OCAP image for the July 16 rally and march.

The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) led a rally and march last weekend in protest of Toronto’s Pan Am Games. As the event page description reads, “If there is money to spend on circuses, then the resources can be found to end the need for food banks, tackle the mounting problem of homelessness and ensure that everyone has decent, affordable and accessible housing.”

It’s a reasonable point—especially considering whenever there is a demand for shelter and livable wages, the counter argument is always the excuse that there isn’t enough money. Yet, more than $700 million was spent on the athlete’s village and another $10 million was allotted for the province’s Pan Am secretariat. Neither of these costs are included in the games’ $1.4-billion budget.

So, just so we’re clear: Our governments didn’t have enough money to put services in place to mitigate against 18 reported deaths from amongst Toronto’s homeless population, but Pan Am execs will receives $7 million in bonuses. (But hey, they have to split it.) Oh, and let’s not forget the unnecessary infrastructure added to the public’s bill, or the $3.8 million that was spent on lighting up a bridge.

Photo taken at the rally and march July 16.

In Toronto, insufficient shelter, unlivable wages, and empty food bank shelves are all issues that have been shoved under the rug during the games. Instead, we get the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) working alongside Pan Am games security to protect tourists from, well, the homeless, apparently. The attack on the poor—like dislocating low-income families and the homeless or making arrests for petty crimes—happens years in advance. “People don’t want to see unsightly people on the streets when they’re trying to sell an event,” as Sophy Chan, an activist and community engagement co-ordinator at SPORT4ONTARIO told Now in March.

And yet, all this is not what city officials see as embarrassing. Concerns are directed on more important matters, like pretty floors for the housing in athlete’s village. “Unfinished floors and ragged walls without baseboards would reflect poorly on our region’s reputation as hosts. Quite simply, the village wouldn’t look finished,” TO2015 spokesperson Teddy Katz tells The Star.  And here was me thinking that an embarrassing host was someone who couldn’t take care of their own residents. But, Ontario is “helping” students who volunteer for the games—the population who the province makes poor. So that makes up for it (but not really).

My daughter attends a city-run daycare which received an overabundance in free tickets for the games. When I attended an event I saw overpaid security (police are making $80 an hour) thoroughly check daycare children, in unorganized line-ups, leading to under-attended games. Public money could have been spent better elsewhere, but that’s just my hunch.

A former This intern, Hillary Di Menna is in her second year of the gender and women’s studies program at York University. She also maintains an online feminist resource directory, FIRE- Feminist Internet Resource Exchange.

Vancouver 2010 Anti-Olympic mascot Bitey the Bedbug. Photo by Lotus Johnson.

On January 11, a coalition of advocates in Vancouver’s downtown eastside voiced a cheeky cry for Stephen Harper to prorogue the upcoming 2010 Winter Games. Though more marketing ploy than genuine call to action, the move is nonetheless a signal of things to come. In the few remaining days before the Olympic torch arrives in Vancouver, protestors have vowed to ramp up anti-Olympic activity. And, of course, the IOC, VANOC and even the City of Vancouver will be doing whatever they can to stop them.

But just as the call to prorogue packs more bark than bite, Olympics protests scheduled for the lead up to—and during—the Games will likely amount to little more than well-meaning disruptions. The window for real change on anything Olympics-related closed a long time ago, and Vancouver’s infuriating “Olympic Bylaws” make doing anything remotely radical prohibitive. The spectacle that comes with the Olympics offers an important opportunity to raise awareness for the plight of Canada’s poorest postal code, Native land claims and the egregiously irresponsible use of public dollars that is the 2010 Games—but grassroots advocates already need to start looking to the future. Yes, the Olympics is here now. But what happens to that progressive momentum once the Games has come and gone?

When I spoke to the Olympic Resistance Network’s Harsha Walia in her cluttered downtown eastside office over the holidays, she called the Olympics a “social catalyst.” Activists of all stripes, with varied missions and agendas, have come together in protest. The problem, though, is that Vancouver 2010 has given birth to the organizations at the front of the anti-Olympics movement right now—No 2010, 2010 Watch and ORN—as the 16-day event comes and goes, so too will they. Other established advocacy groups have continued to champion their own causes, using the Games as a flagpole to rally around, and it is the efficacy of their efforts in the Olympics’ wake that will present a chance for actual reform.

Because the real legacy of the Games won’t be the revamped Sea-to-Sky Highway or new sports infrastructure in Richmond. And it certainly won’t be the 250 units of social housing the city has promised from the freshly constructed athletes village. The real legacy will be debt. Crippling public debt. According to 2010 Watch’s Christopher Shaw, the Olympics are quickly shaping up to be Vancouver’s very own “Big Owe.”

And that debt could put more pressure on existing grassroots groups, especially when funds are cut and the world’s eyes aren’t on Vancouver. Sport can be a powerful platform for awareness—but it also comes with a short attention span. It’ll be difficult for the organizations that have been so vocal in the run up to the Games to maintain the force of their voice once the Olympic spotlight has moved on.

However, with another large-scale sports event taking place on Canadian soil in five years—the 2015 Pan Am Games in Toronto—there exists a ready-made excuse to preserve the cohesion and unity of purpose the anti-Olympics movement has created. If the fervent opposition to Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics and the trepidation around Rio receiving the same Games is any indication, the public is increasingly aware that global sports competitions are not the benign, benevolent forces they’re billed to be. The world is starting to understand who really reaps the benefits and who really pays the costs. And, perhaps, that is where Olympic detractors should be looking. Perhaps that could be the 2010 Games’ “other” legacy.