gentrification of poor neighbourhoods; increasing privatization of public services; union busting through decisions such as the seven-year imposed contract handed down to the BC Ferry and Marine Workers Union and the recent Canadian Union of Public Employees contracts; exploitative conditions for workers especially temporary migrant labour; the fortification of a security apparatus estimated at $175 million; and unprecedented desctruction of mountains, old growth forests, streams, hunting and fishing grounds, and delicate ecosystems.

For more information contact: 604-682-3269 x8009. Email indigenous.free.school at gmail.com or convergence at no2010.com. Organized by Native 2010 Resistance and No2010 Network. Endorsed by The Torch, No One is Illegal, The Indigenous Free School, Warrior publications, 2010 Watch, Workless Party, La Surda Latin American Collective, DTES Elders Council, Vancouver Status of Women, Building Bridges to Chiapas, DTES Women Centre Power of Women Group, Anti Poverty Committee, Latin American Connexions, Downtown Eastside Residents Association, Bus Riders Union, UBC Students for a Democratic Society.

Indigenous communities in the interior and on the coast of so called British Columbia including the Secwepemc people of Skelkwek’welt, the St’at’imc of Sutikalh, and the Pilalt of Cheam have been critiquing and resisting the objectives and activities of the 2010 Olympics since 2000. In October 2007, more than 1500 Indigenous people representing communities across this hemisphere held the Gathering of the Indigenous Peoples of America, on Yaqui territory in Vicam, Sonora, Mexico. They stated in their final declaration, “We reject the 2010 Winter Olympics on sacred and stolen territory of Turtle Island–Vancouver, Canada.”

While the Olympic organizers operate with a budget of almost $2 billion(costs for the Vancouver’s Trade and Convention Centre alone has reached almost $900 million) and other costs to government surpassing an estimated $6 billion, Vancouver is now home to North America’s fastest growing homelessness crisis. Dozens of low-income hotels and apartment buildings are being converted to unaffordable condominiums. Over 126,000 people in 56,000 households in Greater Vancouver are at risk of homelessness according to the 2001 Canada census. As thousands of people are forced from their homes, they are then criminalized for being homeless. Indigenous people account for 30% of this homeless population, despite making up only 2% of the total population in the province.

The 2010 corporate Olympics circus is apparent by examining the destructive global record of some of its sponsors. These include:

• Petro-Canada, one of Canada’s largest producers of oil and gas,
• TransCanada, one of the continent’s largest transporters of oil and gas.
• Canadian Pacific Railway, long an integral tool of colonization,
• Hudson’s Bay Company, another company responsible for the colonization and theft of Indigenous land,
• General Electric, one of the world’s top three producers of military aircraft engines and major producer of nuclear power plants,
• General Motors, long a top contractor for the Canadian military and now the world’s largest automobile manufacturer,
• Dow Chemical, the world’s second largest chemical manufacturer and cause of the Bhopal, India disaster,
• Bell Canada, who’s CEO is one of the top corporate architects of the Security and Prosperity Partnership.

==> WHAT CAN YOU DO?

REFUSE TO BE IGNORANT about the Games. Gather more information and learn more about what the Olympics plan to do in your community, and take action.

Check out
http://no2010.com/
http://2010watch.com/
harrietspirit at blogspot.com

To get more involved in the Native anti-2010 movement or to access a more thorough information package about Indigenous people and the Games: email: indigenous.free.school at gmail.com

==> ARTICLES <==

* No Olympics on Stolen Land
http://warriorpublications.com/?q=node/36

* Massacres and Profits: A brief history of the Olympics
http://users.resist.ca/~eps2005/olympics.html

*Olympics blamed for forcible removal of 2 million over 20 years
http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,2096323,00.html

* CCPA Report: Managing the Cost of Olympic Gold
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/index.cfm?act=news&do=Article&call=624&pA=BB736455

* Real estate, sport tourism and Native sovereignty in B.C.
http://www.sevenoaksmag.com/features/29_billie.html

* Migrant workers coerced by RAV line employer
https://noii-van.resist.ca/?p=573

* The Olympics Land Grab by Naomi Klein
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=3941

* More Homeless than Athletes in 2010
http://thetyee.ca/News/2007/05/28/Homeless1/

* Stolen Games
http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/1099

* Everywhere they go, the Olympic Games become an excuse for eviction and
displacement.
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/15054

* Report Slams Run-up to Olympics
http://thetyee.ca/News/2007/05/07/Olympics/