Members of the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) evaluation team spent thirty minutes of their last day inspecting Vancouver’s 2010 bid for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games meeting with groups opposed to Vancouver’s bid.
Chris Shaw, spokesman for the No Games 2010 coalition, told CP “I don’t know if I was hopeful but I’m glad they did listen and seemed to be sincere and seemed to be taking notes and paying attention to what we said”.
Another coalition source told GamesBids.com that after the evaluation commission read through a press kit provided by the group, which was also given to the foreign media, “they looked shocked”.
The group discussed several issues with the IOC team including conflicts of interest, its intention to monitor and find out about payments from Crown Corporations to First Nations, (Native people were also in attendance), and that the IOC was going to be embarrassed by a dirty bid.
The source added, “the body language was not good … they believed our evidence”.
The Globe and Mail reports that Green Party leader Adriane Carr said she left the meeting believing her concerns had been heard by the IOC committee. “I think the meeting went better than expected”, she told the newspaper. “I believe that they genuinely listed”.
Carr said she is not anti-Olympics but says the Winter Games shouldn’t be held in Vancouver and Whistler at a time when there is so little money for essential services in the province. With the province’s debt and the cuts to health care and schools, it makes no sense for the province to play host to the Winter Games.
She added, “we are not in a very good financial situation”.
Carr predicts that opposition to the Vancouver bid will continue to grow as the provincial cuts continue and the cost of the Games increases.
Gerhard Heiberg, head of the IOC evaluation commission, told CP it was interesting to listen to the other side of the story. “We promised them we should let the bid committee know what they were thinking. What comes out of it I don’t know”.
He said all bid cities have opposing groups, although there was no specific request in Korea to approach the commission. Opposition groups are on the agenda in Salzburg, said Heiberg.
