While Vancouver 2010 organizers approved several recommendations to increase VANOC’s overall public transparency and accountability at a board meeting Wednesday, a busload of anti-poverty protestors arrived in front of the offices of the bid committee and were met with throngs of police officers surrounding the building.
The protestors decided to leave the area and take their protests to the street. They swore, waved placards, and beat drums, but there was no violence. Police made several arrests, reports CP, but faced criticism both for not having a strong enough presence at the event, and for overreacting.
CP reports that protest organizer David Cunningham of the Anti-Poverty Committee, a local activist group that wants to cancel the Games and direct Olympic funding towards social housing, said members of the committee know where the Olympic organizers live and know where they work, and protesters will take their demonstration directly to them.
He said protesters intend to “symbolically evict” the VANOC board members in the same manner people have been displaced from the downtown lower east side. “It would be just going in with a very confrontational attitude, much like the police go in to people’s hotels. When those places are evicted, people’s belongings are just literally thrown into the streets. We’d be looking at doing the same thing”, he said.
Meanwhile, at the meeting, VANOC board Chairman Jack Poole said, “people want to know more about what we are doing to stage the 2010 Winter Games on their behalf and how we are doing it. The board meetings will remain under the current format with the participation limited to VANOC board members, senior management, and partners, to maintain the best working environment for progress. However, a more extensive reporting out system has been approved that will provide an added level of transparency seen by few other Organizing Committees and we will continue to ensure our information is easily accessible and readily available to Canadians over the coming three years”.
Transparency measures approved today include posting the Board of Directors meeting agenda in advance and maintaining a schedule of board committee meetings on the Vancouver 2010 website; hosting a media briefing following each board meeting; issuing and posting a news release on the website on decisions taken at the board meeting that are not protected by obligation or by contract; hosting regular press briefings monthly throughout 2007 when there is no board meeting or quarterly report, and more frequently during 2008 and 2009; continue to deliver an annual fall update to the Vancouver Board of Trade to be broadcast across the province and a transcript posted on the website; placing an annual supplement in major newspapers and on the website informing the public on the progress of the Games; and conducting new quarterly website on-line forums to ensure that all Canadians can communicate directly with VANOC.
