Haiti’s reconstruction must be shaped by Haitian hands

Statement of the Canada Haiti Action Network

In the wake of the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12, genuine solidarity for the people of Haiti has become even more critical. The loss of lives, the hundreds of thousands of sick and injured, the destruction of housing and infrastructure, all of these enormous problems constitute an unprecedented disaster in a country whose population is among the most vulnerable on the planet. This tragedy has provoked a strong reaction of compassion among millions of people around the world, all sharing a desire to help and to offer support for the urgent needs of the Haitian people.

In particular, we note the remarkable contributions made by medical and emergency assistance agencies, including Partners in Health/Zanmi Lasante, Médecins Sans Frontières, and the many medical brigades provided by the Government of Cuba. Throughout this crisis, the Haitian people have responded with great dignity and solidarity – though the international media has all too rarely reported on this. Such dignity is especially impressive given the unspeakable neglect they have suffered since the earthquake.
In contrast to this powerful human response within Haiti and around the globe, the group described in the mainstream media as the “Friends of Haiti” – including the governments of Canada, the US, France, and Brazil – has been anything but. The failure of the aid effort has been due in large part to its militarization.

The “Friends” group appears to operate with an irrational fear and disdain for the Haitian people. They are preparing a coordinated “reconstruction” process for Haiti that will once again see powerful, non-Haitian decision-makers setting the course, within a context structured by military occupation and a “charity” model of assistance.

This neglect follows a pattern. An embargo on financial assistance to Haiti’s elected government from 2000 to 2004 was followed by its violent overthrow on February 29, 2004.  This coup d’état was carried out by a paramilitary uprising with political and military backing from the U.S., Canada and France. A two-year regime characterized by its grave human rights violations was appointed by foreign powers, with the blessing of the UN Security Council. A Security Council-authorized police and military mission has played a preponderant role in Haiti’s affairs ever since.

The aid and financial embargo continues to this day. Haiti’s president René Préval has remarked on this to foreign media since the earthquake. He has complained that the aid money flowing into the country is not being directed either towards existing Haitian institutions or to creating the new ones that will be required.

The Canada Haiti Action Network is deeply concerned about the observable trends in Haiti since the earthquake. We are expressing our concerns to the appropriate authorities. We will continue to urge upon them the following principles to guide the aid and reconstruction effort in Haiti. We invite readers of this statement to do likewise.

1.  Respect for Haiti’s sovereignty and a Haitian-led crisis response and reconstruction – While the January 25 Montreal Reconstruction Conference saw many leaders of the “Friends of Haiti” governments paying lip service to these concepts, it is nonetheless clear that Haitian voices, and most significantly the Government of Haiti itself, have been consistently sidelined in these discussions. Clearly, any meaningful reconstruction and development process in Haiti will require a central, decision-making role for its government and social organizations, and a dedicated and well resourced effort to build, re-build, and greatly expand Haiti’s public sector and governmental capacity. All pressures on the Haitian government from the Government of Canada and other “Friends” to further privatize Haiti’s public enterprises must be firmly rejected.

2.  Opposition to militarization of relief and humanitarian assistance – The fact that Haiti was already occupied by a 9,000 strong Security Council-sanctioned military force (known by its acronym MINUSTAH) did not stop the United States government from quickly dispatching 20,000 marines of their own and seizing the Port-au-Prince airport. The Government of Canada followed this by sending 2,000 troops of its own. As is now widely known, this military control has been a major contributor to the failure to reach vast numbers of earthquake victims with urgently needed relief supplies and medical aid. The obsessive foreign concern about “looting” and “security” has proven to be inaccurate and an impediment to the relief effort. Relief activities must be de-militarized and they must be fully coordinated and overseen by the Haitian government and its agencies. All foreign NGOs and agencies should be put at the service of these local authorities and should assist them to build the appropriate structures, as needed.

3.  Demand for absolute and unconditional debt cancellation for Haiti – While more and more national and international agencies have come to recognize that Haiti’s debt is not only odious but also a choking obstacle to its recovery and development, the International Monetary Fund and other key multilateral lenders continue to resist efforts to cancel it.  Under the circumstances of the earthquake crisis, there can be no justification for Haiti sending vitally-needed funds to foreign banks.

4.  Support for the settlement of the international debts owed to Haiti – Another major contributor to the serious inadequacy of Haiti’s infrastructure and its dire economic circumstances is the odious “debt” imposed on Haiti by France in the early nineteenth century under direct military threat and as a condition of establishing diplomatic and economic ties to the newly-independent republic. From 1825 to 1947, Haiti paid some $21 billion in current dollars to France as compensation for the loss of “property” of French slave plantation owners. The immorality of this extortionate debt has always been clear to the people of Haiti.  Natural justice requires that these extorted funds be returned.

5.  An appeal for immediate adaptation measures by Immigration Canada – The federal government must immediately recognize the dramatically changed circumstances faced by the Haitian community in Canada and those in Haiti needing access to family, support, and medical care. Such measures must include the extension of eligibility for family sponsorship to siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins and adult children and temporary waiver of sponsorship application fees (as has been applied in comparable emergency situations). The admissibility rules for family reunification must also include the issuing of temporary-resident permits to allow the processing of such cases in Canada rather than in Haiti, as has been established in Haiti’s tiny Caribbean neighbour state of Antigua.

For more information, please see: www.canadahaitiaction.ca, www.haitianalysis.com and http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/.

This opinion piece was originally published by the Canadian Haiti Action Network (CHAN) on February 28, 2010: http://canadahaitiaction.ca/. CHAN is an information and action network that coordinates the work of Haiti solidarity committees in cities across Canada.

Bursary or Bribe?

Anti-choice organizations are offering money to single parents at some Canadian universities. Is this coming soon to a campus near you?

Nora Loreto, Editor-in-Chief

Helping single mothers can give any organization positive press, and a great photo opportunity, too.
The anti-choice movement, not normally associated with the struggle against the systemic barriers facing many low-income single parents, has recently caught on to this. Single mothers can now benefit from bursaries offered by anti-choice groups at some universities.

But many are concerned that this is simply a way of “guilting” women into not having an abortion. These bursaries, ranging from $400 to $500, amount to ten per cent of one year’s average tuition fees, or a month’s rent.

Jaqueline Bergen is a student in critical disability studies at York University and a mother of a nine-year-old.

“[These bursaries are] sending out a message to young women who may consider having a child while being a student that you will be financially supported…this is an illusion,” she said in an email. “There are still very limited amounts of funding available for women or men who choose to parent while doing their education.”

Laura Collison, an alumna of the University of Alberta and a volunteer for the feminist collective campus news radio show Adamant Eve, called these bursaries manipulative. “I appreciate that they’re supporting women with education, but this is not a feminist act. It seems like they’re paying women to keep their pregnancies.

“If these groups were really concerned about how women could afford university, they’d be involved in advocating for lower tuition, child care…and a higher minimum wage,” she said.

For Bergen, “Getting subsidized daycare was the big one that really gave me the opportunity to form a life…attend school, and have some time to clean the house…there were many times where the rent was behind several months, my tuition is rarely fully paid…My biggest source of ‘help’ has been from my mother who is my daughter’s ‘other‘ parent and the greatest source of love and support.”

At Collison’s alma mater, the anti-choice club offers the Charlotte Denman Lozier Bursary for Single Mothers, for women with “born or unborn children.” The club’s website advertises the award as being funded through club fundraising, and the Archdiocese of Edmonton’s Go Life Extravaganza seems to be its primary funding source.

On Saturday, March 6, the Extravaganza will feature a semi-formal with “cocktails, musical performances, dinner, dance, silent auction, and an address from Archbishop Richard Smith.” A portion of the $60 ticket ($40 for students/youth) will be donated to the Charlotte Denman Lozier Bursary.

Similar awards are available at other schools. Just below the UNBC Math & Physics Society Scholarship on the awards and bursaries website for the University of Northern British Columbia, is an award for single parents. Donated by the local Knights of Columbus, the Catholic men’s organization, the UNBC Students for Life Bursary has been given away for the past two years.

At St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, a Students for Life Bursary is given annually to single parents with demonstrated need.

“If you’re opposed to abortion, you should be very for this [award],” said Anne Cooke, Administrative Assistant at St. Francis Xavier’s financial aid department.

“It encourages young mothers to carry their children to term,” she said, adding that the community there is very welcoming, and that people are available to help women whether their pregnancies were planned or unplanned.

“It’s not trying to influence women or anyone about abortion; it’s just for people who’ve already made their decision,” she added.

Joyce Arthur, from the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, said that she has noticed an increase in the number of groups seeking funding and status from student unions for clubs that are specifically anti-choice. While she thought providing money to help single parents was important, she questioned the motives of the groups.

In early February, the Senate at the University of Victoria rejected the proposal of Youth Protecting Youth (YPY), the local pro-life group, for a similar bursary. YPY has been engaged in a public fight against the University of Victoria Student Society (UVSS) for club recognition and funding from the pro-choice students’ union.

Through e-mail, Theresa Gilbert from the National Campus Life Network (NCLN) said that she was disappointed to hear that the YPY bursary was denied. “Many people and organizations claim to be pro-choice… However, when universities steadfastly refuse to offer any additional support to single mothers, it becomes very difficult for a woman to choose to raise her child, complete her education and manage the costs that are involved with both endeavours.

“Universities across Canada need to recognize the additional difficulties that these student parents face and provide some additional support (bursaries, on campus day-care, rest/nursing facilities etc.) before universities can truly claim to be ‘pro-choice’ when it comes to unplanned pregnancies.”

Abortion has proven to be a tough issue to take on for students’ unions and university administrations alike. Those students’ unions that take a pro-choice position have found themselves up against an onslaught of an organized anti-choice movement. A year ago, the University of Calgary charged students from the local anti-choice group with trespassing for demonstrating how abortion can be compared to the Holocaust and other genocides. Their charges were stayed in November, 2009.

At Ryerson, student clubs can form for just about any reason. Campus clubs, however, must operate within a framework that is determined by decision-making bodies of the Ryerson Students’ Union (RSU) or the Continuing Education Students’ Association of Ryerson (CESAR). Similar to other campuses, student unions set policies, and clubs either operate within the scope of these policies, or exist without official recognition.
Clubs policies allow students to self-organize. In some cases, like Hillel @ Ryerson and the Catholic Student Association, external funding and resources are available from organizations within the broader Jewish and Catholic communities respectively. For most clubs, such supports don’t exist, and students rely on the funding of the students’ union.

This is where controversy exists: on many campuses across Canada, student clubs dedicated to only advocating for so-called life issues – no abortion, no euthanasia and no stem cell research – have been popping up. This poses a real dilemma for those students’ unions that are progressive and brave enough to take pro-choice stands.

The NCLN support students who form pro-life clubs on campus. They provide posters, newspaper inserts and a list of speakers for campus events. They offer sample constitutions, a sample budget, sign-up sheets for volunteers and ads that promote the next meeting. They offer templates for press releases, letters to the editor to refute anti-choice positions, and fundraising letters. They also employ full-time staff (including organizers in western and eastern Canada), organize national leadership training events, and provide clubs with a sample of activities to undertake in each month from August to March.

Despite this organizational capacity, and the apparent financial resources to sustain bursaries, pro-life clubs still seek official recognition from local student unions. Ryerson doesn’t have a pro-life club; the most recent attempt of one forming was in 2003.

NCLN does not appear to be centrally coordinating these bursaries, but pro-choice activists should be prepared for the expansion of these awards. The Charlotte Denman Lozier Bursary for Single Mothers at the U of A was established just last October.

Bergen’s daughter was three when she started school again, and she continues to struggle to finish her Master’s. “I have had an extremely difficult time financially getting through school. I am always broke, she said. “Tuition eats up about 25 to 30 percent of my annual income. I have been mostly dependent on social assistance, which I am not that ashamed of. I was unable to get OSAP…I got some special bursaries from York because I have a disability. I get the Canada Child Tax Benefit.

“It’s great if single mothers can graduate and have support to do that,” said Arthur. “It’s not great to make them feel guilty.”

The fight for Insite

Nicole Brewer

Imagine saving 700 lives. Or, maybe, first imagine taking them. That’s like wiping out 35 hockey teams, or two average-sized elementary schools. Insite, North America’s first supervised injection site, averted almost 700 deaths by overdose in only three years thanks to the onsite staff of medical professionals and supervisors.

A supervised (safe) injection site is a location for drug users to inject their own drugs in a clean, safe environment while under the supervision of trained medical staff. First aid and wound care is available on site for users, as well as nurses and councillors to provide referrals to other medical services such as addiction treatment, primary health care and mental health providers.

Located in downtown Vancouver, Insite was established in September 2003 to serve four overlapping purposes. According to its web page on the Vancouver Coastal Health website, the safe injection site hoped to improve public order and reduce the number of injections taking place in public, thus stabilising the community. It aims to stop the spread of infectious diseases such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV/AIDS.

Through education and attention to hygiene, the site also aimed to stabilise drug users’ health. Finally, Insite wanted to form relationships with its clients and encourage them to access healthcare services such as addiction treatment.

In 2001, the Canadian Medical Association found that about 100,000 Canadians were injection drug users, with approximately one-third of those people living in Toronto, Vancouver, or Montreal. In 2007, an informational brochure circulated by Vancouver Coastal Health stated that Vancouver is home to about 12,000 injection drug users – that’s half the number of students at Ryerson. Of Vancouver’s drug users, more than 4,000 of them are living in the downtown eastside: the poorest neighbourhood in the city and one of the poorest in Canada.

Unlike Vancouver, Toronto’s drug users are not concentrated in one area. This observation has led to doubts as to whether a safe injection site would have the same positive effect in Toronto as it did in Vancouver’s downtown eastside. Dr. Ahmed Bayoumi, a clinician scientist at St. Michael’s Hospital, is a principal investigator in a study currently being conducted to determine whether there is a need for a supervised injection site in Toronto. The study is being conducted by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health at St. Michael’s Hospital, and Bayoumi says that results are expected to be out in the spring of this year.

Eric Single, the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse’s director of policy and research, defines harm reduction as “a policy or program directed towards decreasing adverse health, social and economi consequences of drug use even though the user continues to use psychoactive drugs at the present time.”  Safe injection sites have been started up all around the world to focus on harm reduction, and for as long as they have been in place, they have been studied. Since its opening, Insite has been subjected to vigorous third-party evaluation by the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS: one of the world’s leading research organisations.

Substance Abuse and Treatment writes that Insite has not led to an increase in drug-related crime, and that in fact vehicle break-ins and thefts have significantly decreased. The Canadian Medical Association Journal states that the safe injection site has also been found to have reduced the number of people injecting in public and the amount of injection-related litter in the community. According to The Lancet, 70 per cent of those who used the safe injection site were less likely to share syringes, thus reducing the risk of spreading blood-borne diseases.

Comprehensive community support was needed in order to open the safe injection site in Vancouver.

Partners included Vancouver Coastal Health, the Vancouver Police Department, the City of Vancouver, and the Office of the Provincial Health Officer. Similarly, a safe injection site in Toronto would need public, governmental and legal support. But Detective Lawrence Ratchford of the Toronto Drug Squad says that “the Service does not support a safe injection site.” Instead, it supports harm prevention and reduction “through education, direct contact in the community [and] enforcement.”

In 2003, the Canadian Medical Association Journal published an article outlining a study performed in 2000 by the Vancouver Injection Drug User Study (VIDUS). This study observed the effectiveness of one of Canada’s largest heroin seizures, and found it to have no difference in the amount of drug use or the availability of drugs. The price of heroin actually went down after the seizure, suggesting that other shipments had compensated for the seizure. The seizure was also found to have no impact on the amount of deaths from overdose.

Elsewhere in the world, cities have tackled their drug problems by installing supervised injection sites. In 2003, the Drug and Alcohol Review published an article regarding safe injection sites across Europe. It was found that 59 sites were operating in Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Australia, up from 45 in 2000. Clients of a facility in Hamburg, Germany reported being more conscious of hygiene and cleanliness since visiting, injecting less often in public, and taking more time when doing so. Positive feedback also came from the Rotterdam facility in the Netherlands, with over three-quarters of clients reporting a decrease of using in public, and more than half paying more attention to cleanliness and injecting in a safer, calmer way.

Vince Cain, once British Columbia’s chief coroners, said it best: “We have to disabuse ourselves of the notion that jail is the answer for users. Neither short sentences [nor] long sentences…mean anything to the user. We have to establish alternatives to imprisonment. The cyclical process must end… The money spent on policing, sentencing, and serving time would be much better spent on curing the causes, rather than labouring over the symptoms.”

Mortgages and Harper’s ‘pre-emptive’ bank bailout

P.R. Wright

For months, a chorus of voices has been warning Ottawa that Canada is in the midst of a housing bubble, not unlike the housing bubble that preceded the US mortgage meltdown, and triggered the near-collapse of the global financial system.

In response, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced new measures to “prevent Canadian households from getting overextended and to prevent some lenders from facilitating it.” But some critics argue that the measures are akin to splashing a glass of water onto a fire after you poured gasoline over tinder and set it ablaze.

Worries about a housing bubble stem from the seemingly unstoppable rise in housing prices, coupled with record low interest rates where growing numbers of home-buyers and speculators are purchasing homes with as little as five per cent down, variable interests rates, and mortgage payments spread out  over 35 years. As the buyers surpass sellers, home prices are bid upward.

Rising home prices are prompting cash-strapped households to refinance—with banks lending up to 95 per cent of the now inflated value of the property. Given the current period of jobless recovery, wage stagnation, and widely expected interest rate hikes, some analysts worry that the risk of mortgage-defaults is growing. Others worry that once the housing bubble bursts, prices will fall, leaving borrowers with debt-loads much greater than the dropping value of their home.

Flaherty’s three basic modifications—to take effect April 19 this year—are nothing, if not modest.
First, to be eligible for a 35-year mortgage, borrowers must be able to qualify for a more standard, five-year fixed-rate loan. If borrowers qualify, they can still opt for the 35-year, variable-rate mortgage.
Second, those re-financing can borrow 90 per cent of the appraised value of their home—down from 95 per cent.

And finally, if the residence being purchased is not a primary dwelling (meaning you don’t actually plan on living in it), then the down payment must be 20 per cent. Ostensibly, this latter measure is to temper speculation—or flipping.

The real estate industry and the banks all breathed a sigh of relief when Flaherty unveiled his changes, finding them to be “about right.”

But this isn’t the whole story.

In 2006, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC, a Crown corporation) was the first to insure loans with extended amortization periods of up to 30 years. Within months, it announced it would insure mortgages paid over 35 years. And by 2007, CMHC was insuring 40-year mortgages.

Extending the amortization period means borrowers pay less on a monthly basis, but pay for a longer period of time. Some say extending the repayment period from 25 to 40 years triples the amount of interest a paid to the bank. (This is the same phenomenon that students decry when it comes to income-contingent student loan repayment schemes—those with the most modest incomes pay the most in interest.)

And while the monthly payment is lower, banks can still maintain—and expand—their monthly revenue stream by getting even more people into the scheme. The drive to increase the numbers of borrowers explains why the CMHC also introduced a new “mortgage product” in mid-2006: the interest-only loan.
In this scheme, borrowers pay only interest on their loan for the first ten years, at which point the payments on the principal kicks in.

As a result, more and more people flooded to home-ownership as a more affordable alternative to renting. New entrants to the housing market kept housing prices soaring at a rate of nearly 10 per cent per year. According to Canadian Business Online, house prices increased nearly three times faster than did income and nearly five times faster than employment increased.

The Canadian Real Estate Association predicts that in 2010 house prices will hit a record average price of $337,500.

Total mortgage debts swelled from $431 billion in 2000 to $871 billion in 2008—just as the waves of the global financial crisis were lapping at Canadian shores. Nervous Canadian banks reduced the maximum mortgage-repayment period from 40 to 35 years.

And in the fall of 2008—just as Harper was proclaiming that “Canada’s fundamentals were solid”—Flaherty was quietly helping Canadian banks unload billions of dollars worth of risky mortgages from their books under Canada’s new “Insured Mortgage Purchase Program” (IMPP).

Under this scheme, Canadian banks could choose to auction their risky mortgage packages to the CMHC in exchange for cash, proffered up by the public purse. Simply put: Harper and Flaherty engineered a pre-emptive bank bailout.

Here’s how a March 2009 parliamentary research paper (International Affairs, Trade and Finance Division) explained the IMPP:

“Under the IMPP, the government proposes to purchase these mortgages from financial institutions. More specifically, through CMHC, the government intends to buy National Housing Act Mortgage-Backed Securities (NHA MBS), a kind of bond for which the underlying asset is a pool of mortgage loans guaranteed by CMHC. In exchange, financial institutions will receive a cash payment that they may use to make new loans to consumers and businesses…

“The NHA MBS bonds purchased by the CMHC consist of pools of mortgages already guaranteed by CMHC against default. As a result, the risk of default by a mortgage holder is already borne by CMHC, whether the mortgage appears on the balance sheet of a financial institution or that of the government of Canada.”
In other words, the debt no longer appears on the banks’ balance sheets—but rather, the government of Canada’s. It makes the banks’ financial statements look better, and the public’s financial situation worse.

This slight of hand allowed Canadian banks to reward themselves with hefty bonuses and continue with reckless lending practices without fear.

When Flaherty first announced the IMPP in October 2008, the “program envelope” was $25 billion. In November, it was $75 billion. By the time the 2009 Federal Budget was tabled, the funding envelope had ballooned to $125 billion and the program was expanded until March 31, 2010.

Thanks to such business acumen, Canada’s top six banks reported record profits in each of the years 2005, 2006, and 2007. And while records weren’t set in 2008, Canada’s top six banks still reported total profit in excess of $14 billion—despite the global recession. Already in 2010, so great were the first quarter profits for the Royal Bank of Canada that president and CEO Gordon M. Nixon was prompted to state: “These results reflect the strength of our Canadian businesses and demonstrate the value of our diversified business model. We earned over $1 billion this quarter for our shareholders, notwithstanding market impacts.”
In the meantime, a new report by the Vanier Institute on Family Finances shows Canada’s families have been hit hard by the economic crisis and jobless recovery. According to the report, aggregate wages shrank in 2009 and bankruptcies climbed. The debt-to-income ratio (which includes mortgage and credit card debt) hit an all-time high of 145 per cent. In other words, people owe nearly fifty per cent more than what they bring in, suggesting that 1.3 million households could have a vulnerable or dangerously high debt service load by the end of 2011.

To make matters worse, Andrew Jackson, an economist with the Canadian Labour Congress, predicts that half a million workers will exhaust their Employment Insurance (EI) benefits in 2010.

And while workers have contributed at least $57 billion more in EI contributions than they have received in benefits, the Harper government has refused to make meaningful changes in the system that would extend the duration of benefits and improve access to the program, claiming Canada’s finances could ill afford such expenditure.

No wonder. Harper and Flaherty have given it all to the banks!

Finance department data shows that so far, the Harper government has handed the banks $66 billion under the Insured Mortgage Purchasing Program between October 2008 and February 2010. As we go to press, the financial sector is lobbying intensively for the government to extend the life of the IMPP until March 2011, just to be sure the banks will be “okay.”

After the Games: B.C. hangover begins

Am Johal

Budget Day in B.C. hit like a brick yesterday. After all the empty patriotism and uncritical headlines in Vancouver mainstream media that glossed over eight years of democratic distortion, which approached neo-authoritarianism at times, the sad reality of Olympic opportunity costs are about to hit daylight.

Axe to the arts

After unpacking the numbers, it looked like the arts and cultural sector is facing a 50 per cent cut which will result in job losses, less cultural events and the demise of several organizations which have decades of history in the province. After seeing the bloated presentations of the opening and closing ceremonies, the axe to the arts is devastating precisely at a time when the sector was reaching a new level of maturity and organizational excellence. These cuts will completely undermine long term organizational planning in the sector and push many organizations in to triage. The sad reality on the ground is that many of our most important voices will simply be forced to move elsewhere.

Increase in public debt and decrease in public services—reality check
Provincial debt will be boosted to $56 billion from the current $41 billion over the next three years - a whopping increase of 35.4 per cent since 2001 when provincial debt was $36.1 billion. The carrying costs of the debt will increase with higher interest rates and be a futher drain on operating funding in future years. The inability of government or financial analysts to look at opportunity costs for the games was completely irrational from the outset.

We have yet to see a proper cost/benefit analysis for the Olympics. In fact, it’s never been done - not even by the $2 million Pricewaterhouse Coopers report. The initial estimates of between 118,000 to 228,000 jobs created by the 2010 Olympics and the economic impact of between $5.7 billion and $10 billion that was released during the bid process are one of the great works of fiction in BC economic history.
Incidentally, the bid boosters wanted to say that the Trade and Convention Centre should not be included in the costs of the Olympics, but wanted to include the economic benefits that were associated with the project. Under the economic model used by bid boosters, cost-overruns were viewed as a contribution to GDP.

There will be an 11 per cent reduction in the provincial public service over the next three years which will see 4,142 fewer employees by 2013. There will be a 9.11 per cent rate hike for BC Hydro. Taxes will be downloaded to citizens, disproportionately impacting low and middle income people, particularly with the HST, the carbon tax and hikes to medical premiums. There will be a $198 million cut to the Ministry of Forests. This year alone, there will be a $1.7 billion deficit.

Was the $40 million price tag for the Opening and Closing ceremonies worth it? Was the $1 billion cost of the Sea-to-Sky Highway worth it? How about the luge tracks and the sliding centre?

This year, BC will be forced to pay $252.5 million as its share of the Olympic security costs. The provincial government covered $20 million of the $40 million cost of the Opening ceremonies that included a faulty hydraulic system and an unlit torch.

Social housing units under threat

At the Athletes Village, the promised 252 units of social housing may never materialize due to the mismanagement of the project under the City of Vancouver’s previous government. It is possible that the City of Vancouver may sell the units and build them on a future site, if at all. It is possible that no affordable housing on Southeast False Creek may be available until 2015. Once again, the Inner City Inclusive Commitment Statement has been a total and unequivocal failure due to the active marginalization of civil society by VANOC and its government partners. The promise of a funded watchdog group never materialized.

Furthermore, the City of Vancouver will be eliminating 158 full-time jobs this year to make up for a $28.1 million budget shortfall.

Venezuela’s Revolution faces crucial battles

Federico Fuentes

Decisive battles between the forces of revolution and counter-revolution loom on the horizon in Venezuela.
The campaign for the September 26 National Assembly elections will be a crucial battle between the supporters of socialist President Hugo Chavez and the U.S.-backed right-wing opposition. But these battles, part of the class struggle between the poor majority and the capitalist elite, will be fought more in the streets than at the ballot box.

So far this year, there has been an escalation of fascist demonstrations by violent opposition student groups; the continued selective assassination of union and peasant leaders by right-wing paramilitaries; and an intensified private media campaign presenting a picture of a debilitated government in crisis – and on its way out.

Chavez warned on January 29: “If they initiate an extremely violent offensive, that obliges us to take firm action – something I do not recommend they do – our response will wipe them out.” The comment came the day after two students were killed and 21 police suffered bullet wounds in confrontations that rocked the city of Merida.

Chavez challenged the opposition to follow the constitutional road and a recall referendum on his presidential mandate if they truly believe people no longer support him. Under the democratic constitution adopted in 1999, a recall referendum can be called on any elected official if 20 per cent of the electorate sign a petition calling for one. He said if the capitalists continued down the road of confrontation, he would “accelerate the revolution,” which has declared “21st century socialism” as its goal.

Empire on the Offensive

The stepped-up campaign of destabilisation is part of the regional offensive launched by the opposition’s masters in Washington. Last year, the U.S. installed new military bases in Colombia and Panama, reactivated the U.S. Navy Fourth Fleet to patrol Latin American waters, and helped organize a military coup that toppled the left-wing Manuel Zelaya government in Honduras.

This year, the U.S. has occupied Haiti with 15,000 soldiers after the January 12 earthquake and U.S. warplanes have been caught violating Venezuela’s airspace.

A February 2 report from U.S. National Director of Intelligence, Admiral Dennis Blair, labelled Venezuela the “leading anti-U.S. regional force” – placing the Chavez government in Washington’s crosshairs.

The opposition hopes to fracture Chavez’s support base – the poor majority and the armed forces – and win a majority in the National Assembly (with which it is likely to move to impeach Chavez). At the very least, the opposition is seeking to stop pro-revolution forces from winning a two-thirds majority in the assembly, which would restrict the ease with which the Chavistas could pass legislation. The current assembly has a large pro-Chavez majority as a result of the opposition boycotting the 2005 poll.

Revolution Advances

The global economic crisis is hitting Venezuela harder than the government initially hoped. Problems in the electricity sector, among others, are also causing strain. The government’s campaign to raise awareness about the effects of climate change and wasteful usage has minimised the impact of the opposition and private media campaign to blame the government for the problems in the electricity and water sectors.

Far from fulfilling right-wing predictions that falling oil prices would result in a fall of the government’s fortunes, Chavez has continued his push to redistribute wealth to the poor – and increased moves against capital and corruption. This is occurring alongside important street mobilisations supporting the government (ignored by the international media, which gave prominent coverage to small opposition student riots).

There are new steps to increase the transfer of power to the people, such as incorporating the grassroots communal councils further into governing structures.

In November, Chavez announced interventions into eight banks found to be involved in corrupt dealings. A majority were nationalised and merged with a state bank to form the Bicentenary Bank. Together with the Bank of Venezuela, nationalised in 2007, the state now controls 25 per cent of the banking sector – the largest single bloc. Nearly 30 bankers were charged and face trial over the corruption allegations.

Significantly, a number of these had been closely aligned with the government. One of them, Ricardo Fernandez Barrueco, was a relatively unknown entrepreneur in the food sector who rose up the ranks of the business elite to own four banks and 29 Venezuelan companies.

Much of this meteoric rise was due to his ties with a section of the Chavez government, which provided him with generous contracts to supply government-subsidised Mercal food stores with produce and transportation. This earned Fernandez the nickname the “Czar of Mercal.”
The arrest of another banker over corruption allegations, Arne Chacon, led to the resignation of his brother Jessie Chacon as Chavez’s science minister.

State institutions, militants of the Chavez-led United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), and the National Guard have also moved to tackle price speculation following the January 8 decision to devalue the local currency, the bolivar. More than 1000 shops were temporarily shutdown for price speculation in the first week after the announcement.

The bolivar devaluation means imported goods have become more expensive, lowering workers’ purchasing power. To compensate, the government decreed in January a 25 per cent increase in the minimum wage.

Grassroots Organizing

Despite the violent protests and slander campaign, a January poll by the Venezuelan Institute of Data Analysis (IVAD – generally accepted as one of Venezuela’s least biased polling companies) found more than 58 per cent of Venezuelans continue to approve of Chavez’s presidency. The same poll also found 41.5 per cent believed the opposition should have a National Assembly majority, compared to 49.5 per cent who didn’t.

Some 32.6 per cent said they would vote for pro-revolution candidates, 20.8 per cent for the opposition and an important 33.1 per cent for “independents.”

That 33.1 per cent will undoubtedly shrink by September. The question is whether this section will abstain (as in the 2007 constitutional referendum) or the revolutionary forces can organize themselves to win them over and deal a decisive blow to the right.

Three massive pro-revolution demonstrations have been held already this year, dwarfing the small, but violent, opposition protests.

A new grouping of revolutionary youth organzations, the Bicentenary National Youth Front, has also been created to organize the pro-revolution majority of youth and students. The injection of organized youth into the revolution is vital for its future. This is needed, as Chavez noted in his February 12 speech to a mass demonstration of students in Caracas, to tackle the serious problems of reformism and bureaucratism that hamper the revolution.

Chavez has argued against those sectors of the revolutionary camp that insist it is possible to advance by strengthening the private sector and wooing capitalists. Chavez has repeatedly said the “national bourgeoisie” has no interest in advancing the process of change. Chavez has emphasised the “class struggle” is at the heart of this process.

He said it was vital to combat the inefficiency and bureaucracy of the state structures inherited from previous governments that hold back and sabotage the process. “We have to finish off demolishing the old structures of the bourgeois state and create the new structures of the proletarian state.” To help achieve this, the government has encouraged the creation of 184 communes across Venezuela. Communes are made up of a number of communal councils and other social organizations, bodies directly run and controlled by local communities. Chavez has referred to the communes as the “building blocks” of the new state, in which power is intended to be progressively transferred to the organized people.

The recent creation of peasant militias, organized for self-defence by poor farmers against large landowner violence, is also important.

However, the biggest challenge is the continued construction of the PSUV, a mass party with millions of still largely passive members, as a revolutionary instrument of the masses. In its extraordinary congress, which began in November and continues meeting on weekends until April, debates are occurring among the 772 elected delegates. Differences have arisen between those who support a more moderate reformist approach and those arguing for a revolutionary path.

The debates also included whether party members will elect National Assembly candidates, or whether this important decision would be left in the hands of a select committee (as more conservative forces preferred).
After the decision to hold primary elections for candidates was announced, Chavez said on February 11: “I have confidence in the people, I have confidence in the grassroots, they will not defraud us.”

Federico Fuentes is a member of the Green Left Weekly Caracas bureau. This article first published at Green Left Weekly website.

This is an edited version of a feature was originally published as “Venezuela’s Revolution Faces Crucial Battles” by Federico Fuentes in the Bullet on February 22, 2010. The Bullet is the official publication of the Socialist Project: http://www.socialistproject.ca.

Stop the attack on TTC workers

Jesse McLaren

The corporate press and TTC management are going on an offensive against TTC workers, scapegoating them for an underfunded transit system and pushing towards a privatized system that would be bad for workers and transit users alike. We need to speak out up in support of TTC workers, expose the corporate agenda behind these attacks, defend public services, and expand good green jobs.

Scapegoat

There is growing anger directed at transit workers is fuelled by the corporate press. A tiny number of people who photographed workers against their will were given front-page coverage, while the radio has hosted forums to rant about workers and even question their right to a washroom break. This has created the illusion that the public is up in arms against transit workers, and that the union is responsible for deteriorating conditions and rising fares.

As Bob Kinnear, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113, explained, “There is no group of workers in this city who are more subject to public assault than TTC workers. Every time there is a fare increase, we brace ourselves for the inevitable spike in insults and assaults. But the recent media focus on a handful of TTC workers has made a bad situation much, much worse.”

Rather than address the underfunding that is starving cities of cash, the government, TTC management and corporate press are blaming workers. Their goal is not to improve transit conditions or lower fares, but to privatize the system for more private profit.

Corporate Agenda

This attack on transit workers has not come out of thin air. In the lead up to Toronto’s mayoral election, the Toronto Board of Trade has launched a campaign-votetoronto2010.com–to promote neo-liberal policies (attacks on workers, privatization, contracting out, and user fees) as the solution to underfunding. As the President and CEO of the Toronto Board of Trade argues, “New ways will need to be found to control labour costs. New models of service delivery must be investigated, including introducing competition and doing more outsourcing…The city will need to consider the monetization, or outright sale, of selected assets. User fees must be closely examined.”

Scapegoating workers is the first step towards these policies.

Defend public services

Blaming transit workers for a fare hike is the latest in a series of attacks on public services that scapegoats workers for government and management decisions that have undermined services.

During the 2008 transit strike, the TTC claimed budgetary constraints were the fault of greedy workers, and tried to pit workers against those who use public transit.  But Torontonians received a rude awakening to the real source of transit under-funding: when Mayor Miller applied for $1.2 billion to update transit, Federal Minister of Transportation John Baird told Toronto to “fuck off”—and this from a government that plans on spending $490 billion on war over the next 20 years!

In 2009, rather than address decades of education cut-backs, York University and University of Toronto tried to balance their budget on the backs of Teaching Assistants, and pit striking workers against students. The real blame for tuition hikes was later revealed when the University administration introduced Flat Fees—a money grab that punishes part-time students.

Last summer, Mayor Miller scapegoated city workers for the recession and tried to take away their sick day bank. This unleashed a right-wing backlash that blamed workers for everything from city underfunding to flu deaths.

Now transit workers are again under fire, for conditions they did not create. Transit workers are not responsible for funding, fares, scheduling, or routes. These are the domain of government and TTC management. But instead of blaming deteriorating conditions on those responsible, the government, TTC management and corporate media are channelling public anger against workers. One expression is MPP David Caplan’s proposed bill to outlaw strikes by TTC workers, which Bob Kinear rightly described as “a pathetic political ploy to deflect attention away from his government’s cronic negligence of public transit.” This was quickly proven by McGuinty himself, who endorsed the “essential services” bill while refusing to allocate more funds to the TTC.

Expand good green jobs

Transit workers are not the problem, they are part of the solution. As capitalism lurches towards climate chaos, it is vital that we massively expand good green jobs. Transit workers provide safe and environmentally friendly public transit, and these kinds of jobs and services need to be defended and expanded.

Instead, the TTC management raised fares–despite admitting this could result in the loss of millions of riders–and turned the resulting public anger against workers.
We need good green jobs and accessible public transportation, and that starts with defending transit workers under attack.

Global Recession

For decades we’ve been told that cuts, concessions, privatization, and corporate tax cuts would protect jobs and grow the economy. Now that this profit-driven corporate greed has created a global recession, the same old disastrous policies are presented as “new” solutions, and again working people are being asked to pay.

Any so-called “bailouts” transfer billions of public dollars to banks and CEOs, while more concessions are demanded from workers.

It is these attacks on workers that produced the much-hyped “economic recovery”, which was only reflected in CEO bonuses and bank profits, while unemployment continues to rise.  But even this “recovery” threatens to end as stimulus funding dries up, leaving governments and companies to continue attacking working people in order to extract more profit.

Attacks on public services–from city workers, to teachers, to transit workers–are a conscious strategy to make ordinary people pay for the recession, through privatizing, cutting wages, and gutting pensions and benefits.  But working people didn’t create the economic crisis, and shouldn’t have to pay for it!

Underfunding and Privatizing
All levels of government are using the recession to slash spending and privatize, and demonizing workers is part of this agenda.

Harper is spending billions on a war Canadians reject, and prorogue Parliament rather than answer question on torture, climate change, and the economy. His minister gave the middle finger to Toronto’s demand for transit funding, and when he finally returns returns to work, it will be with an austerity budget and threats of privatizing Via Rail and Canada Post.

Provincially, the Dalton McGuinty government is implementing a 28.5 per cent corporate income tax cut that will deplete Ontario of $10 billion in tax revenue, while refusing to bail out the TTC and pushing to sell the LCBO.

Municipal governments are following suit, transferring the burden onto ordinary people, and blaming unions. Last year city workers were the scapegoat, and now its transit workers. But it it is the labour movement that has won all the public services and benefits Canadians enjoy, from the weekend to minimum wage to Medicare.

Global Resistance

The labour movement is again starting to rise up. From Britain to South Africa, strikes are spreading, Greece is in the middle of a series of general strikes against government austerity measures.
Toronto has seen the creation of the Good Jobs for All Coalition in Toronto—which has been raising demands for good green jobs for all, and building solidarity between labour struggles.

Last summer working people came together to defend city workers on strike, and solidarity continues to grow for ongoing struggles like the locked-out workers at Cadillac Fairview.

When companies and governments push to see how much of this crisis can be dumped on the shoulders of workers, we need to build solidarity with every fightback, and build rank and file networks to strengthen our unions.

Taskforce on Anti-Racism delivers final report

Now it’s time to implement the recommendations

Nora Loreto, Editor-in-Chief

After two years of deliberations, the Taskforce on Anti-Racism at Ryerson released its historic final report on February 11. The report documents the experiences of students, faculty, staff and community members who have encountered racism on our campus, and identifies those structures that perpetuate systemic racism.

The report makes 59 recommendations for combating the “chilly climate” felt by many racialized groups at Ryerson. These include policy changes, expanded and more sensitive course curricula, improved security measures and many other steps meant to help Ryerson become a more comfortable and open space for all who study and work here.

Not surprisingly, the report’s release attracted immediate criticism. Marcus Gee, writing in the Globe and Mail, crows: “Racism at Ryerson? Look carefully or you’ll miss it.” Gee seems incredulous that racism could exist at Ryerson, “one of the most diverse and welcoming universities in the country, if not the world.” Sadly, Gee fails to recognize that his position as a white, middle-class male journalist doesn’t necessarily give him any insight into the experience of racialized groups at Ryerson – never the mind the right to decide what counts as racism.

Gee’s assessment attempts to undermine the careful and considered research that informs the Taskforce’s final report. Unfortunately, he’s not alone. Far too many critics, especially those who have no real connection to Ryerson, seem to think that, because they can’t see it, there’s no racism at Ryerson or anywhere else, for that matter.

But that’s precisely the point.

Racism manifests itself in all kinds of different ways, and is often invisible to those who have never encountered it personally. The purpose of the Taskforce is to draw attention to these experiences, to acknowledge and legitimize them, and to find ways to prevent them from happening again.

To identify racism at Ryerson is not necessarily the same thing as saying that Ryerson is racist. The Taskforce simply concludes that not everyone experiences Ryerson in the same way, and that not everyone is equal while at Ryerson.

Racism is a complex issue that must be addressed honestly and with sensitivity. The Taskforce clearly understands this, and has done well to initiate a sometimes difficult and painful conversation – and one that all members of the Ryerson community must engage. For instance, the report reveals that fewer racialized faculty members get tenure, that some students feel silenced or marginalized in their classes, and that the grade appeals process may be influenced by a students’ racial or ethnic origin – to name just a few of its findings. All these experiences matter, and must be generalized to the wider community.

The Taskforce was led by two co-chairs: Eileen Antone, associate professor of adult education, community development and counselling psychology at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, and Grace-Edward Galabuzi, associate professor of politics and public administration at Ryerson. In addition to two co-chairs, ten other members rounded out the Taskforce: three students, three staff members, three faculty members, and one senior administrator.
Its final report delivers a thorough environmental scan of how members of the Ryerson community experience racism, and lays a solid foundation on which future anti-racism initiatives may be developed.

One of the report’s central strengths is the comprehensive and inter-connected nature of its 59 recommendations. For these recommendations to be effective and meaningful, all of them must be implemented.

As Ryerson begins to discuss and evaluate the Taskforce’s final report, we have a real opportunity to set an example for other campuses to follow, one that will hopefully address the province-wide problems faced by racialized students, faculty and staff in higher education. Ryerson students should be proud that they are already at the forefront of this important struggle.

In addition, we have a real opportunity to recognize and educate ourselves about the experience of all those who have been affected by centuries of imperialism, war, colonization, and racist immigration policies – especially Canada’s role in these experiences. The Taskforce deserves credit for drawing attention to these histories.

An important step in this process is to recognize that Canada is a settler-state. Our institutions were built from (and therefore inherit) structures that perpetuate inequality. It is not always an easy task to admit this, but we really have no other choice.

Another settler-state, South Africa, remains a popular example of an extreme manifestation of racist, state-sanctioned segregation. As an apartheid regime, South Africa codified racism as state policy. The indigenous Black population was forced into poverty and restricted from positions of power.

According to CBC’s Digital Archives, South African apartheid was a “a brutal system of racial separation that kept the nation’s black [sic] majority in poverty while a white minority held the wealth and power.” The Archive later quotes Justice Thomas Berger – the youngest person to be appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada in the twentieth century – who wrote in 1966 about British Columbia’s treatment of First Nations people: “They began by taking the Indians’ land without any surrender and without their consent…Then they herded the Indian people onto Indian reserves. This was nothing more nor less than apartheid, and that is what it still is today.”

Almost 50 years later, there have been few changes to the Indian Act, or to the racist legislation that came before it. Closer to campus, our very own Egerton Ryerson is credited with founding the Normal School System, the basis for which the Residential School system was developed. These systems became tools for the federal government’s assimilationist policies that sought to destroy the nations of people whose land the settlers stole.

As students who will forever be associated with Ryerson’s name – and/or as people who occupy this land as stewards or settlers – we must resist racism and all forms of oppression: at Ryerson, in Toronto, across Canada, and anywhere we encounter it.

As citizens or residents of Canada, we have a duty to uphold our Treaty obligations – a commitment that should form a critical part of what we mean by citizenship. Universities can play an important role in developing this concept. Regardless of our generational claim to this land, all of us can benefit from a new approach to knowledge and curriculum that includes voices that are systemically silenced.

Bringing Indigenous experience into existing curricula, creating more spots for Indigenous scholars, and introducing traditional approaches into scholarly methods will create better educated students, and help re-establish the kind of knowledge that has been developed in the millennia before our campus ever existed.

The struggles for racialized communities, First Nations, women, queer people, people with disabilities and all oppressed groups are interrelated, and will rise together or fall together. Our collective struggle for real and genuine equality is far from over; on many fronts, it is only just beginning.

The Ryerson Free Press takes pride in giving voice to the perspectives of marginalized and isolated communities and struggles, perspectives that all too often remain absent from Canada’s mainstream and corporate media. We take pride in our commitment to challenging racism and oppression wherever we see it. And we take pride in the stories that appear in our pages, and in our writers who tackle difficult and often controversial issues.

It is in this context that we applaud and endorse the final report of the Taskforce on Anti-Racism at Ryerson, and call for its swift and immediate implementation. The recommendations of the Taskforce are in keeping with our own commitment to global justice, and represent an important step forward to building a more open, accessible and unified community at Ryerson.

Deficit is no excuse to end economic stimulus

Hugh Mackenzie

As Canada’s recession winds down, despite growing talk of housing and debt bubbles, there is an even bigger bubble that’s set to burst.

It’s the Harper government bubble – that carefully crafted, out-of-touch universe our Prime Minister has been living in since recession threw hundreds of thousands of Canadians out of work.
Within the Harper bubble, the recession is over and so it’s time to turn the taps off stimulus funding and get back to the original extreme Conservative program of gutting public services.

Within the Harper bubble, unemployed Canadians are grateful for all the help they are getting. Within the Harper bubble of government-sponsored TV ads, Canada’s recession victims look downright cheerful, despite the fact that 810,000 Employment Insurance (EI) recipients are poised to run out of benefits with no strategic stimulus plan to get them working.

In the real world of recession and a fragile economic recovery, the Harper government’s efforts in last year’s federal budget fell far short of what’s needed. It’s a problem still in search of a solution.
Canada’s commitment to economic stimulus has been lukewarm compared with that of many other countries in the OECD.

The contrast between the Canadian stimulus program and that of the United States could not be more stark: A scattergun program less than the sum of its parts in Canada versus a strategic focus on capacity-building priorities in the United States.

In Canada, the Harper government held up more than 80 per cent of its stimulus spending for more than a year – and then winter set in and the ground froze.
In the U.S., where President Barack Obama refuses to live in a bubble, the federal government had already delivered millions of jobs by the third quarter of 2009.

Thanks to the Harper government’s foot-dragging and scrambling for political advantage, Canada’s economic stimulus is late getting into the market, and with the threat of a slowdown in Canada’s hot housing market, the worst thing the government could do right now is take its foot off the gas and hit the brakes.

Canadians deserve better. And it isn’t too late to make a fresh start.
The number 1 priority has to be employment. Canada lost nearly half a million jobs in the recession and those jobs aren’t coming back quickly.

Canadians still need the support of extended EI.

Canadians also need a robust stimulus program aimed at creating jobs and building Canada’s capacity for the future.

The absolute worst thing the Harper bubble government could do now is to shift its focus to deficit hysteria. Canada’s economic recovery is fragile, and that of the United States – our biggest trading partner – is even weaker. As both the International Monetary Fund and World Bank have pointed out, governments that pull their stimulus funding too quickly could cause another recessionary dip.

That mistake must be avoided at all costs.

As big as our deficit may look in Canadian historical terms, it is not that large in a global context. A recent survey in The Economist shows that Canada’s deficit as a share of GDP is the second smallest on a list of major economies, larger only than China’s.

Our debt as a share of GDP is a fraction of that faced by other major countries. It is far too early in the economic cycle to know if Canada even has a structural deficit large enough to worry about in the longer term.

The Harper government should use the opportunity presented by this week’s federal budget to shift the emphasis in economic stimulus toward investments that will pay off for Canada’s economy in the long term: strengthening our post-secondary education system; addressing the health system challenges of an aging population; continuing to rebuild our physical infrastructure; and funding a Canadian response to climate change.

Finally, although this may be too much for even the most incurable optimist, the government could set aside its ideology, suspend its planned corporate tax cuts and reconsider its non-policy on early childhood education funding.

The corporate tax cuts don’t make sense. They put Canada out front in a race to the bottom in North America that we shouldn’t be in. They make no contribution to the recovery of businesses hurt by the recession – and not making any profit anyway – while delivering savings to industries that don’t need the help.

A budget that took on these challenges would be a refreshing change for Canada. It’s time for the Harper bubble to burst.

Hugh Mackenzie is a CCPA Research Associate.

Olympics should be about the love of sport

All athletes deserve our support, even if they didn’t win a medal

Gursevak Kasbia

It all started with the Opening Ceremonies. I was amazed by the Canadian artists who mesmerized the crowd, and who made us all feel proud as we stood on the world stage. But when one of the torches “failed to launch” near the end of the performance, I started to get a bad feeling about the Games.
Throughout the Olympics, we saw so many of our athletes featured in television commercials, including medal hopefuls Mellissa Hollingsworth and Manuel Osborne-Paradis who performed well, but didn’t win any medals. Others did, including Alex Bilodeau whose heart-warming performance in the freestyle moguls inspired Canadians everywhere.

Canada’s federally funded $112 million “Own the Podium” program was no doubt successful, insofar as Canada came out on top with the most gold medals won by a single country in the history of the Winter Olympics. But what about all the Canadian athletes who were ranked within the top three of their respective sports who didn’t win any medals? Did “Own the Podium” raise expectations too high? Are we sending the message that we only celebrate those athletes who win medals? Shouldn’t win be celebrating their love of sport, and congratulating them – win or lose?

Even though we didn’t win the medals race, we should be proud of all our athletes, and include them in our sense of national pride.

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