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Bold action in an emergency

Over the years, I’ve considered the Olympics many things. When I was young and naïve I found them thrilling and inspirational. My more athletic friends may have found them aspirational.

Over the years, I’ve considered the Olympics many things. When I was young and naïve I found them thrilling and inspirational. My more athletic friends may have found them aspirational. My own aspirations stopped at eating the Wheaties, not earning a place on the box, having been born with seemingly no athletic abilities whatsoever.

When I was a little older and a lot more politically aware — nothing like living within spitting distance of first-strike nuclear targets to make you politically aware — I was fascinated at the way governments kidnapped the Games for their own twisted, geopolitical purposes, turning what seemed on the surface no more than schoolyard games into yet another permutation of nuclear brinksmanship. This teeth-gnashing period culminated in the theatre-of-the-absurd revelations that most of the East German female athletes were in fact not women at all but quite possibly aliens stranded on Earth or bizarre genetic experiments gone horribly wrong. If memory serves, this particular genderbending fact was brought to light when virtually all of the unbeatable “Hey Fella” East German women’s swim team showed up at the Olympic pool with bulges in their Speedos that’d make Harry Waters blush.

While many voices bemoaned this state-sanctioned cheating as the death of the Olympics, politics proved to be only a crippling blow, not the ultimate coup de gras. The slide into greed, corruption and extravagance embodied by the corporate takeover — perhaps marriage is a better word — of the Games, begun in 1984 and perfected over the last two decades, has brought us to the pathetic place we find ourselves in today.

The Games, once noble, have now festered into an… Emergency? The Olympics are an emergency?

Waking up and finding your house aflame is an emergency. Finding a Hummer in the ditch, its occupants trapped inside, is an emergency, tempting as it may be to leave them there. The world’s financial system swirling the bowl is an emergency, tempting as it may be to flush all the bankers and money whores the rest of the way down.

But the Olympics? An emergency?

Apparently so, at least downvalley in Vangroovy. Vancouver city council — already dealing with the biggest disaster to hit the city in decades: snow on the streets and a “fleet” of snowplows seemingly bought second-hand from Jamaica. Who’da thought; snow in the winter Olympics host city! — has asked Rear-Entry Campbell for emergency borrowing powers to fund the shortfall in construction funds needed to complete their own athletes’ village/swish condo project. Shortfall in this case being a euphemism for the phrase “all of it.” Emergency being a euphemism for “without the agreement of the people who will ultimately be on the hook to pay the money.”

In the normal course of business, a borrowing of, oh, say $458-million would have to go to public referendum. There are two problems with taking this Olympic snafu to referendum. The first is that it would take too long; the next construction draw is due February 15 th . Happy Valentine’s Day. The second is more a basic flaw in democratic societies: the voters may not approve such a bold — euphemism for stupid — move. While they may be newly-elected and wet behind the ears, Vancouver’s council isn’t so bold (op.cit.) as to give the people who’ll be on the hook for the debt any voice in deciding whether they want to take it on or not.

So council voted unanimously to pass the hat, er, buck, er, bucks. They asked the provincial government for a one-time amendment to the city charter to allow them to borrow the money without a public referendum. In a football game, this tactic is known as a Hail Mary pass. For a city one year away from being trampled by a rogue herd of white elephants while mired in a severe, worldwide recession, I think we can just safely call it… bold.

In the normal course of business, Gordo, himself a big athletic supporter, would simply put the question to the legislature. But since he decided to do away with such democratic niceties as sitting legislatures last fall, he’ll have to call an extraordinary session if he wants to deal with this before February 10 th , when the MLAs are expected to return to the trough to eat their fill and do what they’re told.

Of course, this comes on the heels of the revelation made during the last municipal election of the city’s $100-million loan to the project’s developer that was leaked out of the smoky backroom it was supposed to be kept in. Maybe they could just make four or five more in camera , $100-million decisions and keep the public and the legislature out of the loop entirely. Now that would be impressively bold.

Lurking beneath all of this, like fungus under a dead tree, is — drumroll, please — our own Fortress Investment Group (Motto: Making Your Money Ours.) Back in the day, before all the money vanished like so much smoke in the breeze, Fortress became the project’s lender. I don’t know what lender is a euphemism for since no one except governments seem to do it anymore. Certainly Fortress isn’t doing any lending. They stopped doing that last September when they became “concerned” that the project’s costs had gone $125 million over budget, budget being an Olympic euphemism for “wild-ass guess.”

Fortress is “earning” 11per cent interest on the $317-million it’s lent the project so far. That’s not quite as high as it would have been if the whole thing had been financed on, say, a VISA card, but it’s still an interest rate that might brand the borrower… bold.

One of the reasons Vancouver wants extraordinary Emergency borrowing powers is so they can, perhaps, borrow the dough from someone else at a better interest rate. Of course, if they do, they may well face a penalty of $50-million — payable to… oh you know — to get out of the loan commitment.

One way or another, one thing is perfectly clear in this muddied mess. Vancouver’s on the hook for the entire $875-million village if this thing goes sideways. What am I saying? This thing is already sideways and upside down.

Right about now, ever-searching for the humour in the bleakest of developments, I’m thinking of organizing an Olympic parade. Taking a suitably scaled-down cue from the Million Man March, I’m looking for 99 more guys to hold a Hundred (Pregnant) Man March through Village Square. Channeling the immortal words of Mayor Jean Drapeau — a man who knew a thing or two about iconic roofs — that the Olympics could no more run a deficit than a man could get pregnant, I believe there would be something truly stirring in the sight of a hundred big-bellied men in maternity clothes waddling through Whistler at après.

Heck, it’s just the kind of thing we need to get that ol’ Olympic spirit going, isn’t it?