We have been following the issue of the cancellation of the Whistler World Cup mountain bike event. As independent business people who have invested their family's future in the continuing success of Whistler Resort, our reaction is disbelief.
The estimated $7 million in lost revenue is enough to give anyone the hiccups, even if they don't know which end of a mountain bike to point downhill, but it is our collective "loss of face" that gives us a head-to-toe rash. In the international biking community, we look like donkeys. To the world in general, we have showcased our complete lack of respect for grass roots initiative and entrepreneurial action.
Whistler is a place created at a grass roots level from a collection of individual dreams and "can do" attitudes. A previous editorial spoke of the anger in the valley that no one can put a name to. Maybe it is the anger that comes from self-initiating, capable individuals who, at every turn, find themselves being told what to do and when and how to do it.
We would like to see an independent, public inquiry into this fiasco. We categorically disagree that it is time to move forward until we are all very clear on how it happened in the first place and how we can prevent such a thing from happening again.
Don & Evelyn Coggins
Pemberton
