Seven Oaks Magazine.

Olympic backlash in Vancouver: Why history should be deployed before the police
April 24, 2007
Serena Thomson

On the night when the Olympic flags were ceremoniously illuminated before Vancouver’s City Hall, they were enclosed by metal barricades and over 70 police officers on foot and horseback patrolled an agitated crowd. This kind of police presence is not the norm in this laid back Canadian city, but things have changed since the 2010 Winter Olympics jumped to the forefront of provincial and municipal agendas, and the encroachment of Olympic projects upon disadvantaged stakeholders has provoked brazen acts of resistance. All of this occurs in the context of social segregation thinly veiled before an international audience and the double-sided legacy of mega-events in Vancouver and abroad. In order to mitigate unequally distributed social costs, municipal and provincial governments will have to suspend the discriminatory civic ideals presently guiding Olympic preparations and fully appreciate this social and historical context.

The relatively small downtown of Vancouver has a highly fragmented geography, one in which a person can pass with an extraordinary abruptness from the spectacles of privileged lifestyles into pockets of severe poverty. Urban planning policy has allowed gentrification to accelerate in recent years, displacing low-income housing residents and disrupting well-established communities. For these residents, the words “urban revitalization” carry dangerous connotations, as they refer to a process by which new by-laws and re-zoning decisions effectively drive them out. One such community is the Aboriginal people living in the impoverished Downtown Eastside, who continue to be exposed to institutional racism as their needs are overlooked and rights are diminished in a variety of unspoken yet pervasive ways.

Activist groups, representing Aboriginal people as well as other marginalized communities, have advocated against the Olympics since Vancouver was selected as host in 2003. They criticize the Canadian government for channeling massive amounts of money into this event while failing to alleviate homelessness and other social problems, as expressed in the slogan “homes not games.” Also, the Olympic project has shamelessly appropriated Aboriginal cultural and land-based property. For example, the official logo of the 2010 Winter Olympics is a stylized inukshuk, a traditional stone sculpture of the Inuit people, and construction of Olympics infrastructure is currently taking place on Aboriginal land. The injustice felt by this community has recently been painfully magnified by the loss of Harriet Nahanee at the age of 71. This Squamish Nation elder died a month after she was imprisoned for 14 days, despite known health problems, for protesting highway expansion on land to which Aboriginal people are entitled.

History shows that mega-events in Canada and abroad frequently leave a wake of destruction amongst the most vulnerable sectors of society. The term “mega-event” refers to official events of large scale and international significance, usually for sport or exhibition purposes. The impoverished and racialized residents of the host city are at both an economic disadvantage, for they are easily ousted by developers, and a social disadvantage, as they are often not considered a community but rather a concentration of moral and aesthetic deficiency. Vancouver is not naïve about such events. In 1986, Vancouver was host to the World Exposition, a themed event showcasing national pavilions made by participating countries. In the midst of a city-wide upheaval to provide tourist accommodation, several hundred long-term residents of the Downtown Eastside were abruptly displaced, many of whom were elderly, impoverished, and suffered health problems. The trauma caused to many individuals and heavy loss of low-income housing units were the behind-the-scenes sacrifices of an event heralded as a complete success.

Today, with the Olympics looming on the horizon, Vancouverites are becoming increasingly concerned about how Mayor Sam Sullivan plans to tackle pressing social issues. On November 27, 2006, Sullivan and City Council launched an initiative called “Project Civil City” which aims to eradicate “public disorder” in time for the Olympics. In this ambitious document, which addresses vast problems like poverty alongside minor infractions like jaywalking, it is clear that the ultimate goal is to present a blemish-free public image to an international audience. Though the report does suggest initiatives to combat poverty in a lasting way, these would require the integrated action of various levels of government and more funding than will be available. Realistically speaking, the initiatives that the municipal government is most likely to go through with are the “band-aid” solutions that involve increased policing for minor infractions, such as panhandling or sleeping on public property, ultimately criminalizing the poor.

Activists from a wide range of backgrounds and approaches have identified the injustices inherent in the Olympic project and continue to make their opposition to it known. Recently, however, acts of resistance involving vandalism and public disorder have radicalized the issue and attracted a frenzy of negative media attention. The danger of this to the anti-Olympic movement is that disproportionate coverage of “in-your-face” tactics could deter potential supporters and merge the concepts of “protester” and “hooligan” in the public imagination. All of this makes the struggle for legitimacy even greater. To worsen the situation, the non-profit organizations in Vancouver whose issues and values overlap have been divided over their respective take on the Olympics. Some have distanced themselves from former allies, weakening the overall network and its capacity to promote reform.

At the ceremony described above to illuminate the Olympic flags, there were at least as many police and private security personnel as protesters, and the protesters themselves outnumbered casual spectators. This clearly does not speak well of the social climate in which Olympic preparations are taking place. Increased policing might deter individuals if they were merely engaging in petty crime and disorderly behavior, but as the mainstream media neglects to analyze in detail, these acts take place in a far more complex context. This includes the history of prejudicial treatment toward Aboriginal people and urban planning policy that displaces low income residents. City Council is seeking quick fixes for issues that involve accumulated tension, and its blinkered vision, ramped-up policing, and lack of transparency have pushed that tension to a breaking point. In this highly charged environment, voices of protest can pry open the cracks in public confidence about the management of the Olympic project, giving them greater leverage in demanding long-term solutions for a just future.