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Posts Tagged ‘Metro Vancouver’

Students at W. Earle Miller Public School

In an editorial comment from Wednesday’s Metro Vancouver, Paul Sullivan outlined his five reasons to not ‘Believe’ in the Olympic Games. While I can appreciate the jab at CTV, the Canadian broadcaster for the games, I find little else to agree with in his reasons. Lets take his points one by one.

Number 5: Sullivan says “The Olympic mascots are endangered or non-existent species [...] Somehow this says it all.” I have no idea what this says. Yes, the Olympic mascots are hybrids of endangered and mythical creatures. The animals that are threatened or endangered have not reached that point because of the Olympics. To my mind, all this says is that VANOC is conscientious of the amazing wildlife that BC is privy too. What does highlighting that fact say? If anything it brings further needed attention to animal populations under threat.

Number 4: “The Games will cost at least $6 billion [...] what are we going to do with a $104.9 million toboggan slide?” The first point to note with this claim is the standard tactic of anti-Olympic voices citing the figure of $6 billion as the cost of the games. As I’ve pointed out before, that number includes the construction costs of the Canada Line, the Sea-to-Sky Highway improvements, construction of the Vancouver Convention Centre, improvements to the Port Mann bridge and the construction of the Pitt River bridge. I strongly suspect that most, if not all of these infrastructure projects would have been undertaken were Vancouver not playing host to the games. They certainly are not ‘but for’ the Olympics. I should hope that any Vancouver resident is at a bare minimum proud of the fabulous new Canada Line. At a cost of $1.7 billion the rail line represents almost 30% of the oft quoted $6 billion figure; it is worth every penny and happy to have that argument with Sullivan. It baffles me how people seem to treat the $6 billion as money that is just lost. Do I really need to point out that these are investments? There is a reason that the latest quarterly growth figures from the Conference Board of Canada have BC atop the pack in terms of economic performance. I presume I don’t need to explicitly state why this is. I imagine that with the bobsled track we will see stronger luge, bobsled and skeleton teams in the future, as well as a new yearly World Cup event in Whistler. Wait for it; I expect that will bring a positive economic impact to the community.

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