Beijing may have spray painted it’s brown grass green, but Toronto’s Olympic bid is using another colour — white.
Mark Arseneault, spokesman for the Toronto 2008 Olympic bid committee said “we’ll sweep up the streets and take the grime off the snowbanks, but it won’t be a massive mobilization. We won’t clean up all the snowbanks in the city. They’re a reality of winter. But where we have entrances that the IOC will be coming in and out…”
Arsenault said public works crews will be used to clean up areas that IOC officials are likely to see.
Arseneault said “the city stands on its own. We want to show it off, but obviously, we’re not going to be able to clean up the portlands for the IOC inspection. If they drive through the portlands, they’ll see it as it is, old industrial land, and there’s not much you can do about the way it looks now. But we’ll have a video or an artist’s rendering of what it can become”.
The portlands are ground zero for the Olympics, and the “tent city” of homeless speople squatting in the area won’t be moved, said Arsenault.
Meanwhile Toronto city councillor Chris Korwin-Kuczynski said Toronto was “nuts” for not making a special effort to clean up the city. “It’s like inviting people over for a party and leaving dirty laundry all over the house” he said.
