Day of Counting – THIS SATURDAY!

Saturday, February 20th @ 12-2pm: “Day of Counting” – While we count and celebrate how many medals Canada has won, we will count the costs of the Olympics.  Meet at Victoria Park @ 12pm for briefing and announcements.  If your organization wants to make an announcement, please email me.  Walk on the sidewalks of downtown Halifax.  Route to be determined.  Bring placards, megaphones, musical instruments, etc.

70% agree: “too much is spent on Olympic Games”

see: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/528319/when_snow_melts_vancouver_s_olympic_crackdown

Olympic Tent Village – video

check out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n366T3aeHCs&feature=player_embedded

Ignatieff angered at Olympic critics

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff said: “I feel angry about it, actually,” he said Wednesday. “I feel that VANOC, yeah, it hasn’t been perfect – there’ve been some glitches – but this is a great Games and, from the Canadian point of view, this is one of the greatest moments in our national life since (centennial celebrations in) 1967.”

My response:  For WHO do you speak for, Mr. Ignatieff? And it hasn’t been perfect?  It’s been far from perfect!!! Putting the Olympic glitches and technical difficulties and weather problems aside, let’s look at the over-budgeting.  64% of Canadians in the Vancouver Olympic referendum (40% turnout rate) said very clearly that they agreed to hosting the Olympics based on the fact that it would cos them $1 BILLION, not $7 plus billion!!!!  You can sit in your first-class seat at the Olympic games and the easily return to Ottawa and think that all is beautiful.  You are so disconnected from the “Canadian point of view”.   The majority of Canadians that I’ve spoken with are tired.  They are tired of working 50hrs. They are tired of politicians’ lies.  They are tired of misallocation of their hard-earned tax dollars.   While these are not new complaints, this is the reality nonetheless.  So if you, Mr. Ignatieff really want celebrate a great “national” moment, get in touch with the people’s priorities first.

See:  http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/olympics/news?slug=capress-oly_ignatieff_critics-174056127&prov=capress&type=lgns

Poverty activists resistant to Olympics (video)

Check out Al-Jazeera:  http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/02/201021495840226852.html

Tar Sands Blow!

GREEN OLYMPICS?  Gimme a break!!  Royal Bank of Canada is the major financier of Alberta Tarsands Project AND the major corporate sponsor for the Olympics.  While it prides itself on benevolence and endorses the “Olympic spirit” it is simultaneously working on the MASSIVE EXPANSION of the tarsands leading to irreversible environmental destruction.   Let’s cancel our RBC bank accounts!  Take the bus!  Be conscious of our choices.  And, speak out against the DESTRUCTION and DECEPTION!

http://oilsandstruth.org/controversy-rocks-leadup-2010-olympics

Great games, Dirty Sponsors!

From: http://action.foe.org/t/7221/blastContent.jsp?email_blast_KEY=1169149 Friend, You can help stop Big Oil’s race to ruin in the tar sands. Tell President Obama to say NO to the Keystone pipeline. Tonight’s opening of the Winter Olympics is sure to grab headlines and captivate audiences across the world. Unfortunately, the Olympics aren’t the only high-stakes competition unfolding right now in Canada. Seven hundred miles from Vancouver, giant oil corporations, some of them sponsors of the Olympics1, are deploying their machinery in a race to exploit Alberta’s tar sands. These companies strip mine huge tracts of the pristine Boreal Forest, the Amazon of the North, to extract the oil beneath. An area of forest the size of Florida is set to be razed and replaced with open pit mines, smoke stacks and toxic ponds. Big Oil is counting on America’s fossil fuel addiction to make this race profitable. The industry wants to build new pipelines to double imports of dirty tar sands oil into the United States. As you read this, the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline sits on President Obama’s desk waiting for approval. This is our opportunity to halt the destruction. Tell President Obama to say “no thanks” to more dirty tar sands oil. A dirty truth of the tar sands project is that more than natural habitats are being destroyed in the race to extract oil. The toxic byproducts of the mining process are poisoning indigenous communities that rely on the land and water downstream. These communities have seen high rates of rare cancers since the mining began. The dirty truth behind the Olympics is that they are being fueled by corporations profiting from this tragedy. Sunoco subsidiary Petro Canada runs six tar sands projects and is a National Partner of the Olympics. TransCanada, the official supplier of natural gas for the Games, is driving the Keystone XL pipeline, which would be the biggest pipeline yet to funnel dirty tar sands oil into the United States. You can help stop Big Oil’s race to ruin in the tar sands. Call on President Obama to deny the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. As the curtain opens on the Winter Games in Vancouver tonight, you can help close the curtain on Big Oil’s Olympics of destruction unfolding next door. Sincerely, Alex Moore Dirty Fuels Campaigner Friends of the Earth NOTE: 1. Petro Canada (Sunoco in the U.S.) runs six tar sands projects and is a National Partner of the Vancouver Olympics. TransCanada is the official supplier of natural gas for these Olympics. In the United States, TransCanada is pushing the Keystone XL pipeline, which aims to carry 900,000 barrels of tar sands oil to the Gulf Coast. The Royal Bank of Canada is another key Olympics sponsor and has invested more money in the tar sands than any other bank.

Friends of the Earth 1717 Massachusetts Avenue NW Suite 600 Washington, DC 20036 (202) 783-7400 Friends of the Earth 311 California Street Suite 510 San Francisco, CA 94104 (415) 544-0790

Prep for Protest – *Tomorrow*

Tomorrow at 12pm is the DAY OF SOLIDARITY!!!  We’ll start at Victoria Park and make a solidarity march along Spring Garden.

Stand with fellow Canadians by voicing your outrage against the environment destruction, human rights violations and endless spending spree all for a 3-week corporate party.  While supporting amateur sport, we must engage the public in a critical debate about the destruction caused by the Olympic Games all the while promoting “peace, harmony, and unity”.

WHAT TO BRING?  warm clothes! lots of layers! placards, megaphones, noise makers

For writing on your placards or making t-shirts, we’ve been using the following slogans:

- IOC, U owe me!  (IOC = International Olympic Committee)

- Olympics @ what cost?

- Peace, Harmony, Unity?  For who?

- Stealing land! Stealing money! That’s the real  Game!

- We love sports! Not oppressive forts!

- Enjoy sports!  But stop the destruction!

- We stand strong! Against the Olympic wrongs!

If you don’t have time, we have some extra placards and t-shirts

For more information on the “Day of Solidarity” check out:

http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2010/02/09/feb-13th-call-out-for-solidarity-actions-across-canada-against-olympic-and-tar-sands-green-washing/

Invite your friends on Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/?sk=events#!/event.php?eid=323651831677

Let’s stand together to make sure our community notices the costly realities of the Olympics, because we will have to foot the bill in the future.

If you or your organization wants to speak, please email me or let me know tomorrow.

See you tomorrow!!!

thoughts and prayers go out to Nodar Kumaritashvili’s family and team

Olympic luger from Georgia dies after crash:

http://aa.yhs.search.yahoo.com/avg/search?fr=yhs-avgb&type=yahoo_avg_hs2-tb-web_aa&p=Nodar+Kumaritashvili

Nodar Kumaritashvili

Vancouver today (Feb 11th, 2010)

From the Olympic Resistance Network:

While City and Olympic officials try to turn our city into a sanitized
corporate image, we experience:

*  Increasing homelessness, poverty, illegal evictions and rent increases,
*  Union-busting and public services cutbacks with a $6 billion Olympic
budget,
*  Threats to civil liberties and crackdowns on visible poverty,
*  At least 15,000 police, soldiers, spies and security forces and public
video monitoring,
*  Corporate sponsors engaged in arms manufacturing, human rights abuses,
and the environmentally destructive Alberta Tar Sands,
*  Exploitation of unceded Indigenous land and resources,
*  Major environmental damage to build the ‘Green Games,’ and more …