BLACKCURRENT: Lost in a sea of d-words
Opinion by Amy McQuire
National Indigenist Times, ISSUE 181 - 09 Jul 2009
ISSUE 181, July 9, 2009: AMY MCQUIRE laments that Australian governments keep swimming in circles when it comes to Indigenous affairs.
Devastating (Rudd).
Distressing (Gillard).
Disappointing (Abbott).
The three politicians above all used adjectives beginning with 'd' to describe this year's annual Productivity Commission report into Indigenous disadvantage. I have one too: disgusting.
Of course, it is not directed at the report, but rather at our nation's leaders.
For what word is there to describe how those in power repetitiously indulge in lamentations on the plight of Indigenous Australia, and then do nothing about it?
Last Thursday marked the Council of Australian Government (COAG)'s meeting in Darwin.
It was touted that the meeting would place Indigenous affairs on top of the list of priorities, and it did. But by far the most interesting news to come out of the meeting was the Commission's report.
It found the following:
INFANT/YOUNG CHILD MORTALITY: Indigenous infants and young children are still 2-3 times more likely to die than other children, despite improvements in infant mortality rates (young child mortality rates remain constant).
READING, WRITING, NUMERACY: No change in Indigenous student performance over the past 10 years. No closing of gaps between black and white students.
YEAR 12: While the proportion of Indigenous year 12 graduates has increased from 31 to 36 percent between 2001-2006, the fact the non-Indigenous rate also increased from 68 to 74 percent means the gap remains the same.
UNEMPLOYMENT: The Indigenous employment to population ratio has increased to 48 percent as of 2006, but the gap is still the same, as the non-Indigenous ratio has also increased.
CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT: Indigenous children are now 4-6 times more likely to be abused or neglected than non-Indigenous children.
IMPRISONMENT/JUVENILE DETENTION: Imprisonment rate increased by 46 percent for Indigenous women and by 27 percent for Indigenous men between 2000-2008.
Indigenous adults are 13 times more likely to be imprisoned in 2008. The Indigenous juvenile rate increased by 27 percent between 2001-2007.
Indigenous juveniles were 28 times more likely to be detained than their non-Indigenous counterparts.
For once, news.com.au decided to give an important issue precedence over their usual coverage of female body parts and crazed criminals, placing the story at the top of their website.
The Australian newspaper, who to its credit often keeps up with Indigenous affairs (although, controversially) also gave the report prominence online.
All stories included comments by the Prime Minister, who called the report "devastating" and said it meant "we have to redouble and treble our efforts to make an impact".
Thanks Mr Rudd. It's nice to see that you have reacted with such passion to the statistics.
Except, the report is hardly an 'expose'. It says nothing new.
The report is released every second year with almost identical results, and every second year prompts a similar reaction from politicians and media.
Take this news story I found on NIT online. It is from June 2005:
"The report into Aboriginal disadvantage released early today backs the Howard government's decision to make dramatic changes to Indigenous affairs in order to achieve better outcomes, Indigenous Affairs Minister Amanda Vanstone has claimed.
'Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage: Key Indicators 2005' from the Productivity Commission reveals Indigenous Australians have made no improvements in all the key social and economic areas in the past two years.
It also found that between 1994 and 2002, rates for victims of crime, child protection notifications and imprisonment worsened.
In response, Senator Vanstone said she planned to ask state and territory governments what they were doing about continuing violence within Indigenous communities."
Four years on, and the 2009 report confirmed that there are still hardly any improvements for Indigenous people, and Indigenous incarceration rates continue to skyrocket.
Two years ago, NIT again filed a story (June 2007): "Poverty and unemployment have been blamed for a dramatic rise in the number of Indigenous people in Australian jails."
A new report reveals a 32 percent jump in the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders imprisoned between 2000 and 2006. The bleak statistics are contained in the latest Council of Australian Government-commissioned report into Indigenous disadvantage [the Productivity Commission]."
Of course, the Minister for Indigenous Affairs at the time - Mal Brough - did the politically smart thing. He just blamed it on ATSIC.
"ATSIC was an abject failure... it was almost a fraud perpetrated on the Indigenous people and the Australian population," Mr Brough told ABC radio, acknowledging that although John Howard had been in government for 11 years, blackfellas were still to blame.
Although Mr Rudd is slightly more astute to realize ATSIC had nothing to do with entrenched Indigenous disadvantage, I doubt he also has the political will to make the changes Indigenous Australia so desperately needs.
His first report card on Indigenous disadvantage, which he promised on the first sitting day of Parliament each year and which was he delivered a month late, made no mention of any real progress government was making.
Instead, the report was full of rhetoric and spin, and simply recycled tired press releases stuffed with self-praise for apologising to the Stolen Generations.
If a government has to ride on the coat-tails of its first and only major movement in Indigenous affairs to justify its will in other areas of policy, then it really isn't taking many steps forward.
The Rudd government says it is going to 'reset the relationship' with Indigenous Australians, but its insistence on the NT intervention; on compulsorily acquiring the Alice Springs town camps; on linking welfare quarantines to school attendance; on refusing to boost Aboriginal legal aid wile incarceration rates sky-rocket; on refusing to provide reparations to the Stolen Generations; on scrapping CDEP regionally; on linking housing reform to land tenure while opposing against it in Opposition; on axing bilingual education; on refusing to properly support the homelands and outstations; shows that Mr Rudd is not being truthful when he says he will 'double' or 'treble' his government's efforts.
Australian governments, Labor and Liberal, are not just devastated, distressed, disappointed and disgusting.
They are also delusional.
blackcurrent@nit.com.au
* Amy McQuire is a Canberra-based journalist with the National Indigenous Times. She is of Darumbal and South Sea Islander descent, and hails from Rockhampton in Central Queensland. Amy is the current National NAIDOC Young Apprentice of the Year.
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Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Opinion: Australian Government Swimming in Circles When It Comes to Indigenous Affairs
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Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Corporate Interests Will Pressure Obama to Shun Morale's Bolivian Democracy
American foreign policy is subject to structural pressure that has not dissolved
By Johann Hari, Commentator
The Independent, Friday, 23 January 2009
The tears are finally drying – the tears of the Bush years, and the tears of awe at the sight of a black President of the United States. So what now? The cliché of the day is that Barack Obama will inevitably disappoint the hopes of a watching world, but the truth is more subtle than that. If we want to see how Obama will affect us all – for good or bad – we need to trace the deep structural factors that underlie United States foreign policy. A useful case study of these pressures is about to flicker on to our news pages for a moment – from the top of the world.
Bolivia is the poorest country in Latin America, and its lofty slums 13,000 feet above sea level seem a world away from the high theatre of the inauguration. But if we look at this country closely, we can explain one of the great paradoxes of the United States – that it has incubated a triumphant civil rights movement at home, yet thwarted civil rights movements abroad. Bolivia shows us in stark detail the contradictions facing a black President of the American empire.
The President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, has a story strikingly similar to Obama's. In 2006, he became the first indigenous president of his country – and a symbol of the potential of democracy. When the Spanish arrived in Bolivia in the 16th century, they enslaved the indigenous people and worked millions to death. As recently as the 1950s, an indigenous person wasn't even allowed to walk through the centre of La Paz, where the presidential palace and city cathedral stand. They were (and are) routinely compared to monkeys and apes.
Morales was born to a poor potato-farmer in the mountains, and grew up scavenging for discarded orange peel or banana skins to eat. Of his seven siblings, four died in infancy. Throughout his adult life, it was taken for granted that the country would be ruled by the white minority; the "Indians" were too "child-like" to manage a country.
Given that the US is constitutionally a democracy and its presidents say they are committed to spreading democracy across the world, you would expect them to welcome the democratic rise of Morales. But wait. Bolivia has massive reserves of natural gas – a geo-strategic asset, and one that rakes in billions for American corporations. Here is where the complications set in.
Before Morales, the white elite was happy to allow American companies to simply take the gas and leave the Bolivian people with short change: just 18 per cent of the royalties. Indeed, they handed almost the entire country to US interests, while skimming a small percentage for themselves. In 1999, an American company, Bechtel, was handed the water supply – and water rates for the poor majority doubled.
Morales ran for election against this agenda. He said that Bolivia's resources should be used for the benefit of millions of bitterly poor Bolivians, not a tiny number of super-rich Americans. He kept his promise. Now Bolivia keeps 82 per cent of the vast gas royalties – and he has used the money to increase health spending by 300 per cent, and to build the country's first pension system. He is one of the most popular leaders in the democratic world. I have seen this pink tide rising through the barrios and favelas across South America. Millions of people are seeing doctors and schools for the first time in their lives.
I suspect that a majority of the American people – who are good and decent – would be pleased and support this process if they were told about it honestly. But how did the US government (and much of the media) react? George Bush fulminated that "democracy is being eroded in Bolivia", and a recent US ambassador to the country compared Morales to Osama bin Laden. Why? To them, you are a democrat if you give your resources to US corporations, and you are a dictator if you give them to your own people. The will of the Bolivian people is irrelevant.
For these reasons, the US has been moving to trash Morales. By an odd quirk of fate, almost all of Bolivia's gas supplies are in the east of the country – where the richest, whitest part of the population lives. So the US government has been funding and fuelling the hard-right separatist movements that want these regions to break away. Then the whites would happily hand the gas to US companies like in the good ol' days – and Morales would be left without resources. The interference became so severe that last September Morales had to expel the US ambassador for "conspiring against democracy". This weekend, Morales is holding a referendum on a new constitution for the country which will entrench the rights of indigenous people.
Enter Obama – and his paradoxes. He is obviously a person of good will and good sense, but he is operating in a system subject to many undemocratic pressures. Bolivia illustrates the tension. The rise of Morales reminds us of the America the world loves: its yes-we-can openness and civil rights movements. Yet the presence of gas reminds us of the America the world hates: the desire to establish "full spectrum dominance" over the world's resources, whatever the pesky natives think.
Which America will Obama embody? The answer is both – at first. Morales has welcomed him as "a brother", and Obama has made it clear he wants a dialogue, rather than the abuse of the Bush years. Yet who is Obama's Bolivia adviser? A lawyer called Greg Craig, who represents Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada – the hard-right former president of Bolivia who imposed some of the most extreme privatisations of the 1980s, and is now wanted on charges of genocide. Craig's legal team says Morales is (yes) leading "an offensive against democracy".
The structural pressures within the US system that drove hostility to a democratic civil rights leader like Morales have not dissolved in the cold Washington air. The US is still dependent on foreign fossil fuels to keep its lights on, and US corporations still buy senators from both parties. Obama will still be swayed by those factors.
But while this is a reason to be frustrated, it isn't a reason to be cynical. Why? Because while he will be swayed by those factors, he will also subtly erode them over time. Obama has made energy independence – a massive transition away from foreign oil and gas, and towards the wind, sun and waves – the centre of his governing programme. If the US is no longer addicted to Bolivian gas, then its governments will be much less inclined to topple anybody else who wants to control it. (If they're off oil, they'll be much less invested in the Saudi tyranny and petro-wars in the Middle East too.)
Obama also says he wants to peel back the distorting effect of corporate money on the US political system. He is already less slathered in corporate cash than any president since the 1920s. The further he pushes it back, the more breathing space democratic movements like Morales's have to control their own resources.
But we will see. If you want to know if Obama is really altering the tectonic forces that drive American power, keep an eye on the rooftop of the world.
j.hari@independent.co.uk
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Posted By Alliance for Indigenous Rights to Native Rights News at 1/23/2009 04:17:00 PM
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AIM Co-founder Urges President Obama to Take Seriously the Issues Facing Indigenous Peoples
[Editor's Note: This letter was published by the Native American Times prior to Barack Obama's swearing-in ceremony, which took place on January 20, 2009 at 12:00 noon. For more information on Clyde Bellecourt, click on this Wikipedia article]
President-elect Barack Obama
Transitional Team
Washington D.C. 20720
Dear Mr. President-elect,
In this year of hope and change, please accept my expression of congratulations and best wishes to you, your family and your administration, as the American Indian Movement unites with many Native people from across the hemisphere who welcome your victory. A vision of democracy is being fulfilled in our time and before the eyes of the world.
Tribal communities and governments clearly heard your commitment to reform the broken systems that manage and administer trust lands and other trust assets belonging to tribes and individual Indians. Your support of legal protections for our sacred places also encourages our governments and communities to believe that you will arduously defend the sanctity of our ancestral domains. The commitments made and in your principles statement echo the very concerns that summon representatives of indigenous governments to Washington on the eve of an historic inauguration.
It is in support of these Native American heads of state that I write to you. They bear on this journey of the burden of the future of our children, and their children's great, great, great grandchildren to be. Your administration will take office with clear understanding of conditions faced by Native American people in both the United States and Canada - conditions that defy reason to people throughout the global community. No one can understand how an eight-year old Canadian First Nations child could commit suicide in the heart of her community; or why elders can not heat their homes, while two-million [barrels] of dirty oil swiftly cross their backyards, threatening sacred world heritage sites. International media can not resolve to their audiences United States resistance to the abundantly clear need for justice in the billions of dollars under the eight-year long Indian Trust Lawsuit, while approved bailouts in the trillions for investors and lending-houses appear nearly overnight and apparently abandon all rules and accountability in favor of the most privileged.
Last year, many people heard the name that the Crow People bestowed on you when they made you a relative: "One Who Helps People Throughout the Land." Our children are falling prey to human trafficking, our young parents are losing hope with unemployment levels that exceed the national average by 1,000 percent; and the very health of our Elders is stolen from them little-by-little each day, deprived of the dignity that we have always reserved for them at this time in their lives, since time immemorial: these are the people that need your help. The chiefs calling on your office bear in mind the right to property that the United States records in the Bill of Rights and in numerous treaties on both sides of the border, which is absent in the Canadian Charter of Rights a and Freedoms. The Alberta Clipper and TransCanada Keystone Project that stands to benefit business and the general public in trillions of dollars may be built on the ruin of thousands of Native lives, if the United States fails to pressure Ottawa into compliance with their high courts in the matter of consultation and inclusion that you have emphasized as a principle.
Our hereditary leaders, Elders and the emissaries of our traditional governments who comprise the International Indigenous Treaty Council began the task three decades ago of working in the United Nations and securing international agreement on the inherent rights of our Peoples, our cultures, our children and indeed our future on Mother Earth. The unceasing work of many people finally gained passage of that agreement a little over a year ago. Article 19 speaks to one of the concerns that we bring to your attention. "States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concern through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free, prior and informed consent before adopting and implementing legislative or administrative measures that may affect them."
I urge you to take with serious regard the concerns of our chiefs, delegates to the Assembly of First Nations Canada, as we recall your words that "few have been ignored by Washington for as long as Native Americans - First Americans." The world will not ignore what you say, but our leaders need to know that you hear the voices they represent from throughout the land.
Most respectfully,
Clyde H. Bellecourt
Nee-Gon-Nway-Wee-Dung, "Thunder before the Storm"
Co-Founder and National Director, American Indian Movement
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Monday, December 15, 2008
AFN Chief Calls Canada's Record on Human Rights for First Nations Peoples Shameful
Canada's opposition to the human rights of Indigenous People at UN Conference on Climate Change is shameful says AFN National Chief
OTTAWA, Dec. 10 /CNW Telbec/
Assembly of First Nations 
This International Day for Human Rights on December 10 marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).
"The United Nations theme for this year's anniversary is 'Dignity and
justice for all.' The Universal Declaration of Human Rights represents an
international commitment to dignity and justice for every person, for all
peoples, everywhere. Human rights are not a luxury; they belong to everyone.
Canada's denial of the rights of Indigenous people offends the core values,
principles and rights the UN Declaration of Human Rights represents," said
Assembly of First Nations National Chief Phil Fontaine.
This statement comes after Canada opposed the recognition of Indigenous
rights in a new international initiative on climate change that was advanced
this week. The climate initiative known as the Reduced Emissions from
Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) at the United Nations Conferenceon Climate change is currently being held in Poznan, Poland.
The National Chief stated, "It is incomprehensible in an advanced
democratic state as Canada to choose to ignore the rights of Indigenous
people. We are physically, spiritually and culturally tied to our natural
world. We are tied to the land, water, and all aspects of the physical
environment. The denial of our rights in this important global climate change agreement violates our fundamental human rights as Indigenous peoples."
Canada, the United States and Australia expressed interest in including
reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in this agreement. It aims to fight deforestation in developing economies by tapping emissions trading markets in a future climate agreement that will follow up on the first phase of the UN's Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
However, as the text was being drafted yesterday, Canada joined the
United States, Australia and New Zealand in insisting that references to
Indigenous rights and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples be struck from the text.
"Canada's position at the United Nations Conference on Climate change is
the latest in a series of hostile decisions against Indigenous rights which
continue to affect Canada's international reputation as a defender and
promoter of human rights," said AFN National Chief Phil Fontaine.
The National Chief added that the refusal of the Canadian government to
sign the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
despite a motion passed in the House of Commons on April 8, 2008 which called on Parliament to implement and adopt the principles in the declaration offends Canadian law.
"Moreover the rights of our children are also compromised in this
country. The federal government has refused to address discrimination against First Nations children in the Child Welfare system and education. First Nations Child and Family Services agencies receive, on average, 22% less funding than provincial agencies, a point the Auditor General remarked upon in her May 2008 report," said National Chief Phil Fontaine.
The Auditor General criticized the program indicating that shortfalls in
funding mean the federal government is not providing First Nations Child and Family Services agencies with adequate funding requirements to meet the number or the needs of children in state care.
In October, the Canadian Human Rights Commission decided to put the case before the Canada Human Rights Tribunal. However, the federal government
recently filed for a judicial review on technical issues that will delay the
hearing and stall justice for thousands of First Nations children who are
living under state care.
"This is a complete contradiction of the Government's position, which in
the last Parliamentary session insisted that the Canadian Human Rights Act apply to First Nations citizens on reserve. However, this inconsistent
standard of human rights promotion and protection by the Canadian Government for First Nations children violates the principles of equality, fairness and universality of human rights. The rights of our children or any children should not be suspended on technicalities," the National Chief remarked.
Similar to the Child Welfare issue, other core programs for First Nations
children, such as education, have been capped at 2% a year, which does not
keep pace with inflation or the growing First Nations population.
"The deepening gap in the quality of life and well-being for First
Nations compared to Canadians continues to widen and this is not acceptable for any person or child, including First Nations," Fontaine noted.
Currently, First Nations students receive $2,000 less per child annually
for educational support than students in provincial schools. In 2007, INAC
identified a need for 69 new schools while another 95 schools needed major repairs. Approximately 40 First Nations communities do not have schools at all. INAC's current plan addresses only 27 of those sites, but the funding is on hold.
"On this day which celebrates human rights, I call on the Government of
Canada to do the right thing and uphold and promote the human rights of
Indigenous people and the human rights of our children".
The Assembly of First Nations is the national political organization
representing First Nations citizens in Canada.
For further information: Karyn Pugliese, Communications Officer, Cell:
(613) 292-1877; Gina Cosentino, Government Relations and International
Affairs, National Chief"s Office, Cell: (613) 314-2661, gcosentino@afn.ca
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Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Canada Ignores Pleas of Native Leaders, Adds to Poverty and Homelessness of Native Peoples in Preparation for 2010 Olympic Games
CANADA: Native Rights Concerns Cloud 2010 Games
By Jon Elmer
VANCOUVER, Dec 1 (IPS) - A coalition of indigenous elders, social justice activists and community organisers is voicing opposition to the upcoming Winter Olympics, promising to continue their protests up to and throughout the 2010 games.
Taking advantage of a three-day media briefing hosted by the official Olympic body in late November, the Vancouver Organising Committee (VANOC), activists and native representatives invited the local and visiting international media to an office in the heart of the what is commonly known as Canada's poorest neighbourhood, the Downtown Eastside, to hear "the other side of the Olympic story".
Rallying under the banner of "No Olympics on stolen native land", speakers representing nine native and community groups outlined connections between native poverty, dislocation and homelessness and the staging of the games in Vancouver and Whistler, 120 kms north of Vancouver.
Arthur Manuel, a former chief in the Neskonlith Indian Band of the Secwepemc nation, accused the Canadian government of attempting to whitewash the structural violations of native sovereignty. "We are the poorest people in the country," Manuel said. "Not because this country is poor, but because [the government] continues to violate the human rights of the indigenous people, by not recognising our Aboriginal title and our treaty rights."
Nearly all of the province of British Columbia -- including the land on which the Vancouver-Whistler Olympics will be staged -- is not subject to any treaty and the land has not been otherwise ceded or surrendered by its indigenous inhabitants, as Canada's highest court has recognised.
Manuel cited Canada's refusal to sign on to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as evidence that the government does not intend to follow the principles of international law in dealing with native sovereignty. In September 2007, the U.N. declaration was passed 143 to four, with the United States, Australia and New Zealand joining Canada in opposition.
James Louie, a member of the St'at'imc nation whose traditional lands encompass the rapidly expanding Whistler mountain and resort, said the expansion of infrastructure and development for the Olympics undermines the status of his people's case before the Organisation of American States treaty process.
"Because we have no treaty with Canada, the imposition and encroachment of Whistler -- their hydro lines, their highways, their railroad, you name it, anything they do with our territory -- is illegal," Louie said.
The Olympics have spurred a construction and development boom in Vancouver and Whistler in particular, and in British Columbia in general. Between July and September 2007, 843 major capital projects were planned or underway throughout British Columbia, valued at U.S. 108 billion dollars, according to the provincial government's ministry of economic development.
A VANOC budget report last year pegged the operating costs for the games at 1.32 billion dollars. The provincial and federal governments have provided an additional 468 million dollars, primarily for venue construction, including ski hill development in St'at'imc territory. The official Olympics budget does not include major infrastructural projects undertaken by the government in preparation for the February 2010 games, including the 484-million-dollar expansion of the Vancouver-to-Whistler highway.
Seislom, a Lil'wat elder who is also known as Glen Williams, addressed the legacy of the expansion around Whistler and its impact on the environment. "When my grandfather took me up Whistler mountain, the land was pure. Now it's polluted, it's desecrated. I ask myself the question: what will my grandchildren get from all of this?"
According to VANOC, 20.5 million dollars in venue construction and 95,163 dollars in non-venue contracts have been awarded to Aboriginal businesses through an incorporated native society called the Four Host First Nations Society (FHFN).
Several speakers challenged the role of FHFN in their communities. Seislom said the FHFN "choose not to recognise traditional, hereditary chieftainships" and instead only "recognise their own chieftainships in terms of corporate development, in terms of the Department of Indian Affairs, in terms of anything to do with money and power."
Dustin Johnson, a Tsimshian activist and organiser, also questioned the legitimacy of the FHFN. "It is important to make a distinction between elected leaders under the Canadian Indian Act system and the traditional governments, the traditional leaders," he said.
Canada imposed the Indian reserve and band council system through Indian Act of 1876, nine years after the country was founded. It wasn't until 1953 that the Act was amended to allow natives to organise around a land claim, which had previously been illegal.
Johnson characterised the Four Host First Nation Society as a small group of "elite native capitalists who don't represent the majority of native people".
"They'll paint the picture that they are trying to create economic development and self sufficiency, but it's really twisting the logic of what our people stand for: a lot of our people stand for sustainable development and protecting what little we have left of our lands and resources," Johnson said.
Arthur Manuel criticised the government and the FHFN for spending millions showcasing native arts and culture while ignoring the structural causes of the poverty. "They are using that money for the purpose of disguising the violations of human rights of the indigenous people of this country."
The BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition last week issued a report that showed BC for the fifth-straight year has the highest rate of child poverty in Canada, at almost 22 percent. The rate for native children is 40 percent but, the report notes, "the number would be significantly higher if the data had included children living on reserve." Recent statistics from the Canadian government's Department of Indian and Northern Affairs put the number of natives in BC at 122,000; about half live on reserves.
In Vancouver, the largest urban centre to host a Winter Olympics, there is likely as many as 8,000 homeless people, according to researchers at Simon Fraser University's Centre for Applied Research in Mental Health and Addiction, a disproportionate number of whom are native.
The rates of child poverty and homelessness continue to increase.
Laura Track, a lawyer with the Downtown Eastside's Pivot Legal Society, said that over 1,400 units of affordable housing have been lost since Vancouver was awarded the games in July 2003. Hundreds of tenants have been evicted from single-room occupancy hotels in the Downtown Eastside, as the Olympic-borne real estate development boom has deepened the homelessness crisis.
Outgoing Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan, who presided over a sharp increase in homelessness during his tenure, has called the crisis "a civic, and provincial and national shame."
Vancouver is anticipating as many as two million visitors during the XXI Winter Olympic Games to be held from Feb. 12-28, 2010. According to VANOC spokesperson Suzanne Walters, more than 10,000 members of the media are expected for the games, including 2,900 print and photo-journalists.
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