Nine opponents of Toronto’s plan to ship its garbage to Northern Ontario are hoping to speak to International Olympic Committee (IOC) members as they enter and leave meetings in Lausanne Switzerland. The IOC will be voting for the finalists bidding to host the 2008 Olympic Games. Toronto is one of the bidders.
A member of the group, Terry Graves, said “we know full well this trip to Lausanne is not going to defeat this bid, but what we’re trying to say is that Toronto doesn’t deserve the (2008) Olympics if this is what they’re going to do”.
Terry, along with his wife Eva, are paying for the week-long trip themselves. They are planning to hand IOC members three boxes containing 5,000 letters from Temiskaming residents.
And seven members of the Algonquin First Nations, including Grand Chief Carol McBride, are expected to outline how the land surrounding the Adams Mine, where the garbage is to be dumped, is now under a land claim by the First Nations.
The group also plans to meet with officials in Paris and Rome.
Meanwhile Jan Borowy, a member of the coalition group Bread Not Circueses, said the Adams Mine group has an excellent chance of influencing the IOC members. Borowy went to Tokyo in 1990 on a similar anti-Olympics mission.
She said “the IOC will take note, they always do. What (the anti-mine group) is saying to them is “you are now claiming to be an environmental organization. You better be willing to follow through on that”.
