Olympic Cheating? Not us, mate.

Now that the dust has settled, we get a glimpse (courtesy of CP's Paola Loriggio) of what was going on in Mayor Dad's office over the limp musings on an Olympic bid after the Pan-Am track-meet.

Toronto officials saw public resistance as the main threat to a possible Olympic bid and worried holding a referendum on the issue would “allow critics to overstate and inflate opposition” to hosting the 2024 Games, documents reveal.

Emails and briefing materials written by Toronto Mayor John Tory’s staff, obtained by The Canadian Press through access-to-information laws, suggest a lack of public and government support were seen as the “greatest risks” to a Toronto pitch.

No opposition groups are mentioned in that story but I am proud to have been part of NoTO2024 and it's gratifying to think we may have had a small effect on Tory's long-drawn-out but finally sane answer.

I was prepared to be quietly pleased until someone posted a link to GamesBids's spin on the story.

The author and website owner, Robert Livingstone (more about that in a minute), did mention us by name.

As the bid decision loomed, vocal opposition with social-media savvy emerged including the loosely organized NoTO2024 group that mimicked the strategies of No Boston Olympics.  The latter successfully cast enough doubt about a Boston 2024 Olympic bid during the previous months that the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) eventually parted ways with the Massachusetts group and moved forward with Los Angeles instead.

But the Toronto opposition often relied on erroneous and unsupported outdated “facts”, and in some cases inflammatory Website comments that bordered on libel, to try to get their opinions heard.

Ooooh. "Bordered on libel"?????

He quotes from the NoTO2024 website:

“Myth 7: The IOC is reformed
Nope – it’s still the same old cabal of unelected and often corrupt failed politicians, super-wealthy princes and the odd despot. They still demand five-star service, right from fruit in their hotel suites to private lanes on the highway. Millions of our tax dollars are poised to go directly (or rather, extremely indirectly) into their pockets.”

I personally sourced and documented every -- yes, somewhat snarkily presented -- fact in that quote.

Where, exactly, is the libel-bordering there, Mr. Livingstone?

I would have let that go too. Some kind of sour grapes or something at work there, poor guy, but here's the last paragraph.

It seems the citizens of Toronto and Canada were cheated out of a fair Olympics debate. It’s up to the IOC to continue to work on improving its messaging and the Olympic brand so that more informed discussions can happen in the future.

"Cheated out of a fair Olympics debate."

When the standard line from Olympics boosters and officials to ordinary residents is "don't worry your purty little heads about details," NoTO2024 was the ONLY citizen group trying to put some real facts in front of Torontonians and Canadians.

But hey, it's not like GamesBids had anything to gain from a Toronto bid (the author is based in Toronto, by the way). Have a look at its About page.

Our membership includes the world media, members of bid city committees around the world, IOC officials and key stakeholders in the process as well as Olympic fans, businesses and athletes. You can join too!

Please explore GamesBids.com and send us a note to tell us what you want to see.

Ya gotta love it. The Olympic Spirit consists of telling people what they want to see/know.

And "cheating" consists of telling some uncomfortable truths.

And let's not forget that spot of bother Canadian Olympic Committee macho-honcho, Marcel Aubut, found himself in shortly afterwards.



Previous DAMMIT JANET! coverage of NoTO2024.

Olympics: Dodged a Bullet, Set a Precedent?

Mayor Dad announced yesterday that Toronto is not going to bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics.

Good.

As observant readers have noted, this blog was opposed to the greed-corruption-anti-democracy festival that the Olympics bring to town.

What galled me the most was the total needlessness of this kabuki.

Some points:
• We had already decided against this idiocy until John Tory got a bee in his bonnet and decided to drag us all through his dithering for more than a month.

• An Olympic bid was not on anyone's agenda. No one campaigned on it. It had zero interest, let alone support. (See link above. Not one person appeared at the economic development committee meeting to speak in favour of a bid.)

• One man, John Tory, all jacked up on Pan Am juice -- a third-rate sports event, amounting to a "high school track meet" in comparison to the Olympics -- decided to revisit an issue that no one gave a shit about. Why? Who knows? Maybe because he's an elite former executive who wants to run a one-man show.

• Speaking of which, Tory completely ignored elected representatives on city council, while lying his ass off about consulting them.

• Speaking of which, look how many council members refused to disclose where they stood on the matter, despite being repeatedly asked by constituents and media. (And kudos to those who did.)

• And finally the total lack of transparency. Which, one gathers, is typical for this sort of elite takeover of civic processes, but which, none the less, is infuriating.

In short, I was deeply offended and mightily pissed off by the sheer gall of elites deciding that we peons were going to pay BILLIONS for a big-ass party, while having no bloody say in it at all.

Then, as the topper, Mayor Dad calls a press conference to gather on the roof of a snack shop -- and doesn't that just scream World Class City? -- to blather on and on about how carefully HE considered everything (someone really should count the number of first-person pronouns in that speech; it's embarrassing) only to decide HE couldn't look people in the eye …

The truth is, I can’t look people in the eye at this point in our city’s development and tell them that an Olympic bid is the best use of our time, our energy, or our investment.

John Tory, the very embodiment of the Olympic Spirit -- in all its entitlement and noblesse oblige.

Toronto is entering dangerous territory here that I and Cityslikr thought we had faced and (barely) survived in the Rob Ford era.

But even if the mayor declines to proceed, city council needs to make it clear, in the strongest way possible, that this was never a mayor’s decision to make alone, that all the behind-the-scenes, Freedom of Information access only deliberations were unacceptable and undemocratic. If Mayor Tory’s doing all that on an Olympic bid, what else is going on back there?

City council needs to nip this mayor’s imperious inclinations in the bud now. It needs to show the mayor exactly who the boss is here. Like Rob Ford before him, Mayor Tory seems to have claimed a mayoral mandate as some sort of executive fiat. He’ll keep thinking that until city council shows him otherwise.

Wakey, wakey, city council.

And citizens of Toronto.


UPDATE: Janice Forsyth, who was a strong voice for reason and facts, still has questions too.

Bread Not Circuses Redux

If you follow me on Twitter, I apologize. I've been a total pain in the ass lately in my lonely effort to get Torontonians in particular and Canadians in general riled up about a proposed bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics.

Though it's lonely work, I'm finding lots of interesting stuff. And today I found some stuff that is actually encouraging.

In 1989-90, Toronto's millionaire hucksters were really pushing to get the 1996 Summer Olympics, which were ultimately awarded to Atlanta.

Opposed to them was a coalition of women's groups, anti-poverty and housing activists, and labour unions. They called themselves the Bread Not Circuses Coalition.

It was led by Michael Shapcott, still a prominent housing advocate here, and supported, they claimed, by 300,000 people, including then-councillor Jack Layton.

Here's an undated archival recording from the CBC's Inside Track, featuring Shapcott, booster Councillor Kris Korwin-Kuczynski, and for some reason, "playwright" Rick Salutin.

There's a text summary at the link but the clip is only 8-1/2 minutes long and it's interesting, not least for the talking/whining points from Korwin-Kuczynski, which we will no doubt be hearing all over again in the near future.

That script -- jobs, tourism, phantom transit, feel-goodism -- doesn't change.

From the summary:

Toronto should try saying "no" for once. That's the opinion of Bread Not Circuses, one of the strongest anti-Olympic organizations in the world. The local group of anti-poverty activists is embroiled in an uphill fight to scuttle Toronto's bid for the 1996 Summer Olympics. Members argue that the money from the Games - short-term "economic steroids" - never makes it to those that need it most. The Inside Track examines the conflict between hungry markets and hungry mouths.
…
When Toronto lost the bid, anti-Games activists celebrated in an "Olympic-free zone" in the city's portlands, a location that would have become Toronto's Olympic stadium. [Canadian Olympic Committee President Paul] Henderson blamed the loss on Bread Not Circuses and left-leaning city councillors including Jack Layton (later leader of the federal New Democratic Party). Layton had made a point of publicly questioning the bid committee on social issues.

I happen to believe that the coalition was absolutely correct in its opposition but what stands out from this distance is what genius propagandists they were.

(Some say the "fix" was in for Atlanta, headquarters of Coca-Cola after all, but whatever.)

Some context: The greedy, corrupt IOC was still reeling at that point from the fiasco of the 1976 Denver Winter Olympics.

Never heard of them? Of course not. Because they did not happen.

It's a fascinating story of lies, skullduggery, and citizen opposition.

The usual Olympics story, but this time, as in Boston last month successful.

From the link above: "To this day, Denver remains the only city to reject an Olympic bid."

Yes, Denver had "won" the Games, then said "no, thanks." Innsbruck, which had hosted in 1964, had the facilities and stepped up to save the day.

So, even years later, the IOC was a bit jittery about citizen opposition and went so far as to meet with the Bread Not Circuses Coalition in Toronto.

Imagine that, fans of transparency.

Today, Los Angeles released its bid documents. Pretty snappy for a town that just got the word they were now US front-runners at the end of July.

Makes one wonder what was going on quietly behind the scenes.

And makes one wonder what's going on here.

Mayor Tory says he's still making up his mind, while supposedly consulting "community groups," a claim that would be more plausible if he hadn't broken his campaign pledge to make his schedule public. (Promise made in contrast to former Mayor Ford who had to keep his schedule secret because "doing crack" wouldn't have gone over very well.)

There is opposition forming here in Toronto. There's a website, a petition (now with over 250 signatures!!!!), and a hashtag, #NoTO2024.

We are small but growing, and feel honour bound to warn the IOC and local millionaire hucksters.

As before in Toronto, before in Denver, and very recently in Boston, the will, energy, and commitment of the people is discounted at some peril.




Previous DJ! posts:
Toronto Star and Olympics: Something Stinks

Toronto Councillors' Twitter Accounts

10 People on Twitter

A Few Facts (ahem) about John Tory

Most people who've been around for a while know this one.



Watch for young sprog Tory starting about 2:19. Ending with Kim Campbell and we know how her campaign went.

Here's Wiki:

The decision to launch the ads was taken mainly by PC campaign director John Tory along with Allan Gregg. . .

Arguably, the modern age of vicious attack ads was launched with that beaut.

Now, courtesy of a John Tory parody account, two stories you may not know (I didn't).

The Missing Years in John Tory's Resume, aka The Cable Guy.

From 2001 until 2009 John Tory was a director of Charter Communications, at the time it was America's 3rd largest cable and internet company. He was also a member of Charter's audit committee. It looked as though he was going to do the right thing and resign when he became PC leader and an MPP.
. . .
Long story short, Charter Communications filed for Chapter 11  bankruptcy protection on April 1, 2009. Under John's watchful eye as a director and member of the audit committee, Charter which was then America's 4th largest Cable TV company had amassed $20 billion of debt that it couldn't repay.
. . .
Charter had collapsed under a huge debt, but it also never made a penny of profit in all of the years John was there. 
. . .
John Tory's run with Charter Communications came to sad ending in 2009.  John takes credit for successfully leading, managing and obtaining results from large, complex organizations.
. . .
He may have stabilized the CFL, and he still is intimately involved in the Oligopoly that is Rogers, but in the real world of business he presided over one of the largest bankruptcies in America, #14 on Forbes list link

So why is this significant?

It is omitted from his resume (and only mentioned in arcane references buried deep inside corporate filings) even though Charter Communications was 3 times the size of Rogers' cable and internet businesses.
. . .
Pretty much all of John's business life he has been in companies his dad either owned or had great influence over.  Charter Communications was different. It was an American company and it was big. When John closed the door behind him at Charter, the company was unable to pay its debt and its shareholders were wiped out.

No wonder he excluded Charter from his resume.

Some business man, eh?

And now for some very recent prevarications. Watch Tory make shit up.



And now for my fave photo (so far). Anyone for cricket?

ADDED: More extensive fact-checking of the bogus humble beginnings fable.
Just a regular guy. Much like Rob Ford, in fact, with a bit of gloss.