The Marxist-Leninist Daily

The character of a person and state is revealed by how they spend their money. The spending of the state on big events dominated by the international financial oligarchy such as the Olympics reflects the capital-centred character of the Canadian state. In contrast, the spending of a human-centred state would concentrate first on its social responsibilities to increase spending on social programs, public services and the socialized economy on which all Canadians depend. A human-centred Olympic movement bringing together the peoples of the world in sport and friendship is possible but only by overcoming the current domination of the Olympic Games by monopoly capital and a privileged IOC elite comprised of members of the international financial oligarchy.

Sport, construction, real estate, transportation and security come together in the Olympics as ways to make big money for a few. The state is the essential ingredient providing guarantees, pooled public funds, marketing, infrastructure and security to make it happen. Without public money and guarantees for a certain return and security of investments, the Olympic Games in the bloated out-of-control form they now exist would not happen and the fantastic profits of the monopolies involved and the promotion of themselves as the centre of economic, social, cultural and sporting life would not materialize.

Forced Bankruptcy of Greece

Greece, February 10, 2010, where mass rallies took place in 66 cities throughout the country.
Workers rejected government reduction of wages and pensions and raising the retirement age in the name of
"saving the country" from the crisis.(Photos: KKE)

Greece today has been declared bankrupt by the international financial oligarchy. A significant part of the Greek debt is $20 billion owed to investors who financed the 2004 Greek Summer Olympics, an Olympic debt guaranteed by the Greek state. The European Union is organizing a bailout of the Greek debt. This bailout does not guarantee the well-being of the Greek people, quite the opposite. The bailout guarantees the interest and principal of the debt owned by investors in such projects as the 2004 Olympics. The European Union is telling the Greek people that they are responsible for returning the bailout money to the EU and must accept cutbacks to their standard of living and the social programs and public services that any modern society is responsible to provide. The forced bankruptcy of Greece reflects the failure of a capital-centred state and Olympic Games dominated by the global monopolies.

2010 Winter Olympics

Taken by themselves in our imagination of what they should be, sports, construction, real estate, transportation and security are necessary positive aspects of modern life. Taken within the concrete reality of state monopoly capitalism those five sectors are dominated by the international financial oligarchy and have been transformed into instruments of stupendous profit and privilege for a few and lack of necessary spending and growing insecurity for the many.

Most of the seed money for all Olympic related projects is borrowed either directly by the state or as guaranteed debt through public-private-partnerships. The state Olympic spending in the Lower BC Mainland on transportation involves two main projects: widening the Sea to Sky highway connecting Vancouver to the resort village of Whistler (B.C.'s audited financial statements peg the full cost of the public-private-partnership on the highway at $1 billion), and the Canada Line SkyTrain between Vancouver Airport and downtown ($2 billion). Transportation directly stimulates real estate speculation and forces prices upwards. Vancouver real estate is now the most expensive in the world with market prices well beyond the price of production of housing, and the Olympic Games and their related big projects are partly to blame.

The Olympic organizers demanded an improved Sea to Sky highway, which threw a lifeline to investors in the Whistler-Blackcomb ski resort. This resort is a major piece within the worldwide recreation monopoly called Intrawest, which has gone bankrupt during the economic crisis. Those controlling Intrawest debt are demanding tens of millions of state dollars for the use of the Whistler-Blackcomb property during the Olympics and then will sell the property using the improved access of the Sea to Sky highway as a major selling feature.

The state Olympic spending in the Lower Mainland on real estate directly involves three main projects: the Athletes’ Village (750 condo units for a total of $1 billion, an average of $1.333 million per condo), the Richmond Oval ($178 million) and the new Vancouver Convention Centre ($883 million and still rising). This spending concentrates the trend in Vancouver of spending and investment in projects benefitting a small percentage of the population and consolidates the trends of the rich getting richer the poor poorer and Vancouver as a city without a productive base aside from construction and transportation.

Spending on these Olympic-related big transportation and real estate projects results in added-value produced by workers going primarily into the coffers of the construction monopolies and the finance capitalists who own the debt. Almost no risk is involved for the big construction companies and investors as the state guarantees payment. They are not saddled with the burden of finding buyers of commodities.

The other major Olympic consumer of social product is security. The total spending on both state-provided and private security is estimated to be $1 billion. Most of the funding for this security comes from the state or from state guaranteed loans. With these big events, a militarized atmosphere is created that poisons relations amongst the people generating suspicion and fear rather than social solidarity. Unity and adherence to civilized behaviour are considered only possible through the threat of repression and having armed soldiers, police and weapons directly in our midst. This medieval approach negates the modern civilized social solidarity of living and working together in a socialized manner by upholding the human factor/social consciousness and the banner of one for all and all for one. The monopolies and their owners of capital foster the backward attitude of relying on the gun for security because the wealthy elite have put themselves in contradiction with the people and their social solidarity. Security through the gun is fostered because the ruling elite fear the people and fear losing their immense wealth and privileged positions. In BC, the fear felt by the rich towards the people is compounded by the fact that the land has only recently been stolen from the Aboriginal peoples and the issue of legal title has yet to be concluded satisfactorily and in conformity with international law.

Stop Paying the Rich

A state and its people only have a finite amount of social product to spend. Workers transforming the bounty of Mother Earth are the producers of this social product. How the state and its people spend and invest this social product reflects the character of the state and those who control the direction of the economy. For months now, the BC and federal governments have been warning the people that public funds are exhausted and in deficit and government spending cuts are necessary. This is a fraud and cynical distortion of reality. The modern state and socialized economy have enormous capacity to meet the needs of the people if only there were increased investments in social programs, public services and enterprise and human-centred control over spending.

The Olympics reflect a medieval character of spending for the pleasure of a tiny aristocratic elite leaving the people to be spectators of a giant circus in which they participate only in a marginalized way. The greatest spoils from the spectacle fall to the owners of capital, which include state spending and income from ticket sales, advertising and television rights. Whether the Olympics come in “on budget” or not is mostly irrelevant to the monopolies that are guaranteed their profits. If the budget is exceeded, the financial oligarchy will quickly swoop in to lend yet more money guaranteed by the state. For this to change and for spending of the state and the main sectors of the economy to be directed towards the progress of our common humanity and civilization require mass political and ideological mobilization of the people into a Workers’ Official Opposition that compels the state to increase investments in social programs, including sports for all, public services and enterprise and to stop paying the rich and wrestle control over the direction of the economy away from the financial oligarchy.

Let Us Together Fight for Human-centred Sporting Events!
Stop Paying the Rich! Increase Investments in Social Programs!

Be a Good Sport and Try to Forget the
$8-billion Price Tag

Before they light the cauldron to open the Winter Games on Friday, one last look at the greatest of all international sporting events, the dodgy business of underestimating the costs and overestimating the benefits of the Olympics.

Dec. 12, 1997. "The Winter Olympics make money," according to organizers of the just-getting-off-the-ground bid to bring the 2010 Games to Vancouver. But to be on the safe side, they need an "investment" of $100 million from government. Tops.

Jan. 5, 1998. Premier Glen Clark (NDP) proclaims "unequivocal" support for the bid. "We just have to make sure there's a good business plan and we're not subsidizing this."

May 1. As Clark hands over a cheque for $150,000 to jump-start the bidding process, he releases the first official estimate of the benefits: $1 billion worth of economic growth and 25,000 jobs.

Dec. 1. "Good news for B.C.," says Clark, as the province is named Canada's official bidder for 2010. But he puts taxpayers on notice that for the bid to succeed, the province will have to fund major improvements to transportation infrastructure. "Significantly more money," he confides. "It's not small. I'm not going to pretend it is."

Nov. 23, 2001. "The Games will pay for themselves," says Premier Gordon Campbell. "In British Columbia we are going to be sure of that."

Jan. 16, 2002. The cabinet is advised that a successful bid is dependent on an upgraded Sea to Sky Highway, a transit line linking the airport and downtown, and an expanded Vancouver Convention Centre. The Liberals approve all three, while never agreeing to count one penny of the costs as a Games-related expense.

Nov. 20, 2002: Campbell releases a government-commissioned analysis of the benefits of staging the Games. Incredibly, the two-week-long sporting event is projected to generate $10.7 billion worth of economic activity and 244,000 jobs over 35 years.

Oct. 14, 2004. A year and a bit after the International Olympic Commission gave the nod to Vancouver, Vanoc boss John Furlong sings the praises of the just-ended Athens Summer Games. "It may well be the best Olympic achievement of all time." As he speaks, Greece is already totting up a price tag that will eventually hit $20 billion, setting in motion ripples of debt and default that today threaten the entire European currency system. Another proud moment in Olympic budgeting.

Sept. 14, 2006. The B.C. auditor-general lambastes Liberals for failing to count all Olympic-related costs. In contrast to the premier's insistence on $600 million, the auditor says the taxpayer-supported tab is $2.5 billion and climbing.

July 11, 2007. The cabinet approves a revised budget of $885 million for the convention centre, almost double the original estimate.

April 1, 2008. Vancouver's audited financial statements disclose that council has quietly put the city on the hook for the full risk of completing and marketing the $1-billion athletes' village.

Feb. 19, 2009. The security budget for the Games is revised upward to $900 million and counting, as opposed to the Liberals' much mocked figure of $175 million.

July 9, 2009. B.C.'s audited financial statements peg the full cost of the public-private partnership on the Sea to Sky Highway at $1 billion, as opposed to the government-preferred figure of $700 million.

Aug. 18, 2009. The Canada Line opens, linking the airport and downtown for a price tag of $2 billion, up from original estimate of $1.4 billion.

Nov. 6, 2009. The government releases what is billed as "the most comprehensive study" ever undertaken of the benefits of an Olympics. In the first five years after B.C. secured the Games, Olympic related spending (including construction and tourism) added a tiny one-tenth of one per cent to the rate of economic growth and maybe 3,000 jobs a year.

Feb. 8, 2010. The bailouts are at an end, suggests IOC boss Jacques Rogge. No need for his organization to make good on its offer to help close any gap in Vanoc's operating budget. Apparently the Games can be staged for the current projection of $1.75 billion -- double the original estimate.

Hope that he's right. For the ultimate financial guarantor of these Games and all their trappings is the provincial government, not the IOC.

The all-in cost for staging, venues, security, village, highway, convention centre and transit line? Approaching $8 billion as I make it.

It would take the kind of cost-benefit analysis that has never been done for an Olympics to say for sure whether taxpayers will come out ahead for the dollars they are putting in, other than via the not-quantifiable feel-good factor.

All Out for 18th Annual Memorial Women's March!
No More Missing Women!

TML vigorously supports the 18th Annual Women's Memorial March. The march draws specific attention to missing and murdered women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, mostly aboriginal women. There are nearly 70 women considered missing in this part of the city. A recent news report states, "Eight years after a special joint task force was formed between the Vancouver Police Department and the BC RCMP to solve more than 60 missing women cases in the Downtown Eastside, at least half remain unsolved. In a report sent to the United Nations on [February 2], BC CEDAW Group, a coalition of a dozen BC women's organizations, says 38 women on the list are still missing." The situation in Vancouver in an indication of a much greater problem across the country where the Native Women's Association of Canada said it has documented 520 cases of missing and murdered women over the last 30 years, many of whom are aboriginal women.

Call of the March Committee

Please join us this February 14th to honour the lives of missing and murdered women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. The deaths of many vulnerable women from the Downtown Eastside continues to leave family, friends, loved ones, and community members with an overwhelming sense of grief and loss. The February 14th Women's Memorial March is an opportunity for the community and those that support us to come together to grieve the loss of our beloved sisters and remember the women who are still missing. We gather each year to mourn and remember our sisters by listening to their family members, by taking over the streets, and through spiritual ceremonies.

This event is organized and led by women because women, especially Indigenous women, face physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual violence on a daily basis. Please respect the march and do not bring your agency banners as the Women's Memorial March carries five banners only to honour the women.

Also, each year the Memorial March committee must raise funds to pay for the hall rental, sound system, food, roses, memorial brochures, blankets, posters, candles, tobacco and other expenses. If you can, please make cheques payable to the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre. Please write "Women's Memorial March" in the memo line. Mail to 302 Columbia St. Vancouver, BC V6A 4J1. All donations over $10.00 will be gratefully acknowledged with a tax deductible receipt. We thank you in advance for your support.

Militarization of Vancouver and Whistler

The Olympic Charter states that the Olympic movement aims, "to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity." The StopWar.ca coalition in Vancouver, Canada considers that this noble ideal is contradicted the by reality of the Games which reveals a consistent, predictable and historical pattern of militarization and anti-democratic acts everywhere that they are hosted. The 2010 Winter Games that will take place in Vancouver next February are no exception to this reality.

StopWar is especially concerned with the militarization of Vancouver and Whistler during the Games, with its accompanying restrictions on the democracy and safety of our community. Enormous resources, including one billion dollars of spending, considerable military personnel and equipment, and countless thousands of police and private security personnel are being deployed. Featured among the identified "threats" to the Games are domestic protest. The Games are accompanied by the largest domestic military and security operation in Canadian military history. It includes: 40 km of electronically monitored security fencing; over 1000 closed circuit cameras; the use of military aerial surveillance; the creation of new policing forces such as VISU (Vancouver Integrated Security Unit), JTFG (Joint Task Force Games), and participation of US security and policing agencies; and finally, the use of 4500 Canadian Forces troops, many of whom will be pulled from the war in Afghanistan to be relocated in 10 military camps between Vancouver and Whistler.

The increased surveillance and militarization of the Olympic host communities, as well as those that the Olympic Torch will be passing through, has resulted in an assault on civil liberties that is increasing as the Games draw closer. What's more, British Columbia is facing environmental destruction and the erosion of social services as a result of the Games.

The pattern of anti-democratic and repressive security procedures and apparatuses that follow the Olympic Games wherever they are hosted can be traced to IOC rules. Rule 51 of the IOC Charter (2007) stipulates that "No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas." Rules and procedures such as this call into question the legitimacy of any community hosting the Olympic Games if they are guaranteed to remove the basic principles and protections of a democratic society. The Canadian agencies responsible for security have identified domestic protest groups as the most significant security threat, thereby legitimizing the use of force to suppress opposition and the effective removal of the fundamental freedoms of speech, thought, and assembly protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Like the stated goal of the Olympic Games, the Olympic Truce movement is similarly hypocritical and reveals nothing more than a rhetorical commitment to peace that is contradicted by real actions. Despite Canada being in its ninth year of waging war on the people of Afghanistan, the Canadian Olympic Truce is calling on the world community "to cease hostilities during the Games and promote the ideals of peace through sport", however, Canada has no plans to cease causing death and destruction in Afghan society. In an ironic twist of history, we remember that the 1980 Olympic Games hosted by the Soviet Union were boycotted by over 60 countries, including Canada, in protest of the Soviet occupation and war in Afghanistan that had begun a year earlier in 1979.

The continued Canadian aggression in Afghanistan reflects a paternalistic and Imperialist commitment in which the sovereignty of Afghanistan and the ability of Afghan people to determine their own future is disregarded. In the same way, the Olympic Games reveal the true agenda of the Canadian and BC governments to disregard and further attack the struggle for self-determination and sovereignty of local Indigenous nations. Land and resource development for the Games has displayed a total disrespect for legally recognized Indigenous land, title and resources and the destruction of sacred sites. Government supported chiefs have been bought out and traditional indigenous symbols and artistic expression have been co-opted.

StopWar opposes the use of war as a means of settling international disputes. We demand that Canada withdraw our troops from Afghanistan immediately and that Canada respect and recognize Indigenous rights, title, and sovereignty on the stolen and colonized land of Turtle Island (North America).

We believe that the Vancouver 2010 Olympic games will leave a lasting legacy that is disastrous for our community and nation. We call on all peace loving people to expose and bring to the world stage our experience of the militarization that come from hosting the Olympic Games. By being vigilant and vocal about what it really means to promote a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity we can try to ensure that no nation and no community is forced to endure these conditions again.

Torch Sparks Action Nationwide

On October 30, 2009, the Olympic Torch was ignited in Canada and set out on its 106-day relay. A "unique moment in Canadian history" when people can "feel the Olympic Spirit and reach for gold," according to major Olympic-backer Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), the cross-country tour has aimed to build hype for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

But the torch was not the only thing to be sparked and hype was not the only thing to be built in the months leading up to the Games.

Cross-Canada demonstrations against the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics "Spirit Train" in the fall of 2008.

The trajectory of the Torch Relay, set to finish on February 12 in Vancouver, will have brought the torch to 1,000 communities throughout the part of Turtle Island now known as Canada. The Relay events feature flashy setups, local artists and promotional trucks for Coca-Cola and RBC, two of the Relay's major sponsors.

Police have accompanied the torch throughout, with a resulting $4 million security budget.

True to form, many people have been swept up in Olympic hype and have waited in crowds and on roadsides with children in tow, anxious for an Olympic moment of their own. Hidden beneath the Relay's messages of inspiration, however, is a harsher reality that demonstrators coast-to-coast have attempted to display in nearly 20 cities so far.

Left: Montreal demonstration against "Spirit Train" October 18, 2008;
Right: Victoria Olympic Torch protest, November 1, 2009

People have greeted the torch along its route with their own messages, including the theft of Indigenous land, corporate profit grabbing, ecological destruction, militarization and migrant exploitation, all directly associated with the Olympics. Some have also used the Relay to bring forward issues of sovereignty, lack of justice for hundreds of missing and murdered Native women and opposition to the seal hunt.

As the Torch Relay has moved from community to community, it has been a magnet for opposition to the Olympics and has simultaneously stirred assertions of sovereignty in First Nations communities along its route.

At the Torch Relay kickoff event in Victoria, 400 people held a zombie march and took part in an anti-Torch Relay festival. At one point, the protest jammed the street and forced the torch to be extinguished and re-routed. In the week before the event, at least 25 people were visited by Integrated Security Unit and asked questions about the torch, according to an article on anarchistnews.org.

From there, the torch traveled north across the Yukon and the Northwest Territories, bypassed the Alberta tar sands, circled up to the northern tip of Nunavut and back down again to the Atlantic Provinces where it would once again meet opposition.

It saw dissidents with banners in Halifax, followed by more in Quebec City. Five days later, residents of Kahnawake saw to it that the RCMP would not enter their territory; local Mohawk Peacekeepers accompanied the torch instead.

Montreal's sizeable opposition came next, with 200 people blocking the stage set up for the occasion and delaying the fanfare for almost an hour. "We are here today to express our solidarity and our resistance with people in British Colombia and all across Turtle Island who are resisting these disgusting Olympics that are being built on stolen Native land, which are causing displacement all over downtown Vancouver [and] all over the interior of so-called British Columbia," announced demonstrator Aaron Lakoff through a megaphone. Police in riot gear eventually arrived on the scene and heavy-handedly shoved the demonstration out of the way.

Five days later a small but respectable troupe leafleted in Peterborough, and in downtown Toronto, a demonstration of over 250 people arrived to stand in opposition to the torch. Speakers and a march were followed up with a banner reading "No Olympics on Stolen Native Land" in the Anishinaabemowin language, which was unfurled over the torch relay's stage. Two people were arrested, both charged with mischief and one with assault.

Ian Robertson, a journalist working for The Toronto Sun, was shoved to the ground by a police officer during the Relay, suffering a concussion. Constable Mandy Edwards, spokeswoman for the Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit, described the situation as being handled in an "appropriate manner," and explained to the Canadian Press that Robertson was shoved only after already being told twice that he was getting too close to the torch bearer.

"This is an Olympic Torch Relay. It's a feel-good event. It's the last place where you would find heavy-handed, police-state, goon tactics," Robertson told The Canadian Press.

After Toronto, at the scheduled stop in Six Nations, in anticipation of the Torch, the Onkwehonwe were engaging their own struggle for sovereignty. The Canada-imposed band council had agreed to host the torch, despite opposition from community members. "In 2009, there was a town meeting where 90 per cent of the people in attendance opposed the torch," Lindsey Bomberry of the Onondaga nation explained to The Dominion.

A declaration from the Onkwehonwe of the Grand River read, "This land is not conquered. We are not Canadian... We hereby affirm our peaceful opposition to the entry and progression of the 2010 Olympic torch into and through our territory." People created a blockade to stop the flame from going over the Grand River or down Highway 54 into the heart of the Six Nations territory. As a result, the torch was re-routed and festivities were held at another location on the Six Nations Reserve.

"This was very significant," says Melissa Elliott, a founding member of Young Onkwehonwe United (YOU), and member of the Tuscarora Nation. "Six Nations was the first community to have the torch rerouted. [The demonstration at Six Nations] was held entirely by Onkewonkwe people, and so it had our issues at the forefront: issues like sovereignty, like our territory and our land."

"The Olympics is not just about sport. It is political, and it is colonial and it is imperial, and the Torch carries this symbolism. When we heard that it was coming through our community, there was strong opposition since we have already been facing what the torch stands for," adds Bomberry.

The following day, people in Oneida succeeded in repelling the Torch Relay entirely using a blockade and a pledge to keep the torch from entering Oneida.

Two days later was Christmas Eve, and London folks served a holiday meal "to anyone who thought free food was a better deal than an overpriced flame," according to an article posted on no2010.com. Around 40 people joined in.

In Kitchener, over 150 people marched with banners denouncing colonialism on Turtle Island. Banners were draped from RBC buildings, where "the government of Canada and the RBC were publicly shamed for their role in the ongoing genocide of Indigenous people and their support for the criminal developments of Alberta's tar sands," according to an article on peaceculture.org.

According to Alex Hundert of Anti-War At Laurier (AW@L), the RCMP intervened in the demonstration as it was winding down, formed a "hard line," and pushed some demonstrators in the process. "There were people who were voicing the perspective that if the police were violating the family-friendly protest, then it was time to take the gloves off and all bets were off," he says. "And it was in response to that that the local police called the RCMP off."

Then came Guelph, where a small demonstration of 20 to 30 people made headlines when a torch-bearer was knocked over during a skirmish with police. Witnesses say she tripped over a police officer's leg. Two protesters were charged with assault, but the charges were later dropped.

There was leafleting in Sudbury and then Nairn Centre, where an attempt at a highway blockade and banner drop opposing the Olympics was thwarted by police. A group made up primarily of Indigenous people arrived and were stopped almost immediately. "People were arrested before everybody was out of the van," says Hundert, who was nearby.

Some days later in Roseau River First Nations, Manitoba, people held signs and photographs showing some of the over 500 missing and murdered women in Canada as the torch went by. Former head of the Assembly of First Nations Phil Fontaine criticized the event for "tarnishing the image of Canada."

"The fact that there is a list of over 500 murdered and missing native women is what tarnishes the image of Canada," Chief Terrence Nelson, one of the organizers of the event, rebuked.

In Winnipeg people dressed as Olympic rings each representing a particular issue: homelessness and the criminalization of the poor, massive police spending and the outlawing of dissent, environmental destruction, missing and murdered women, and the theft of Native land. Upon taking the street, demonstrators were pushed out by Winnipeg police. The torch was extinguished and transported forward in a truck.

Later was Saskatoon and then Calgary, where over 500 brochures were handed out. Teri, who helped to organize the leafleting, told The Dominion two people were ticketed for littering -- apparently for a brochure that a police officer dropped.

The final stop will be in Vancouver on February 12, in the midst of the NO2010 Convergence, where people are anticipating a festival involving days of actions and protests against police brutality and calling for justice for missing and murdered women.

Over the past four months, the torch has been moving from North to South to East to West and back, draping the Canadian flag and littering miniature Coca-Cola bottles all across the country.

"I think the torch relay is a major step where various forms of anti-colonial and anti-capital resistance that were rooted in very different places and different issues along those common themes had come together physically in several places," explains Hundert. "One of the things that is going to be really interesting to see is the way momentum does get carried into Toronto and the G20."

* Shailagh Keaney is a writer based in occupied Atikameksheng Anishnawbek territory.

Fee Increases for Recreation, Sports, Cultural and Community Facilities

After reducing investments in parks, culture, sports and recreation, and road transport by $335 million, Montreal Gerard Mayor Tremblay's office has announced increases in access fees for city facilities.

At the Complexe sportif Claude-Robillard, sports organizations and federations face an increase of $160 per hour for access to the tracks and an increase of $70 per hour for the double gym. The fee for the artificial outdoor soccer fields will increase by $120 per game. There is talk that the fee for using the swimming pool will increase by $100, or an increase of 20 percent for 2010.

The access fee for the skating rink at the Maurice Richard Arena will increase by 20 percent ($40), for a total of $240 per hour.

Admission to the Botanical Gardens and Insectarium during the peak season, for those using the Accès Montréal card, will increase by 8.3 percent, both for 18- to 65-year-olds and for seniors. Even children between the ages of 5 and 17 will not be spared; their admission fees will increase by 6.3 percent. Fees for children's groups during the summer season will increase by 15 percent. Finally, group rates for the Biodome will increase by 9.1 percent.

The sports complexes administered by the city in the centre of Montreal are not the only ones affected by the new fees. Certain suburbs have already announced price increases in the facilities that they administer. In Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie, for example, it will now cost $85 instead of $70 to rent an arena. In Plateau-Mont-Royal, weekend and holiday access fees to outdoor pools will rise from $3 to $4 for adults.

In one of the most irresponsible (not to mention provocative) statements, Alan DeSousa, member of the Executive Committee responsible for finance, said he doubted that the increases would stop anyone from access to the sports and cultural facilities. He claimed that, even with the increase, citizens could obtain the Accès Montréal card to take advantage of reduced rates.

"To continue to offer quality service in cultural facilities like the Nature Museums, it is necessary to increase the fees," he summarized.

For those who adhere to the capital-centred world outlook, access to culture, recreation and sports is a luxury. This increase in fees, which must be rejected, is just one more proof.

For the workers and their allies, access to culture, recreation and sports is a necessity, a right which must receive concrete guarantees. It is part of a human-centred world outlook, an outlook that holds that for human beings to flourish, they must benefit from a broad culture that corresponds to a modern society. It is as essential as the air that we breathe. The fee increases must be cancelled!

Let Us Together Fight for Human-Centred
Sporting Events!

Let Us Together Fight for Human-Centred
Sporting Events!

Forced Bankruptcy of Greece

2010 Winter Olympics

Stop Paying the Rich

Be a Good Sport and Try to Forget the
$8-billion Price Tag

All Out for 18th Annual Memorial Women's March!
No More Missing Women!

Call of the March Committee

Militarization of Vancouver and Whistler

Torch Sparks Action Nationwide

Fee Increases for Recreation, Sports, Cultural and Community Facilities

Let Us Together Fight for Human-Centred Sporting Events!

Let Us Together Fight for Human-Centred Sporting Events!

Forced Bankruptcy of Greece

2010 Winter Olympics

Stop Paying the Rich

Be a Good Sport and Try to Forget the $8-billion Price Tag

All Out for 18th Annual Memorial Women's March! No More Missing Women!

Call of the March Committee

Militarization of Vancouver and Whistler

Torch Sparks Action Nationwide

Fee Increases for Recreation, Sports, Cultural and Community Facilities

Let Us Together Fight for Human-Centred
Sporting Events!

Let Us Together Fight for Human-Centred
Sporting Events!

Be a Good Sport and Try to Forget the
$8-billion Price Tag

All Out for 18th Annual Memorial Women's March!
No More Missing Women!