Leif Jensen
Opinions Writer

Last week, the Sheaf published an article called “Protestors don’t know shit” claiming that, well, Olympic protesters don’t know shit and most of them are simply protesting for the sake of protesting.

As someone who does not support the Games, I read it expecting to be pissed off.

However, the writer was right. Many protestors don’t explain their opposition very well. To this end, here are some reasons to be pissed off about the Olympics.

The taxpayers were lied to by the Vancouver Olympic Committee in the original budget. For example, it estimated security costs at $175 million, when every game since 9-11 has cost over a billion. It’s worth pointing out that the Games do not make money (L.A. being the recent exception). The new venues are often unnecessary. The billion dollar convention centre was built next to the old one, which they had trouble filling before the Games. In the end, the Olympics will cost taxpayers hundreds of millions, or billions.

There are also environmental issues. While VANOC claims that it is green, and did meet LEED standards on some buildings, they also cut down tens of thousands of trees for the Nordic events, and expanded a major highway through an old-growth forest, which was the home of the endangered red-legged frog.

The new venues and huge influx of people is also bad for the environment. I have seen one study which claimed that, including construction costs, the Games will have a larger carbon footprint than Romania, and a number of other smaller countries. This is fairly extreme, but does give an idea of the huge environmental cost.

We also see problems with civil liberties before and during the Games. Vancouver passed a municipal law that allows the police to enter homes and seize unauthorized (anti-Olympic) signs with very little notice. Violators can be fined up to $10,000 and get six months in jail. The more well known protestors have also been hassled by police, which is part of the reason that the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra decided not to participate. They were also asked to pre-record their music, in a situation similar to the girls singing in China’s opening ceremony.

Other social problems revolve around the homeless. New laws to force them into shelters in emergency weather (more than five days of rain, which is very common in Vancouver) is seen as a way to get them out of sight during the games, and some of the development projects have forced the poor onto the street.

The last issue to go over is the racism question. Some First Nations support the games while others claim that VANOC is racist. While I don’t think that VANOC is racist, they do not treat other groups with respect. Much protest comes from the fact that B.C. has few treaties with First Nations, who are using the high profile games to try and draw attention to that problem. VANOC also steals Aboriginal symbols, and displays them in the wrong context.

As an example, the Games’ logo is the Inukshuk. There is a lot to say about this, but in brief this Inuit symbol has little to do with the Coast Salish who are around Vancouver. This implies that VANOC doesn’t care about differences between Aboriginal groups or the attachment to the land that is important in most indigenous cultures.

Their logo also warps the meaning of the Inukshuk, as the older Inuit meaning is nothing like what VANOC claims it means. The design VANOC uses isn’t even an Inukshuk; it’s an Inunnguaq. This was probably considered too difficult to pronounce. The former commissioner of Nunavut, among others, has expressed disgust with this misuse of an important symbol.

The VANOC use of the “Inukshuk” is especially distasteful considering that VANOC defends its own copyrighted symbols (including the Inukshuk that they stole) like rabid hyenas, and makes billions renting them to corporations. First Nations people don’t have this right.

This is a very brief outline. There are other problems with the Games. For the record, most people who are against the Olympics did fine in high school gym, support the athletes, have pride in Canada and realize that it’s going to happen. But that’s not the point.