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Archive for the ‘Vancouver’ Category

Dana and Yuji Kaneko skate with son Koji on the GE Ice Plaza at Robson Square

Just over two months ago, after a nearly 10 year absence, outdoor skating returned to Robson Square. In my own humble opinion it has been nothing but a spectacular success; on every occasion I’ve been, the rink has been full of smiling, excited people of all ages. Granted, I live within walking distance of the rink, and as I grew up being able to skate outside my back door on a rink built by my father most years of my life, I am extremely biased to having a positive view on the new skating facility and the corporatey, corporate investment by GE that it is. That being the case, I decided to seek out the opinion of some others.

Some skaters were there for the first time, while others had previously been multiple times. Everyone had nothing but positive comments about the facility itself , as well as the staff. One trio of skaters that I met bookended the evolution of skating at Robson Square very nicely. Dana and Yuji Kaneko both remember skating at Robson Square as kids, in addition to participating in other activities like public music recitals. The closing of the rink was just one more element contributing to an underused downtown core. When they learned about the reopened rink from friends, they bundled up, boarded public transit, and along with their son Koji made their way into the city. Like everyone else they had a great time. The image they formed of Mom, Dad and Child going for a recreational skate is one that is quintessentially Canadian. Many thanks are due to the City, Province as well as GE for bringing outdoor skating back to the heart of downtown Vancouver. The province maintains a webpage where you can view information about hours of operation of the rink, rental prices and more here.

If you are making a trip into the downtown core to go skating, it may be IS prudent to call ahead first to ensure that there are no planned events altering skating hours, or that warm weather has not overwhelmed the machinery that maintains the ice surface is Vancouver’s ‘winter’ temperatures. Call 604-646-3559 for the latest conditions.

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US Speed Skating - Powered by The Colbert Nation

Stephen Colbert and the Colbert Nation’s  sponsorship of the US speed skating team was a story I wrote about when it first came about, but I foolishly haven’t been posting on any of the latest developments. Back in November, City of Richmond spokesperson Ted Townsend wrote to Stephen inviting him to come to the games as an official ombudsman to ensure no funny business would happen (at the time Colbert was hammering Canada about not letting the US get enough practice time at the Richmond Olympic Oval.) Stephen stated he would be coming to the games, but only if it were as a member of the US Olympic Team (I guess he couldn’t stand to wear a pink toque the whole time.) So began Stephen Colbert’s Skate Expectations: Kicking Ice and Taking Donations On The Slippery Slope Down The Icy Path To The Frozen Road Up To Vancouver ’010 and his bid to join the US Olympic Team.

First came his attempts to join the skeleton and bobsleigh teams. These efforts failed despite Cobert’s “God given talent for lying down and surrendering to the effects of gravity”. He was further hindered by the fact that most members of the bobsleigh squad do not enjoy “a little vomit on their Lycra.” Next, Colbert tried to “HURRY HARD!” his way into the Olympics as part of the curling team. Once again his efforts were to no avail. Not giving up though, Colbert dug deep, remembered that his first love is speed skating and orchestrated a hilarious race with World Champion Shani Davis. All of Stephens well developed cheating instincts failed him, as Shani went on to decimate him, despite a head start of over 10 minutes. However, Colbert’s wily ways did catch the notice of the coaching staff, and he will be joining the team as an assistant sports psychologist. This is a fantastic development and I look forward to some great pieces of journalism from Stephen during the games. I’ve often wrote that I strongly believe in using the Olympic platform to shine a light on the fair city of Vancouver, both the good and the bad. The Colbert Report has and continues to be an excellent force for peering into some of the darker cracks in society and I fully expect to him to highlight some of the social issues that are present in this city. Previously I suggested that Colbert and Rick Mercer pair up for some international comedy dueling, but after thinking on the viability of this, I remembered that CTV is this years host broadcaster in Canada, and as Mercer is a CBC employee this would not work. Perhaps John Dore is up for challenging Colbert.

Apologies to those with Canadian IP addresses; you will need to click here to view the above clip, as the Comedy Network does not allow for embedded video clips.

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CBC and The New York Post both have stories up at their sites discussing the potential future of Intrawest, the company that owns the Whistler-Blackcomb ski resort that will play host to the alpine events during the 2010 Olympics. The whole scenario is a somewhat confusing mix of creditors and debt holders, so you should just go and read either of the articles, but there seems to me to be two different elements to this story. The first angle is the leveraged buyout of Intrawest that occurred in 2006 by the hedge fund Fortress Investment Group. This purchase was highly leveraged, and wouldn’t you know it, the Lehman Brothers happen to be one of the creditors in that deal (you remember the Lehman Brothers, right?) Fortress recently missed a $524 million payment on the debt incurred during the purchase of Intrawest. As Lehman is currently restructuring under bankruptcy protection, they are looking for funds wherever they can find it to make good on the more $1ooo billion creditor claims against them. As such, they have indicated that they could foreclose against Intrawest as early as February 19th (right in the middle of the games) and begin to auction of it’s assets (including Whistler-Blackcomb.)

Further to Fortress’s tangling with Lehman Brothers, the hedge fund has also been sparring with VANOC/the Canadian Government. According to the New York Post,

VANOC guaranteed that it would make Intrawest whole for the time that its events take place at its resorts. But now, according to a source, Canadian officials are threatening to pull that roughly $50 million guarantee. That, the source said, has compelled [Fortress fund manager Wesley] Edens to privately say he has a legal right to keep the Games from taking place at Whistler.

There’s nothing like a sexy story about the possibility of Olympic events not taking place! I do think that it is important to give credence to what Bill Singer, a securities lawyer in New York had to say to the CBC:

I can’t imagine that it will ultimately mean much, because I would assume between [Canadian] government interest and the Olympic Committee there would be something that would be accomplished just to forestall [this.]

For their part, Intrawest had this to say:

We have a 2002 agreement with VANOC to host the Winter Olympics and have every confidence that VANOC will honour its financial commitments. Intrawest is looking forward to a successful Olympic Games.

The word ‘bankruptcy’ is a loaded one in the English language, and it carries even more weight these days in light of the past few years of economic turmoil. It is easy to forget that well established procedures are in place for navigating corporate entities through bankruptcy protection, and more often than not they emerge from protection as a viable company. And while this story is an interesting one that deserves to be followed, I too, in my extremely limited understanding of financial wizardry would not expect this current story to prevent a successful games from happening.

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The Sea-to-Sky Highway; An Olympic Waste?

This past Monday, the local 24 Hours newspaper featured an article entitled “Let the Bailout Games begin“. While the piece,  by 24 Hours staff writer Bob Mackin does contain many good pieces of factual information, I do

have to take issue with some of the analysis and accounting within. To start with, Mackin writes the following:

Amid the Great Recession a year ago, VANOC’s message was all about being the shining light to guide B.C. to recovery because it had a billion dollars to spend. Spring came and chief executive John Furlong admitted a profit was unlikely.

Both of these sentences are accurate enough, but I have no idea how one idea is related to the other. The way they are linked in the piece makes it seem like the author is concluding and implying that since the odds of VANOC generating a profit have diminished since a year ago, spending on games related endeavours does not aid in economic recovery. I am no economist and I don’t have any specific numbers to cite (partly because I am having a hell of time getting the relevant data from the Stats Can webpage) but I am quite confident in asserting that injecting a billion dollars (or more, depending on what number people are tossing around as the ‘cost’ of the Games at this time, more on that later) is, and has been, very beneficial to economic recovery.

Mackin’s article then goes on to mention the Olympic Village in Vancouver. While the term ‘bailout’ is more than appropriate to apply to the measures the city was forced to take a year ago to ensure financing for the village, the article, along with many others when discussing the athletes village look at the $1 billion dollar price tag on the project as if it is money that is gone down the tubes, never to be seen again. Nothing could be further from the truth. Once the games are finished most (if not all) of the units will be sold on the open market, and in case you haven’t noticed, Vancouver’s insane real estate market has more than recovered since last year. While a profit is no longer expected from these sales, the city does expect to break even, and with the recovery of the housing market, turning a profit is not out of the realm of possibilities. What is most distressing about the village is the potential for there to be no lasting affordable housing legacy. This would be shameful, and ideally will not come to pass with the healthy rebound in prices Vancouver has seen this past year. Further to serving as the Athletes Village during the games, new housing and hopefully affordable housing post-games, the facilities at the site are also state of the art ones that feature some of the latest technologies in energy efficiency; this further adds to the value of this investment.

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I’ve never been a fan of tasers. Way too many people have already died directly from these devices or were killed in an event that involved their use. They have been adopted very quickly by law enforcement (both in the US and Canada) with very weak and lackadaisical guidelines, and it seems these guidelines are breached quite frequently with little to no disciplinary action. I would even be so bold as to say that they’ve been a force that is responsible for elevating lazy police work. Digby, writing at her fabulous blog Hullabaloo is always on top of these terrible accidents as they happen and if this is an issue that concerns you and you want to follow it I’d suggest adding her site to your daily blogroll. Here she is writing about one of the stories I linked to above:

[...]the man had done absolutely nothing wrong, presented no danger, had made no threats. The officers merely thought he might be mentally ill. And he screamed in agony when they shot him full of electricity five times in two minutes before he finally complied. (Of course, by “complying” I mean dying.) Therefore, they said they shouldn’t be held liable for killing him.

This is the logic that pervades the taser argument: The taser isn’t harmful so we shouldn’t be held responsible for killing people with them.

Recently the Abbotsford Police Department released the findings of an investigation into the conduct of the Vancouver Police Department during an incident this past summer that resulted in the death of Michael Vann Hubbard, a 54 year old homeless resident of Vancouver. The investigation concluded, amongst other things that:

The two police officers had reasonable grounds to believe that they were in immediate peril of grievous bodily harm or death, [...]After considering the totality of the circumstances facing the two police officers, notwithstanding that there was a tragic outcome, the officers were justified in using force that was intended or likely to cause grievous bodily harm or death.

Vann Hubbard was killed after being confronted by the two police officers in relation to a search for a purse snatcher. Video footage captured at the scene clearly showed Vann Hubbard brandishing an X-Acto knife and continuing to advance towards officers who had their weapons raised at him. Something that I have argued on this blog about other issues that is also relevant to the taser issue is that when enacting and enforcing any policy a cost/benefit analysis needs to be conducted and adhered too. As you may be able to tell from my opening comments, I feel the costs do outweigh the benefits that tasers present. Even with that being the case, why are law enforcement officers not doing a better job of demonstrating those benefits? My understanding of the deployment of tasers is that they are to be used to replace guns in situations they may have been used in before the development of the taser. This seems like it was one the more appropriate scenarios where deploying a taser would have been reasonable. Why was that not the case here? Isn’t this exactly the type of scenario that tasers were designed for?

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