2010 Olympics Business News for the Vancouver and Whistler regions of British Columbia. Plus, Alberta, the rest of Canada, Washington State, Oregon, Idaho, Montana & California

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A Private Invitation to Oprah - Gone Public:

I began writing Oprah and her producers in January of 2008. I did it because the homeless situation in Vancouver is not being dealt with responsibly by our civic leaders. The following is an edited and condensed version of the first letter I sent to Oprah through her website. I have also sent a few follow up messages as new issues develop, and I invite everyone who reads this to do likewise . . . you can find a direct link to Oprah and her producers in this letter.

Dear Oprah,

Your visit to Vancouver BC last year created incredible buzz,
and I'd like to invite you back, but this time for a different reason.

Vancouver is going through a terribly chaotic time, and we need someone like you to help restore a semblance of reason. If our civic leaders do not soon sort out the very serious human rights issues related to the 2010 Olympics, the strife here will escalate to a level never before seen, and to a point where you can't put the toothpaste back into the tube. Someone of your influence, respective of encouraging people to think humanely, can make a difference.

Everyone is aware of the solution, but greed is overriding common sense.

All I ask is that you inspire people here to think rationally, because once the 2010 Olympics social war goes global through online venues like YouTube and Facebook, there will be no turning back. Unfortunately, citizens are approaching a level of frustration that warrants such drastic measures.

Backs are against the wall and time is running out.


Here's our Olympics story . . .



I love the sporting aspect of the Olympics, and I am a fan, but at the same time I am disgusted by the irresponsibility and mismanagement in the top executive ranks. I am not a psychologist, a sports expert, nor do I hold a degree from an Ivy League college.

[As you can see from this blog though, I am vocal about what occurs in Olympics regions]

... journalists occasionally call to threaten and intimidate me regarding my Olympics views, and as you might imagine it's a bit disturbing to have a powerful media company poke you in the forehead ...

The IOC has allowed the focus to shift from sports to money.

After extensive research, and having experienced first hand what has already occurred in Vancouver, I can say without hesitation that the Olympics race in not only our region, but around the world, is now primarily driven by greed.

... it is unconscionable what our civic leaders are doing to average and especially marginalized people in Vancouver in the name of the 2010 Olympics. Our finance minister, Carole Taylor, recently projected that our province will have a 2.1 BILLION dollar surplus in 2007-08, but still thousands of mentally ill Vancouver residents are homeless and living on the streets. Worse yet, they are being swept under the rug in an effort to sanitize the city before 2010 spectators and international journalists arrive. The method is inhumane and criminal.

North Americans harshly criticize Chinese leaders regarding the injustices inflicted on tens of thousands of homeowners and renters displaced in the ramp up to Beijing 2008, but it is hypocritical when you consider that it is also happening in our own backyard, a country like Canada that boasts of being humane and free.

Instead of housing our suffering and mentally ill in permanent structures, our British Columbia premier, Gordon Campbell, wants to use tax money to build a ninety million dollar permanent wooden umbrella [now down graded to forty million] over the city square in order to protect spectators from rain during Olympics awards presentations. A circus style tent worked perfectly well in Lillehammer when they hosted the Games, but we have to erect something opulent while our homeless starve.

More children live in poverty in BC than any where else in Canada.

Vancouverites are livid, but to no avail. Unbelievably, IOC leaders are also averting their eyes, just as they did while tens of thousands of Chinese were forcibly evicted from their homes so civic leaders in Beijing could build Olympics sports facilities. The Olympics has slowly grown to become a five-ring circus of irresponsibility and upper echelon finger pointing wrapped in apathy that has gone on much too long.

... the more research we did the more we realized that the Olympics business model is designed to exclude average people from equitably participating.

They only want to use Vancouverites as volunteers.

We initially spent two years of full time research before coming to our undeniable conclusions, and another two years following up and writing our findings. It was not a rush to judgment, and we tried to be as circumspect and fair as possible, bet eventually, if you have a conscience, you have to face the facts.

I started this blog in early 2004, and you can see by my early posts (from the bottom up on the list at the left) that like most people I was a naïve Olympics cheerleader, willing to support and give Olympics organizations the benefit of the doubt, but over the course of a couple of years Olympics organizations, local mainstream news media, and civic leaders disappointed us at almost every single turn, and we have consequently challenged them all in an effort to give back a bit of control to average people in our community.

Average people in Olympics Host regions are so brainwashed and confused regarding the Olympics that they eventually become dangerously polarized. They are either unconditional Olympics fans, or rabidly anti-Olympics, and we seem to have more of the latter, which is odd because in general, people here are pretty laid back. Polarization is a well used promotion strategy that Olympics organizations use to manage the public. They bully and shut out anyone who challenges their methods by keeping people at opposite ends of the spectrum. It is the old "either you are with us or against us routine" that the world fell into after the 9/11 tragedy. Olympics organizations only see things in black or white. There is no middle ground.

I promote an Olympics neutral position, and maintain that everyone should benefit proportionately in our community. Olympics organizations don't see it that way, and they refuse to address serious issues in a responsible [timely] manner.

We are still two years away from hosting our 2010 event and Olympics culture is already ripping Vancouver apart.

I wrote my book to give people in Canada a heads up. I documented a number of predictions in it, and many have already come to fruition, but unbelievably, local mainstream news media for the most part pan us. In the beginning, media loved what I was saying, and they came to interview me, but as soon as they realized I implicated them in the charade they backed off. Only the most brave helped put my warnings forward, and as I predicted in the book, only those media companies that did not have direct financial ties and incentive to boost the Games took us seriously.

I self published the book because no one thought they could make money being critical of an event that was earmarked to turn a "have-not' province into a money making machine. I've maintained from the beginning that if my community is healthy, my business will be healthy. I'm a business person, but I'm not in this fight only because of money. If I was only concerned about money I could have easily sided with Olympics organizations and sold out our community.

The Olympics was initially promoted as a way to save a province that was spiraling into economic devastation. The very first month after winning the Bid the real estate industry reported that they moved more volume than in all of history. Hooray!! We were on the road to recovery and politicians [and newspapers] jumped on the bandwagon, but instead of attributing the real estate spike to confidence relative to winning the 2010 Olympics, they spun it claiming personal responsibility for some sort of political feat they professed to have accomplished, which to this day remains a mystery.

My book is different for a number of reasons Oprah. It was meant to help small business owners and people interested in volunteering understand what was about to play out so they could be prepared and proactive, but unfortunately, many of the people who read the book were those who would use it to inflict even more pain on our region. It was frustrating because the average people that we thought would benefit the most, and use the book to help our community survive the 2010 onslaught, didn't believe what we were saying, and those who were preparing the lambs for slaughter were using it to further fine tune and develop their plans. (We know who buys it because we sell it primarily online. We also gave complimentary copies to every mayor and many civic leaders in our region foolishly thinking they would see the light and prepare the community.)

The book illustrates what happened in past recent Olympics regions, and compares historical information with what is playing out in Vancouver, and it does it respective of my two decades of experience as an international live entertainment promoter. Olympics books are always published after the Games leave town and well after the destruction is done. We knew through research that this happens in all Olympics regions in the free world, so we published in early 2006 - four full years before the meteor would hit. It is the first time an Olympics related book of this style and scope has been written, plus it was published in plenty of time to actually make a difference. Theoretically it made perfect sense. Practically however, fighting city hall is way more challenging than we imagined.

Many of the predictions documented in the book have already come true, but the reality is that they really weren't predictions at all. I'm not clairvoyant, and I don't have a crystal ball. I simply referenced history ... and history says that the last three Olympics Games had a severe negative economic impact on each region. The CBC, which is an Olympics broadcast partner, reported five years after the fact that Salt Lake City 2002 incurred a deficit of $1.2 billion. It is also common knowledge that Athens 2004 incurred a deficit of $12 billion, and Turin 2006, which is still counting losses, ... threatened bankruptcy just two months before their big event unless the Italian government bailed them out. Olympics organizers in Italy literally held their residents hostage and used national embarrassment as leverage. It is also important to note that the benefits everyone expected in all three regions never materialized. Quite simply, there was no substantial upside that anyone could document respective of increased tourism or outside capital investment.

People in current Olympics regions think they are smarter than people in past Olympics regions. For example, over the last few years, in an effort to elevate the Canadian position, journalists in Vancouver accused the Greeks of being lazy, and the Italians of being too industrial, and the Chinese of course of being communist, which implied they were all backward. While this is going on, the International Olympic Committee looks the other way, and when they do, it perpetuates the myth that it is the fault of the Host region for failing. It takes the focus away from the IOC and the fact that their outdated business model can no longer support an Olympics event in the manner that residents of a Host region need and expect. The IOC blames the Host region, but won't acknowledge that it uses an outdated business model.

I confidently make these statements because of my experience promoting live events all over the world for millions of people. I also worked a major Olympics cultural celebration in Calgary in 1988. It was a mismanaged nightmare from start to finish. Consequently, I am more than qualified to recognize when a promoter is dropping the ball, and that the IOC has been fumbling for years. They are notoriously secretive, which is amazing considering the Olympics is funded in large part with tax money.

People want to continue to believe what they believed when they were kids. I watch your show Oprah, and see many people caught up in this same cycle of destruction. The realty is that Olympics organizations have changed, and in some respects for the worse, but too many of us still think of them like we did when we were children. It's time to grow up, but too many still cling to dreams of being an Olympics champion ....

It is criminal to keep perpetuating this myth.


Respected Olympics researchers and writers went on record to say that too many Olympics athletes are so thoroughly frustrated that they feel doping is the only way they can win. Many young amateur athletes believe, mistakenly or not, that a large portion of the Olympics industry cheats, whether related to doping, judging, bribes, etc. Pound's book is an eye opener for anyone caring to look, but like my book, people who could use it to effect positive change panned it too. Local news media make a fortune off the Games and they are not about to undermine their revenue stream. [Richard Pound is president of the World Anti-Doping Organization, and an IOC executive and Canadian lawyer]

I believe Pound, and I ask you Oprah, what child dreams of sticking a needle in their arm to win a foot race? Coaches, trainers, and Olympics organization executives have to take partial responsibility for athletes like Ben Johnson and Marion Jones, plus all the other young amateur athletes who have their dreams of personal triumph turned into a race for multimillion dollar endorsements.

The Canadian government recently announced that instead of investing more funds in sports programs to support young athletic Olympics hopefuls, they are going to award individual elite athletes directly with tens of thousands of dollars … but only if they win an Olympic medal.

It sends the wrong message and puts too much pressure on winning for economic gain, which goes completely against the Olympics manifesto of competing for the sake of competition.

In 2006, when two young Canadian skaters faltered during the Turin Olympics, our local newspaper criticized them like they were professional hockey players. I retaliated in my blog and book and defended both athletes, but they were so scared to alienate Olympics organizations that they never even acknowledged my support. The same year, Jacques Rogge, the president of the IOC sent a stern warning to Olympics athletes that if they blogged, they could be banned from competing. We accused the IOC of censorship and they eventually backed off - a bit, ... but it was too late for American skier Bode Miller who was prevented from airing his views on his blog.

If you recall, American news media also attacked and tarred Bode in Turin in a similar fashion. This is what I wrote about him in the opening chapter of my book.

"On the same day Canadian media took cheap shots at Canadian skaters, U.S. skier Bode Miller ranted to a reporter about the pressure placed on amateur athletes. He was referring to doping when he said, "Sport is born clean, and it would stay that way if it was the athletes who ran it for the pleasure of taking part. But then the fans and the media intervene and finish up by corrupting it with the pressure that they exercise . . . . From this inhuman pressure, doping is born, because the athlete feels the imperative of having to be number one. I believe instead that sport should be a private pressure, a challenge for yourself." (ap2)"

Olympics organizations support irresponsible, profit centric reporting and perspective, and it has to stop. It stuns me that young Olympics hopefuls are regarded and treated, simultaneously, like children and professional athletes. Just today (Jan 14/08), in our local newspaper, Peter Judge was described by the journalist writing the piece as a "perceptive CEO of the Canadian Freestyle Ski Association," In the article Judge referred to one of Canada's 26-year-old aspiring Olympics champions, as "a very tenacious little girl." This 26-year-old little girl Oprah, literally broke her neck training for Turin, but still competed in 2006. Judge's obliviously condescending attitude is representative of many coaches, trainers, and executives.

I don't know Marion Jones or Ben Johnson from Adam, but if these athletes were subjected to the same disrespect and economic pressure as most young aspiring amateur Olympics athletes, they didn't stand a chance. I don't forgive athletes for cheating, and I think they should pay the price for their mistakes, but it is criminal for Olympics organizations to distance themselves and make them scapegoats. You reap what you sow, and when you fertilize your field with money you grow greed.

It should also be noted that way too many Olympic level athletes live in poverty, and considering all the boasting Olympics sponsors do pretending to support amateur athletic sport, this alone should illustrate how poorly the Olympics business model is designed and managed. How is it possible amateur athletes training for the Olympics still complain of lack of funds to train and live?

It is ironic that when Olympics organizations need a spokesperson to bail their executives out of trouble they call on Olympics gold medal athletes to deliver the mea culpa.

Most people have no idea Oprah, how destructive Olympics spirit can be to a Host community when the essence of the spirit is mismanaged. Our local politicians reneged on promises they made during the Olympics Bid, and ignored the plight of our homeless. Regarding Vancouver's Olympic Village for instance, our mayor, Sam Sullivan, who also happens to be quadriplegic, and one would assume more sensitive to disadvantaged people considering he's rolled a mile in their shoes, decided at the eleventh hour that housing space promised to marginalized people during the Bid would instead be sold on the open market to the highest bidder because the land was now too valuable to waste on the disadvantaged. He didn't put it in those exact terms, but the result was the same. Vancouverites hardly blinked an eye. Now however, radicals who are basically anti-Olympics for political reasons, are using issues like this to fan the flames and promote violent protest in our city. They don't represent the homeless at at all, but use them to further their impossible-to-identify hateful causes.

Olympic organizations argue that bringing an Olympics event to a region is a good thing because it forces politicians and civic leaders to deal with issues that have been ignored for too long, and in some respects they are right, but what they don't say is that when you do it in a rush and on the back of the disadvantaged, it costs four times more than if these issues were dealt with in a more responsible structured manner. Taxpayers pay for it, while wealthy corporate sponsors make a killing. NBC reported that they placed advertising in front of 4 billion people worldwide during the 2004 Summer Games in Athens, and in front of 3 billion each in Salt Lake City and Turin. All three of these regions suffered devastating economic hardship, while wealthy multinationals, that benefit the most, turn a blind eye.

In Vancouver, instead of politicians and civic leaders taking responsibility for our homeless, they have instead turned it into a chess game and only react when they are placed in check and their hands are forced.

Dan Rather, on invitation from a local university, came here recently to do a story about our homeless, and local news media, who are also official paid Olympics partners and boosters, implied through political cartoons that Rather is a washed-up, desperate journalist grasping at straws to revitalize his career. Whether Rather deserves this slight or not, local news media literally made a joke of our homeless.

Vancouver has the MOST MILLIONAIRES and the MOST HOMELESS than any other city in Canada . At last count there were 10,000 [more recent estimates cite 15,500] homeless in our provincial population of 4.4 million - 2,200 in Vancouver alone. Most of our homeless are mentally ill who were kicked out of hospitals ten years ago when the economy took a nosedive. 40% of our homeless have HIV. This ratio rivals the AIDS epidemic in Africa. Global poverty watchdogs recently described our infamous Downtown Eastside as worse than anything in New York, or LA.

Please come back to Vancouver Oprah.

Jim Pattison, who took you boating last year, is philanthropic and genuinely respected and loved here, and I am sure your ride on his yacht was wonderful, but this time I want to show you the other side of an Olympics gold medal. The flip side will make you cry. Someone has to show North America what really happens in too many Olympics regions. It is so morally and ethically wrong that it is beyond words, and it has to be experienced face to face to appreciate it. Come privately, or bring a crew, but please come back so I can show you what you missed in beautiful super natural, but homeless British Columbia.

Dan Rather was sent packing, but I doubt very much that people will ignore you in the same manner. Vancouver needs help, but most residents don't know it, and unfortunately, as our research indicates and as usual in most Olympics regions, by the time they figure it out, it will be way too late.

A small group of us, whom I would love to introduce you to, are trying to educate people here regarding this growing nightmare. We all naively thought that all we had to do was get the information to civic leaders and they would do the right thing.

Mainstream news media with vested Olympics interest dump such a barrage of misinformation into the market that people believe athletes like Marion Jones act on their own out of selfish greed.

I don't believe it for a second.

Sincerely,

Maurice Cardinal

Editor: OlyBLOG.com
604.739.6796

OlyBLOG readers, if you'd like to contact Oprah regarding this issue,
click her name and invite her back to Vancouver take a look for herself.

Talk to us before you talk to them ...
LeverageOlympicMomentum.com - the book






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