Olympic Weasel Update

No one would willingly create the economic disaster that the Olympics brings. Montreal was in debt debt for a generation. Every city victimized by the IOC forms the path of wreckage all the way up to the Vancouver 2010. The Liberals pushed for the games and spent millions of known dollars winning the bid. They pledged that this Olympics would not see massive disruption and that it would stay in the black. Big corporate sponsors like Nortel pledged to support them. This would create jobs, not destroy jobs. The Olympics would be a benefit to all communities in BC.
Flash forward to 2009. This from Global TV--

...for up to two months next year, meaning thousands of people from small B.C. communities will likely not be able to fly directly into the city.

Daryl Smith, CEO of Pacific Coastal Airlines, said Monday that flights coming from communities such as Powell River, Bella Bella, Port Hardy and Trail will not be deemed secure enough to fly into into YVR during a two-month period surrounding the Olympic and Paralympic Games...

...Smith said he has been told these restrictions will be in effect from Jan. 29, 2010 to March 24, 2010....

...Smith said it will cost his organization an estimated $1 million to adapt to the changes if they are in effect for two months, as he said he’s been told. He added that for his airline alone, the changes are likely to affect about 14 flights per day, and potentially 10,000 passengers over the two months.

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An internal staff memo uncovered Monday reveals that Vancouver’s Hastings Racecourse will lay off 200 workers for just over a month next year because it has been forced to close during the Olympic Games.

“Since we are located within the Hastings Park Olympic footprint, a restricted area, the various Olympic committees have forbidden us from operating from February 1 to March 2 of 2010,” reads a memo written last week by Raj Mutti, general manager of the racecourse.

Dated March 4, the memo was leaked to the New Democratic Party, which gave it to reporters on Monday.

Mutti would not speak to the media Monday, instead referring calls to Howard Blank, spokesman for the Great Canadian Gaming Corporation.

Blank said the company has known “for some time” it may have to close during the Olympics, adding the decision was finalized last week.

Blank said Hastings Racecourse would normally run its food and beverage facilities, simulcast betting facility and 600 slot-machine casino during the month it must now close.

He said he has not been told explicitly that the closure is due to security....

...Finance Minister Colin Hansen, also minister responsible for the Olympics, said the 200 workers from Hastings Racecourse are mostly food and beverage workers (translation: they're poor and so they either don't vote or they vote NDP, so tom-ay-to tom-ah-to) and he believes they will be able to get similar jobs with other companies looking to hire during the Olympics. (I hear that any alcoholic could do the job of Finance Minister so they all have a shot at an unenviable job).

Here's a great bit from the Squamish Chief. Likely no community will get more screwed than Squamish. They won't get the benefits of Whistler or snow covered Vancouver (hah!). All they'll get is traffic delays and highway accidents.