2010 Legislative Session: Second Session, 39th Parliament

HOUSE BLUES
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This is a DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY of debate in one sitting of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. This transcript is subject to corrections, and will be replaced by the final, official Hansard report. Use of this transcript, other than in the legislative precinct, is not protected by parliamentary privilege, and public attribution of any of the debate as transcribed here could entail legal liability.
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DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY
(HANSARD)
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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2010

Afternoon Sitting

G. Gentner: It's a great deal of pleasure to be here again to address my sixth throne speech. This is a time to celebrate the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and it's an incredible time indeed, with all the spirit and the enthusiasm that is coming through all our communities.

To begin, I have to address the hardship — namely, that of the earthquake victims of Haiti, the 250,000 who have possibly died, and the numbers are still being counted; the injured, the homeless — and the wonderful contributions made not only by all Canadians but, in particular, British Columbians and our communities, mine included.

I have to acknowledge the efforts of many in my community, including Red FM and Sher-e-Punjab radio stations, which raised close to $1 million themselves. I'd like to say thank you to them and thank you to all who've worked so hard.

The Olympics are here, and we see the incredible Olympic spirit. On the eve of the Olympics I want to address, for the record, how this whole thing came about, because I think it's very important. The throne speech talked at great length about it, and so it should, and I'm going to address it as such.

Now, two days ago in North Delta about 15,000 people — namely, families and children — lined the streets of my constituency, and later the community hosted a pre-Olympic women's hockey game between the ever fast-skating Finnish team and the very defensive Slovakian team. It was a great event. I'd like to mention and give special thanks to the municipality of Delta for going beyond the call of duty in sponsoring the torch relay and the hockey game.

Also, what is not acknowledged is that, though there are many communities that receive the Olympic highlight and all the accolades, few understand the essential role that Delta is playing. Because of security issues it hasn't been revealed, but now that the venues are well underway, I can safely share what Delta is doing in hosting the games. Delta, my friends, is doing the bull work. It is providing the venues for Whistler, Richmond, Vancouver and communities. Where they are basking in the Olympic sun, little Delta, you see, is really staging the area for the games infrastructure.

For the past two years it's been the host, the location for all the venue storage, the warehousing of all the essential logistics: the tents, the stands, the fencing used, the bollards, traffic and safety control equipment, flags, etc., the stores operations, upkeep, computers, radios, technical support, office equipment, furnishing, clothing, hundreds of thousands of square feet of space and inventory, bookkeeping — all those things that you take for granted but that are essential in making a successful games.

[1505]

I'd also like to thank the contributions of my colleague from Delta South, who has been very enthusiastic and supportive of the games and the municipality of Delta's well-meaning efforts.

You know, politicians — particularly this government and, I'd say, this Premier — are there for the photo ops. But in typical B.C. Liberal tradition of ribbon cutting and repeated announcements of capital projects, the real stuff behind government is the daily fix and maintain, the infrastructure, the operations of government, of a business, of even providing a successful Olympics.

Now I have to get on the record with this, because success in government or running a business is measured by what you can do on a day-to-day basis. The street cleaner, the waste collector, the volunteers, the traffic control flagpeople, most who won't even see the games, are the real heroes during the next two weeks. I say this not because of the partisan nature of our politics, but because I get a little incensed by the over-the-top attitude of the ever media-seeking B.C. Liberals and Premier who believe that they have the licence to somehow personalize the games as though they are theirs and theirs alone.

Well, the games are not for them alone. That, in part, is what I want to talk about because, while in my community, between the two venues — the torch relay and the hockey game — I went into my constituency offices that day because the throne speech was being delivered, and I watched it from my constituency office.

I saw and heard the importance of the throne speech, and while I was waiting…. My community TV station, Delta TV, didn't broadcast it. They had forgotten that they actually did that kind of thing. I had to phone to make sure that it was on. Thank God we have Hansard, because I went to my computer and watched it there. It sort of sums up the lack of interest, if you will, of the throne speech. I think that's an unfortunate situation.

In its opening the throne speech focused on the Olympics, and it said: "Thousands of designers, tradespeople, contractors, volunteers and professionals have made this happen. To all those who helped deliver these games — the visionaries, volunteers, trainers, coaches, athletes, elected officials, public servants and community groups — British Columbians say thank you."

Now, while watching the kids who all are excited at watching the torch go by, I thought about who was really responsible for the games, the so-called visionaries. I thought: "It can't be a Premier on a zip line beating his chest like some Stockwell Day riding on a skidoo in a wetsuit. There has got to be more than that."

I have nothing against boosterism, but the egocentric nation of the self-centred Liberal government has forgotten the reason why we're staging the games. I say this, knowing that the Prime Minister is here bursting through the doors today and saying all those grand, wonderful things.

I'm sorry, Mr. Premier. These games, again, are not about you. They're about the Olympic spirit — an Olympic spirit that strives to inspire and motivate the youth of the world to be the best they can. You know, as Geoff Dembicki said in a recent Tyee article about the Olympics: "But whether you're talking the 1990s or the 21st century, you're always going to find the civic leaders and leaders in general who see these games as something beneficial for their city — not to mention their own reputation."

Since the first modern Olympics in Athens in 1896 the operative question or word has always been: who will pay for the future games? The games went from amateur to professional athletes and then to corporate sponsorship. Then came the financial disasters and the terrorist acts, and then came Montreal — or as Dembicki says, Mayor Jean Drapeau famously promised the spectacle. I quote the mayor then. He said that Montreal can no more have a deficit than a man can have a baby. He was only half right, of course. Montreal finally settled its $1.5 billion tab in the year 2006.

Now we have the two corporate games with our own censor cops sneaking around, looking for unauthorized signage or a well-established restaurant that has long incorporated their identity with the Olympic tag, or the harassment and detainment of a journalist like Amy Goodman at our border.

[1510]

Of course, the biggest irony is the Vancouver police seizure of a million dollars' worth of illegal goods that brazenly displayed the Olympic logo without permission. The product — more than 100,000 Ecstasy pills stamped with the five rings. The irony? North America's capital of substance abuse and mental illness is here. Are we more concerned about the illegal solicitation of drugs or the unsolicited use of the five rings embedded on a pill?

While I watched the throne speech and the ongoing self-gratification on the other side, I couldn't help but wonder: where did this idea really start in British Columbia? What was the original intent of it, since it was the opening feature of the throne speech?

To the chest-beaters, let's look at Hansard, December 1, 1998, the hon. Ian Waddell:

"I rise today as Minister responsible for sports. Today, at 9:30 Pacific Standard Time, ballots of the Canadian Olympic Committee, representing 72 winter and summer sports and officials, were counted in Toronto to decide the winning Canadian bid for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. On the first ballot, it was 26 votes for Vancouver-Whistler, 25 for Quebec City and 21 for Calgary. Calgary dropped off. On the second ballot, after our hearts stopped for a few minutes — or a few seconds — they announced…. It certainly seemed like a lot of minutes.

"On the second ballot, the results were Quebec City, 31, and Vancouver-Whistler, 40. Thus, Vancouver-Whistler won the Canadian bid."

So all bravado on the other side…. Let me remind you where the games started from.

But regarding the intent, this is what the minister, the NDP minister responsible for sports, said:

"These games will be for our young people who are taking part in various sports right now. They will be just the right age to compete for their country and to compete at home, as Nancy Greene Raine said today. Can you imagine what an incredible honour this will be?"

I had to remind the members opposite where it started, for the record, when they and the Premier beat their chests.

I quote Mr. Waddell:

"This victory was a result of an incredible team effort: athletes, business, government officials working together. It was a great show of confidence in British Columbia. We worked together as a team, and we succeeded as a team. Today I pledge to members of this House that the benefits of this bid and these games, when we win the international bid in 2003 — when that decision is made — will be spread around the province of British Columbia. Will the House join with me today in congratulating the Vancouver-Whistler bid team, led by Arthur Griffiths and his team."

Recognizing that the goal of the Olympic movement is to build a peaceful and better world by educating the youth of the world through sport practised without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding promoted by friendship, solidarity and fair play….

That's for the record. But it started well before this announcement. You know, except for the cancelled Olympics in Denver in the 1970s, there was a lobby to bring the games to Whistler because Denver pulled out at the last second, but we weren't quite ready then.

I'm sure there were many contributing sources who will tell you how these games came about, but my awareness converges in the early 1990s. I have with me an original proposal sent to the government of the day in October 1995. At first it suggested a summer Olympiad, namely because of the need of a thought of a one location logistic dynamic centred in Vancouver, as opposed to stretching out that infrastructure. It considered other venues — which, in hindsight, may have been the way to go, but here we are today. But this is where the seed was planted.

There are some nuggets of insight in its form. I want to look at the proposal that government received and share it with you. "The licence to promote the world's first sustainable tourist economy is through the Olympic world stage. Yes, we can stage Olympics. Yes, it can be debt-free." That is how it was prefaced.

"Downturns in primary resource economies have encouraged the provincial economic planning strategy of diversifying, including the fostering of a larger tourist economy." "Downturns in primary resource economies have encouraged a provincial economic planning strategy of diversifying."

Interesting. Downturns in resource economies in 1995 never foresaw the devastating situation we have with this government of a 60 percent drop in forestry output in one year alone.

[1515]

What we've witnessed is a loss of $2 billion worth of surplus revenue from the forest industry today. We now, of course, see this phoney wood-first policy being announced by this government.

But let's take us back to 1995. Back then this was seen as a vehicle to enhance our forest industry, to give you one aspect of the nature of this proposal — now, not even enough. We do not even see enough to pay from the forest industry for the forest industry alone, the ministry itself. It's been a complete disaster. Things are much worse today than they were in the 1990s.

I quote further from this proposal. "Downturns in primary resource economies have encouraged a provincial economic planning strategy of diversifying, including the fostering of a larger tourist economy." That was the general premise of the proposal in 1995 — fostering a larger tourist economy.

What has happened today? We're seeing the complete cut, the gutting of Tourism B.C. It's been expunged. Now is the time we should be rallying for the tourist dollar for the future, and we have cut it to its core. It's gone. What a lost opportunity, of course. I won't go on much longer about the budget cuts to the ministry responsible for tourism as well, but it's been devastating.

Back to the report. "Supernatural British Columbia, 1995, offers the world a clean recreational playground." I have to think about the ongoing pollution in my community, the South Fraser perimeter road, the freeways, the carbon, the loss of passive recreation, the cuts to the ministry where our parks are now falling apart. Of course, let's not forget about Cypress Mountain and the carbon footprint in order to move snow.

I go back to the report. Vancouver "is a world-class tourist centre and has the capacity of hosting the Olympics." Well, will it become a world-class tourist centre when we are losing our cruise ship industry to Seattle? We built a whole brand-new pier. Will it be filled with cruise ships?

Speaking of cruise ships, and I quote this report of 1995: "In this growing tourist-based economy, Vancouver offers hotels, grand and small, elegant and affordable, with the capacity to expand in hotel availability and the aid of a harbour facilitating cruise ships. Barcelona found an additional 2,500 hotel rooms through cruise ships."

It was a suggestion way back then, but as we know, Barcelona did it. Yet we couldn't even organize a cruise ship that could look after and help provide for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

"The new expanded international airport testifies to Vancouver's growth as a destination centre and its accessibility to the world." Here we are later with a billion dollars spent on YVR improvement fees. A billion dollars went into it, and you know, when you get through security, you can't find a chair to get re-dressed, to sit down and put your shoes back on — a billion dollars. I think that some place they call it…. It's not a word, but I call it recombobulation — when you have the ability to get re-dressed and look after yourself. An expanded airport has accessibility to the world, but we're also seeing smaller airport closures.

Back to the report. It recognizes "a choice of ethnic restaurants, unmatched anywhere, provides Vancouverites with one of the richest food provisions and cuisine experiences in the world." Yet we see the ministry ActNow, or the ministry of broccoli, whereby a $100,000 is spent annually on junk food. I mean, check out Public Accounts. It's quite a hypocrisy. In fact, they're gutting that ministry as we speak.

The proposal lists available venues, including convention centres — plural. Boy, whoever thought of that one? I don't know if that was a good idea, but they did. They're way ahead of it. GM Place and B.C. Place, etc., and its cultural and arts capacities. It did not, of course, anticipate Intrawest and Fortress and the bankruptcy issues because it wasn't necessarily contemplated then.

It questioned the need for B.C. Place to conform to standards. Now that's kind of a little foreshadowing way back in 1995. Of course, you know what happened to B.C. Place, and we're going to be seeing the bulldozers very shortly. There was a suggestion then that we should be putting money into it. How could the author possibly have known about a needed roof repair way back in 1995? Maybe the author was Kreskin. I don't know, but it's amazing.

[1520]

"The building of an Olympic village in southeast False Creek." The concept was there, way back then. How could the study have guessed it back in 1995? It went on to say: "A plan may be initiated to reclaim the southeast foreshore of False Creek, currently zoned industrial." Here was the catch: an Olympic village "may provide future low-cost housing in east Mount Pleasant." That was the concept, not gentrification. That was the vision that started this whole thing.

Yes, we were going to put money into infrastructure. But it was going to be for everybody, not major corporations and major developers. Interesting how the Olympic village was created for a need for social housing, and it's now being displaced. People are being displaced. The poor are being displaced through huge mega condominium projects. Now, of course, we have seen the privatization — P3s, the village, etc., — and how the price has gone up.

Here's something else the study said: "The cost of staging should be under serious examination." Serious examination means complete, open, transparent auditing. Today we have an impasse between the Auditor General and the government's comptroller general arguing over what the actual costs are. Should the Sea to Sky Highway be part of it? The government says no, and yet the members opposite talk about how wonderful it is because of the Olympics.

Security costs. Of course, it didn't anticipate 9/11, but we certainly knew about what happened in Munich. It went on to warn: "The cost to stage an Olympics should be under serious examination. The major problem of rising costs of each games is based on national regional pride, which attempts to outdo former host cities. On such a world stage, showmanship can be a costly endeavour." It's a warning sign. I don't think we adhered to it.

But you know, the Premier gives us the true costs. Will he give us the true costs of his travel when it's all over? The tickets spent not only by various Crown corporations but by the government itself? The costs of recreational dining, the jet set executive costs, the hidden costs — are we going to find those out? The costs of your face, the government's face, before that of the athletes?

This show is not supposed to be about the Premier or the members opposite or even the members here. A few original intuitive letters to get the games going by people who were thinking about putting the city, the province, the athletes, tourism and the people ahead of politicians — not this personal dog-and-pony show that we've been witnessing for the last year.

I quote from the study, October 1995: "Vancouver and B.C. already offer the world an Olympic Games program in a modern, natural setting." We have it, but did we garner and did we plan an Olympics around this advantage?

The Premier lets the people in their natural settings sell…. He thinks he can sell the games. I talked about the Premier zipping along clotheslines, but it's all for cameras. The marketing of the games should be done by the athletes and children, the families, the people — not photo ops for politicians.

Quote from the report: "The Vancouver games can provide a cost-effective, no-frills debt-free, back-to-basics Olympics." That was a recommendation. That was the goal — a cost-effective, no-frills, debt-free and back-to-basics Olympics. That's what the NDP government heard.

How many working families will be able to afford this escapade debt-free? Corporate sponsors are here to make billions of dollars. Who will pay for most of it for the rest of their lives? The people of B.C., the young — that's the legacy, Mr. Premier. It's the young who will pay for this.

The original premise was to be cost-effective, and yet our citizens are in gurneys lined up along hospital hallways and emergency rooms. You want to know what prophetic words mean? Check this out. I quote from the report: "British Columbians will not tolerate an Olympics that will leave taxpayers picking up the tab." That was the social contract when it was being contemplated.

"British Columbians will not tolerate an Olympics that will leave taxpayers picking up the tab." Where are we today? The report cites the 1976 Montreal Olympics only recently paid off. It's 30 years later.

"The legacy is one of a billion-dollar debt to Canadian taxpayers whereby large profits were earned by banks, entrepreneurs, developers, construction companies, advertising agencies, etc." That was a quote within the article of the political economy of the Montreal Olympic Games from the Sports and Social Issues Journal, 1978.

[1525]

It was all laid out there. Why didn't we do our homework? Yet the throne speech stretches the truth by stating: "Every Olympic venue was completed a year ahead of schedule and on budget." Oh my lord.

The Auditor General takes issue with this, of course, and so do the people of B.C. We know what happened at the convention centre — half a billion dollars overrun. There's a misconception — isn't there? The report to the government back in 1995 states: "Public support for the games will be determined by costs to the taxpayer." Picking up the tab — $8 billion. I don't think that was in the plan.

As the throne speech states, over the next two weeks our government is "hosting dozens of events to engage more than 9,000 top-level business leaders, potential investors and dignitaries from around the world." Potential investors.

During the fall session the Liberal government refused to answer calls to table their plan for using taxpayer-funded dollars for Olympic tickets to host dignitaries and business leaders during the Olympics. Tell that to the thousands who are waiting for surgery because they cancelled surgeries during the Olympics.

Or the cuts to Sport B.C. during the post-Olympic provincial budget. We're going to foresee — these are not prophetic words; I have it on the q.t. — that the government is going to cut Sport B.C., the people that they're trying to promote, after the games. We're going $29 million to $26 million, and in 2011 it'll be down to $11 million. They're going to just completely slash it.

The taxpayers will be subsidizing a party for others while PricewaterhouseCoopers equates the amount of the stimulus generated through our GDP at 0.15 percent. The Sauder school of economics at UBC confirmed the same position.

VANOC — this is from their report — should be an organization with the "province supplying small initial startup subsidies whereby the government can regain revenues." That was the initiative. That was the plan.

Talking about startup costs. Did the Olympic budget ever get away on us. Ella Fitzgerald said it best. "It isn't where you come from, baby. It's where you're going that counts."

I can't blame the visionaries or the previous governments who initiated a wonderful idea, but I have to question the lack of business acumen by the bunch across from us. The taxpayers of B.C. are going to pay. They are going to pay, and their grandchildren are going to pay.

This is no L.A. or Atlanta games. Why I mention Atlanta is because it built its games around existing infrastructure with no frills. But if the auditors get their hands on this Olympic ledger, we will see another Montreal boondoggle.

Anyway, the report found its way to the government, and as the Province reporter Kent Gilchrist wrote way back on January 4, 1996: "When the blazer brigade is stepping forward to accept the credit for hosting Olympics at the closing ceremonies in a waterfront stadium on the shores of False Creek, few will remember where or by whom the idea was first presented." The blue-blazer brigade has become the B.C. Liberal government's billboard, a political marketing tool that has gone awry.

I've recently become acquainted with the author of the report, and his modesty is such that I don't think he really wants to be named.

Gilchrist goes on: "Long forgotten will be the author who wrote a six-page Olympic bid proposal way back in November of 1995 to get the wheels in motion." That was even before NBC had put together the blockbuster television deal with the Olympics of Atlanta in 1996.

[C. Trevena in the chair.]

What happened to the idea of the non-blazer brigade, the conceptualist? I know Vaughn Palmer referenced today about the $8 billion and how it started in 1997 and 1996. I have a letter here from the hon. Colin Gabelmann dated February 7, 1996. He announced for the first time, because of what this report said, that the government of the day was going to form a Vancouver Olympic Games study committee report to the Premier.

I guess I'm going to end by saying that you can start off with great ideas, but sometimes they get lost. What's important is that you can have people who disagree with them, but the very people who embrace them and at the end of the day say it was their idea.... You know you've won the day.

[1530]

I guess I'll end it by saying this. Long forgotten will be a B.C. Transit driver — I can't name him, because he's sitting here — who wrote a six-page Olympic bid proposal way back in 1995 to get the wheels in motion.