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Pique n yer interest

Bringing our eh game

Forgive me if I sound naïve, but if I remember correctly one of the reasons we bid to host to the 2010 Games in the first place was to have the opportunity to showcase the best of Canada, B.C., and the host cities of Vancouver and Whistler. We were told in no uncertain terms that the Games would provide a venue to display our strengths in arts, culture, business and sports to the world, fuelling our national pride while attracting international visitors and investment.

So you’ll pardon me if I find it a little strange that the Vancouver Organizing Committee of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) decided to hire an Australian company to produce the opening and closing ceremonies.

There’s no question that David Atkins Enterprises did a great job putting on the ceremonies for the Sydney Games in 2000 and is perfectly capable of doing the same for our Games in 2010. But I really have to wonder what VANOC’s choice says about Canada. Nothing good, I’m sure.

The opening and closing ceremonies are the most watched events of the Games, and are our best chance to show off all the wonderful things about Canada that I mentioned in the opening paragraph. Why on earth are we paying Australians to tell our story for us?

Is a few short years enough for David Atkins Enterprises to develop any kind of real understanding of our heritage and culture, or are we doomed to sit through ceremonies that showcase the Great White North from a Down Under perspective?

I think VANOC CEO John Furlong said it best, even as he was missing the point by hiring an Australian company to make Canada look good:

“Our goal is to create spectacular Ceremonies of which all Canadians can be proud. This incredible team (of Australians) has the proven passion and talent to develop magnificent Ceremonies that will celebrate the possible and share our great country (Canada) with the rest of the world.”

Doesn’t make sense, does it?

Is VANOC honestly saying that there isn’t a single Canadian company or individual out there capable of producing these ceremonies? I may have missed the obits, but are all of the people who helped to create the ceremonies for Montreal in 1976 and Calgary in 1988 dead?

Federally and provincially, Canada spends hundreds of millions of dollars on arts and culture every single year, far more per capita than many other industrialized countries, but it seems we still can’t be trusted to produce our own arts and culture events.

I wouldn’t mind so much if we called up David Atkins Enterprises to help out as consultants, the way they’ve hired Canadians to advise them — no doubt there’s a lot we can learn. But I’m completely humiliated that VANOC felt we had to hire a company from outside of Canada to celebrate our country for us.

I know I’m nitpicking, but this was also supposed to be a sustainable Games, and one part of sustainability means spending your money locally. Just how many millions of our jumpbucks will David Atkins be a-waltzing back to Australia in his tucker bag?

Obviously the candidate with the best resume for a job with the Olympics is always going to be the candidate who has experience doing the same job at a previous Olympics. But to me this decision smacks of a general nervousness on behalf of the organizers, a lack of confidence in Canadians, and a complete absence of creativity. It’s just not what you would expect from a country that has produced Neil Young, Cirque de Soleil, and hundreds of internationally known performers. We’re not exactly deficient when it comes to entertaining, which is what these ceremonies are all about.

How hard can it be?

You open with William Shatner reciting the opening monologue from Star Trek (“Space, the final frontier…”) then bring in the RCMP Musical Ride to one of Glenn Gould’s livelier piano numbers. As the horses leave through one gate, Wayne Gretzky and the 2002 Gold Medal hockey team skate out and play shinny while Rush launches into Tom Sawyer with backing from the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Cheerleaders from all eight CFL teams will cartwheel around the field while the Bonhomme and Blue Jay Birdy wrestle in the stands as a salute to Hockey Dads. Just then a cannon is sounded and fog machines flood the field in mist… Suddenly, out of the fog march a brigade of 19 th century Canadian and British soldiers who then proceed to reenact the burning of the White House while Bachman Turner Overdrive plays “Taking Care of Business.” Following a brief fireworks display, Bob and Doug McKenzie take the stage to sing the “12 Days of Christmas”, while the Canada Arm passes them beers and flips a side of back bacon on a giant Coleman stove. Everybody will be expecting Celine Dion at this point, but we’ll give them Rita McNeil instead, singing a Tragically Hip song while she and the Miners of the Deep are pulled into B.C. Place on a replica of the Bluenose Schooner. A giant screen will be raised, showing the faces of famous Canadians like Lorne Green, and reaffirming our claim of inventing the telephone. Then the athletes walk in.

An event like this practically produces itself, without David Atkins Enterprises.