18 October 2008
Opposing Sides Claim Success from Spirit Train
Montreal Quebec - Organizers and opponents of the 2010
Winter Olympics have both declared victory after duelling campaigns to raise awareness about the Games over the course of a promotional
train journey from Vancouver to Montreal.
The Canadian Pacific Spirit Train wrapped up its 10-city tour in Montreal on Saturday, with an estimated 35,000 people
across the country having taken part in activities highlighting Olympic sport.
"It is making a positive impact in communities," said Breanne Feigel, a spokesperson for the railway.
Protesters who organized activities to highlight social issues connected to the Games also were pleased, although the crowds that
protested were generally much smaller than those in support of the Olympics.
"I don't know if it could have gone any better," said Dan Keller, one of the organizers of a protest rally that took place
near Toronto.
The Spirit Train delivered the message that while the Games are being held in Vancouver and nearby Whistler, they belong to all of
Canada, said Dave Cobb, vice-president of marketing for the Olympic organizing committee.
"They had great enthusiastic crowds with children and family, which was our priority - and to start to remind Canadians about
what having an Olympic Games in your country is like," he said.
"Having the Olympians there and inspiring children is really what it's all about..."
Activists say there are drawbacks to the Olympics that make national protest important.
In B.C., protests centre around the impact the Games are having on marginalized communities and a belief the event is happening on
stolen native land, even though the First Nations bands whose traditional lands are home to the Olympics have publicly pledged their
support.
"I just keep going across the province, across the country, one after another and the issues that are affecting (aboriginal
people) are affecting me," said Will Morin, a resident of Sudbury, Ont., who was involved in the Spirit Train protest in that
city.
While the train's itinerary of promotional activity was similar at every stop, the activist response varied along the route.
The biggest crowd was at the kickoff last month in Port Moody, outside Vancouver, where about 75 protesters repeatedly yelled though
bullhorns and banged pots, forcing musicians to turn up their own volume to match the demonstrators' noise level.
Scuffles erupted that day as police officers tried to hold back protesters. One man was arrested and carried away.
Some of the demonstrations attempted to link local issues to the Games.
In Edmonton, the protest that met the train was under the banner of No Tar Sands, No Olympics on Native Land.
A group of about 30 people protested there, handing out balloons and flyers. At one point two people scaled the side of the train to
drape a Resist 2010 banner over top.
"The development of the tar sands are led by the same corporations that are funding and promoting the Olympics, so it was very
important to make those connections and help people understand," said Macdonald Stainsby, one of the organizers of the Edmonton
protest.
"We're looking at the same kind of indigenous land loss, we're looking at the same kind of displacement, the same kind of housing
problems in Alberta that exist in B.C."
Protests were sparsely attended in Calgary, Winnipeg, and Sudbury. In Saskatoon and Thunder Bay, Ont., police said no one turned up to
demonstrate.
A group of activists from various causes blockaded the train tracks between Sudbury and Toronto, with police reporting that one woman
was tied to the tracks. The fracas lasted about an hour.
The next day a demonstration at the train's stop in Mississauga, outside Toronto, drew about 30 protesters.
The second-to-last stop was in Smiths Falls, Ont., where police reported no protest.
In Montreal on Saturday, about 50 protesters turned out compared to a crowd of more than 1,500 people there to enjoy the event, said
Feigel.
"We did have a pretty strong presence here in terms of inidviduals choosing to make their statement, but it didn't dampen the
spirits," she said in a phone interview.
Though the turnout was uneven along the way, Keller said he believes the Spirit Train protests are a sign of a growing national
mobilization against the Games.
"The growing movement, the resistance to the Olympics especially through these protests, it's motivating people, it's encouraging
them," he said. "And hopefully the word is getting out that the Olympics isn't about sports or culture any more.
"It's about development, it's about profit, at the expense of the public at large. We are putting billions of dollars into the
Games and the people that are profiting are a small elite of people and we're losing a lot."
Making the Games truly belong to all Canadians is a difficult proposition, said Ann Travers, a Simon Fraser Universiity sociology
professor.
"If we were going to hold a massive sporting event that would really be the people's, that would really be Canada's games, what
would that mean?"
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