By Kimball Cariou
Despite a hugely expensive propaganda blitz, the "Yes" side in Vancouver's Feb. 22 Olympic plebiscite fell a bit short of their goal of a two-thirds majority. The final tally was 64% "yes," compared to 36% "no."
This was the first time that any citizen referendum on hosting the Olympic Games has resulted in a "yes" majority. That gave something for the "yes" side to cheer about, but not the overwhelming support considered important for the local bid to gain on Salzburg, Austria, the perceived leader in the race for the 2010 Winter Games. The International Olympic Committee will announce its choice on July 2.
For Mayor Larry Campbell, an Olympics supporter, the outcome vindicated his refusal to bow to pressure from corporate interests which demanded that he reverse his civic election pledge to hold the vote.
Those corporations led the "yes" campaign in the final weeks, pouring money into ads and using athletes and celebrities to promote their drive to win the Games for Vancouver and Whistler. They were joined by B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell, whose drunk driving charges in early January were initially seen as a major problem for the bid.
But the most effective "yes" campaigner was Mayor Campbell, who remains popular after winning in a landslide last November. Four of the eight Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) city councillors eventually called for a "yes" vote, reflecting sharp divisions within the labour and people's movements in the city.
Some observers fear the Mayor and his supporters may have won a pyrrhic victory. By siding with big business and the widely-hated premier on this issue, Larry Campbell evidently hopes to blunt the impact of provincial spending cuts on Vancouver.
But there is no sign that the provincial Liberals are reconsidering their agenda, despite some claims to the contrary. The only tangible provincial spending shifts in sight relate to Olympic-related projects such as a new convention centre and the controversial plan for a Skytrain extension to the airport. Such projects would create some short term employment, at enormous cost per job. Funnelling billions of new dollars towards Skytrain will almost certainly starve the region's transit system of dollars desperately needed to upgrade and expand the totally inadequate fleet of buses.
From a political standpoint, this will generate new differences among the progressive groups which backed COPE last fall. The COPE majority is still very early in its three-year term, but it now seems certain that many on the political left will give the Mayor and several other councillors a rough ride on a wide range of issues. The struggle may also have given a boost to the Green Party, which was highly visible in its efforts for a "no" vote. The Greens and the Communist Party were the only political parties to campaign against the Bid.
One key weakness of the "no" campaign was its inability to focus on the very weak economic arguments in favour of the Bid, and on the need for B.C. to give priority to health and education. The "no" groups did work on these issues, but also spent considerable time and effort complaining about the enormous campaign finance imbalances, and on attacking Larry Campbell and the pro-"yes" COPE councillors. By making consistently negative arguments, the "no" forces effectively surrendered the "positive" side of the debate, allowing their opponents to claim the feel-good terrain with their visions of a great celebration in 2010.
Some idea of a different strategy can be imagined by looking at recent poll results. Oraclepoll Research Ltd. asked 528 people province-wide to comment on this sentence: "I would rather have my tax dollars spent on health care, education and social services than on the Winter Olympics in Whistler and Vancouver in 2010". The results found that 56.4% strongly agreed, and another 14% agreed, compared to just 5.5% who strongly disagreed and 6.4% who agreed.
Could the "no" campaign have won by refusing to dump on those who emphasized the intangible values of hosting the Olympics, and instead stressing the benefits of spending billions of dollars on B.C.'s declining social and economic infrastructure? We'll never know, unfortunately.
The question now is what happens next. All the COPE councillors who backed the "no" side pledged to give their support to the voters' decision, leaving anti-Olympics campaigners little room to carry on the fight. Their best option might be to demand that the provincial and federal Liberals pony up equal investment in crucial areas of public spending, but that would require such groups to downplay their fundamental opposition to the Olympics.
Given the bitterness of the recent debate, they seem more likely to keep firing away at Mayor Campbell and the IOC, leaving the Gordon Campbell Liberals as the big winners, at least for the moment. And that would be a frustrating setback for the anti-Liberal forces as the halfway point of the provincial government's term in office comes up this spring.
From the March 1-15/2003 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.