It's Premier Gordon Campbell and Prime Minister Stephen Harper jostling to be front and centre at the Olympic opening, but it may be Delta North MLA Guy Gentner who deserves the credit, or blame. This according to a 1996 article in the Vancouver Province.
“Few will remember where or by whom the idea was first presented,” wrote Kent Gilchrist in a Jan. 4, 1996 sports section column. “Long forgotten will be B.C. Transit driver Guy Gentner of Delta, who wrote a six-page Olympic bid proposal way back in November of 1995 to get the wheels in motion.”
Gentner wrote the proposal for the Fraternal Order of Visionaries, a group of Simon Fraser University friends, before passing it on to Norm Lortie, then the NDP MLA for Delta, who brought it to his government colleagues, the column said.
The original proposal was to host the 2004 summer Olympics, though Lortie acknowledged it might have to be a later games. "Guy's a dynamic individual and I'm acting as a facilitator for him," it quoted him saying.
Observed Gilchrist, noting it was unclear how seriously NDP cabinet ministers were taking the proposal, “Just think how many more Johnny-come-lately types can get on board and measured for their blazers if the actual bid is for the 2008 Games . . . They'll be elbowing each other off the podium it'll be so crowded with self congratulators.”
Gentner was first elected as a New Democratic Party MLA in 2005. He delivered a response to the throne speech today that was highly critical of the B.C. Liberal government's management of the games, noting that it had gotten far away from the original vision for a low budget event.
Andrew MacLeod is The Tyee’s Legislative Bureau Chief in Victoria. Reach him here.
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Van Isle
2 years ago
If you listen to Bill Good
If you listen to Bill Good it was Glen Clark who 1st proposed the games. If the olympic party is goes off without a hitch, the Liberals will take full credit but somehow try and blame the NDP for cost overruns.
Fiat lux
2 years ago
Ten times of the original
Ten times of the original estimate can hardly be called "cost overrun".
"But it will bring more foreign investment"
Sure thing : "BC FOR SALE", with a million bucks worth of free tickets to the buyers.
How about providing them with armored cars so they can take out more ?
Ed Deak.
sunshine coast girl
2 years ago
Someone in the Valley
saw tanks at Abby going to the Owelympics today. Will that do?
off-the-radar
2 years ago
@ Ed Deak
I just want to say, you are, and have been, an inpiration to me.
Your comments are brilliant and it is SO reassuring to know that there is another kindred spirit out there.
Thank you. Thank you a hundred times over.
Skywalker
2 years ago
Ditto that Ed
I'm with off-the radar on that.
Matt T.
2 years ago
The NDP Now Claims Responsibility for the OWElympics??????????
What a joke. Now the LIEberals are causing pain and suffering to the poor because of this Guy Gentner?!
These two parties are now a real joke.
BC definately needs a true leftist party to meet the needs of British Columbians. AND IT'S ABOUT TIME!!!!
W Laurier
2 years ago
We have a true
We have a true leftist party here in British Columbia:
http://www.marxist.ca/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/
W Laurier
2 years ago
Sure of that?
"saw tanks at Abby going to the Owelympics today"
So, did the tanks have a sign on them that said, "Olympics or Bust!"
Or maybe they weren't going there.
Fiat lux
2 years ago
Come now guys, I'm used to
Come now guys, I'm used to being ignored and have dirt heaped on me, so don't praise me too much or it may go to my head.
I ain't no leader, or follower, of anybody, just a simple old working stiff, hick in the sticks who has seen too much, too many lives ruined by all kinds of prophets and politicians, fought communism for 45 years and now fighting its idiot twin, capitalism, for the rest of my life.
Have a good one. After all now you can watch the opening of the $6. billion showbiz extravaganza, while our local schools are being closed and little kids, who are paying for it, forced on the buses for hours and hours every day.
But that'll learn them who the foreign investor bosses are and what freedom and democracy are about.
Ed Deak.
Fiat lux
2 years ago
Come now guys, I'm used to
Come now guys, I'm used to being ignored and have dirt heaped on me, so don't praise me too much or it may go to my head.
I ain't no leader, or follower, of anybody, just a simple old working stiff, hick in the sticks who has seen too much, too many lives ruined by all kinds of prophets and politicians, fought communism for 45 years and now fighting its idiot twin, capitalism, for the rest of my life.
Have a good one. After all now you can watch the opening of the $6. billion showbiz extravaganza, while our local schools are being closed and little kids, who are paying for it, forced on the buses for hours and hours every day.
But that'll learn them who the foreign investor bosses are and what freedom and democracy are about.
Ed Deak.
zalm
2 years ago
Wilth
"So, did the tanks have a sign on them that said, "Olympics or Bust!"
Or maybe they weren't going there.
Aldergrove has 4 LAVs. I can see them rolling out to support Whistler and Callahan on the roads because of their night-vision equipment... to match the night-vision equipment the Nuu-chal-hulth have for hunting deer. And a 50-mil shell-thrower can make that ugly beast look an awful lot like a tank to someone who doesn't ID military vehicles for Jane's for a living.
Overkill has always been a classic American response. Perhaps we're becoming more like them every day. To our common tragedy. Whatever happened to the common core Canadian values of decency, consideration and thoughtfulness? Sold for a mess of pttage?
zalm
2 years ago
Gawd
Spelling's becoming more and more of a challenge on this Microslop product every day. Of course our heritage was sold for a mess of "pottage".
W Laurier
2 years ago
Zalm
Try Google Chrome and can MS Word. Open Office is much better and both are free. When you get your next computer, install Ubuntu on it. You will be happy you did! I was!
zalm
2 years ago
I meant Windoze 7
It's always running something in the background - it's remarkably difficult to turn everything you don't want off, and as a result, sometimes the keyboard buffer backs up, among other things.
OpenOffice works, after a fashion, but Corel X4/WP/Paradox is still the way to go for me. Far more efficient. I wouldn't be able find my way around MS Word even with a road map, and Microslop doesn't give you one, just some retarded paper clip. I was more productive in the '70s using Wordstar on that old CP/M machine.
Chrome? If you say so. I'm still trying to get Nero not to fight with Freecorder and Winamp, and Realplayer is now behaving badly. I'm all done with so-called "upgrades", thanks.
Wouldn't that make a good epic blockbuster Software Behaving Badly, starring Gordo as the malicious venereal virus "Trojan Enz", with Ahnold as the "Terminate-and-Stay-Resident" reprobate who makes cyberspace safe for little bits of information who 'just want to be free'....
Poh! And I'm not even deep into my cups yet.
Frank
2 years ago
zalm
I haven't used Linux in over a year as I'm forced to use Windows for work. Haven't upped to Vista, let alone 7, still on XP which I find stable enough although I use open-source whenever possible such as Thunderbird, Firefox and the GIMP.
I've used Ubuntu up to "Warty Warhog" I think it was then went to Linux Mint which is an Irish offshoot of Ubuntu. Very very well done. My mother still uses it. My favourite for speed and productivity though is Vector Linux out of Winnipeg. Very fast and as its built on a Slackware chassis its pretty much bullet-proof. But its not as easy to use as Mint.
The thing about Linux, its easier to control what's going on in your system. Using the slick versions of "apt-get" allows you to fine tune your system in a way that just isn't possible on Windows. I often wish I could do with Windows what I used to do on Linux.
You'd think with all the money they have they could just hire those Linux developers that have worked for peanuts and turned out an amazing system.
As it is, Google seems to have a better long-term view of how things are evolving than Microsoft.
zalm
2 years ago
I'd gotten XP Media pretty
I'd gotten XP Media pretty stable too, but then the company that sponsored my licence in Virginia went bankrupt (don't ask!) so I had to get a new one, and XP Media wasn't available for separate purchase. Sigh. Only option: "upgrade" to Win7.
I've still got old XP on the PC I gave to the folks downstairs, along with the dual-boot Corel Linux, but I never really got into tuning it. I may have to look at that again when I get some time.
That's always the problem - where do you invest the time - where you are, in trying to make it work, or cut your losses and run to a new option? Either way I'm set up for hours and hours of work.