By Harsha Walia, Special to the Vancouver Sun, April 10, 2009

For anyone who still maintains any illusions of Olympic prosperity, an updated Olympic budget released by Vanoc last week made clear that there is no projected potential Olympic profit. According to John Furlong, “We will be very happy to get to break-even.” With sponsors such as GM and Nortel in crisis, the financial stability of the Games has been a controversy. Although $950 million in corporate sponsorships is expected, only $365 million has been collected. A Vanoc line of credit with sponsor RBC was cut by $65 million. The IOC has still not signed two of its top sponsors, resulting in another $30 million shortfall.

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March 16, 2009, By Gord Hill, Georgia Straight

There are many reasons to protest the Olympic Games. It is a multi-billion dollar industry run by an elite clique who sell the five rings to the highest bidder, using sports as a commodity and a platform for corporate advertising. Their main goal is profit, in collaboration with their partners: government, local organizing committees, and corporations (construction, real estate, tourism, TV, and media, as well as sponsors).

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The Assembly of First Nations is at the Intercontinental Hotel to promote the Olympics and make deals with its corporate sponsors. But, grassroots movements in indigenous communities are saying no to the Olympics. They see their land being irreparably damaged by expanding Olympic developments. The Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) has gone to great lengths to hide the negative impacts that the Olympics will have on indigenous peoples, by obscuring the facts on their participation in these games. The Olympics have brought a frenzy of development to BC – the Olympics are the new gold rush bringing displacement and destruction to indigenous communities and culture.

February 26, 2009, By Laura Track, Georgia Straight

“The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.” —Olympic Creed. This February, I joined hundreds of Downtown Eastside residents for the second annual Poverty Olympics. Featuring events like Skating Around Poverty, Housing Hurdles, and Wrestling for Community, this year’s theme was “End Poverty: It’s Not a Game”.

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SAT FEB 28TH from 4:30 – 7 pm. 706 Clarke Drive (between Hastings and Venables) Right on #22 or any Hastings busline
* Dinner served at 4:30 and childcare on site

We know you already know that mega-corporate industries like the 2010 Games and Tar Sands suck. But how does it affect displacement of peoples from their land, their homes, their jobs, their communities. From traditional Indigenous territories to urban ghettos, from migrant workers to low-income families, thousands are being evicted or pushed out, and once displaced many become cannon-fodder as precarious labour.

As intense policing and security measures (like 1000+ military personal in Vancouver earlier this month for training exercises!) disproportionately target the dispossessed, the ones with the wrong skin colour, the undesirables, we rise in struggle against injustice. against the ongoing occupation of this land. against the racist police state. against the exploitation of displaced migrant workers. against gentrification and so-called revitalization. For our dignity as the poor, the displaced, the colonized.

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