Olympic tent village: trouble at the Vancouver winter Olympics

Shame on Canada indeed, but I think the attention being focused on the Olympics is a bit of a red herring. Vancouver has been infamous for its homelessness and related social issues for years, and I think it’s wishful thinking to believe that our current government could give a crap about addressing those problems – whether Vancouver had won its Olympic bid or not.

We’re talking about a federal government that is actively trying to shut down InSite, about the best thing the Downtown East Side has going for it, and that counts among its Cabinet ministers former Ontario Tories from the Mike Harris era. (Aka the years of the $3-a-day welfare diet, and the infamous “single moms on welfare are all drunks” remarks.) These are not people who would be redirecting any spare funds or political capital towards subsidized housing and the homeless in any case, and that, I think, is the real issue.

I also think all the talk about native land issues around the Olympics gets muddy really fast. “No Olympics on Stolen Native Land”? First, the four First Nations whose land was made use of all agreed to it. Second, when you get right down to it, every single thing that happens in Canada every single day takes place on stolen native land. I buy my groceries on stolen native land. I’m typing this on stolen native land. It’s an incredibly vast and complex situation that’s being oh-so-slowly addressed by a grinding land claims bureaucracy – and I’m just not sure what the Olympics has to do with it.

I find the anti-Olympics crowd so puzzling/frustrating, because I’m absolutely on side with the broader issues they want to see addressed, but I just don’t get the Olympic fixation. It seems like a distraction to me.