As a French-Canadian living in Vancouver, I almost feel it is my duty to share my opinion about this non-issue: French at the Olympics.

VANOC: Oppressing Olympic fans in both official languages

While I think that there are more pressing issues, such as the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, and the horrendous response from VANOC and the International Luge Federation, basically blaming the now-silenced victim for his own death.  Or the fact that the Olympic Cauldron is behind a fence that makes the whole site look like it’s in jail, which symbolizes perfectly VANOC mismanagement of the whole Olympic fiasco.  I’ll briefly write about the place of French-language at the Olympics.

I personally think that… it’s generally OK.  The overwhelm majority of Olympic-related signs in Vancouver are bilingual.  The Opening ceremony was in both official languages.  What many do not understand is that Vancouver, while being in Canada, is not a very francophone city.  And it is Vancouver who host the Olympics, not bilingual Canada.

Since John Furlong doesn’t speak French, VANOC could have a second person speaking in Molière’s language at the opening ceremony.  Other than minor elements such as the one previously mentioned, the 2010 games are fairly bilingual.  Or at least, as bilingual as Vancouver can get.

Of all the things that are badly managed by VANOC, the place of French at the opening ceremony, is a relatively minor mishap in my opinion.

Frédéric Van Caenegem

In 2003, I voted for the Olympics.  Even though most (if not all) Olympics games organized since WWII have been to the benefit of the rich and privileged in any society, I hoped these games would not be too much for the well-being but would also be for the average people.  My hopes were not too high, but just enough to vote yes.  Five years later, I bitterly regret it.

Probably because the city had a good mayor then, I hope he and the city council (controlled by the left-wing COPE) would be a good counter-balance to the right-wing liberal provincial government.  However, as you know, mayor Larry Campbell didn’t seek a second mandate, and despite coming close, his protégé wasn’t elected.  The new mayor had no vision for the city and turned out to be blindly pro-business.

Olympics games require a lot of projects and infrastructures development, and the key decisions regarding these investments are done between 5 to 3 years before the actual Olympics games. That, for Vancouver, is between 2005 to 2007.  Just the right time to have pro-business right-wing administrations controlling the city, the province and even the federal government (from 2006)!

Consequences: almost all developments in infrastructures in the greater Vancouver benefited private enterprises: new bridges, more roads, new convention centre, etc. The only project that would be useful to everyone was the rapid transit RAV line.  But even that was done in private partnership and with overflowing costs.

Thinking about it, five years later, my hope for balanced Olympics where roads are expanded in conjunction with public transport projects, where real estate development includes good quality affordable housing projects are quite dead. It is too late now for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics: they will benefit only the rich and powerful.  But hope is not all lost, now is time to prepare the after Olympics!

Frédéric Van Caenegem