The Paralympic Games have thus far been treated with disrespect by everyone except the Vancouver public, who have embraced them with open arms.

We are on the verge of hosting the second largest multi-sport festival on earth and about to bare witness to strength, determination and courage the likes of which our region has rarely experienced.  Yet it is a number of high-profile snubs rather than the celebrations that have left an indelible mark on me as an observer.

First, of course, is Sam Sullivan’s fiasco regarding the Olympic Village suites that have balconies which are inaccessible to Paralympic athletes in wheelchairs.

Then, let’s deal with our national Olympic broadcaster CTV (remember…the CANADIAN Television Network) and the treatment that they are giving to the Games:

“The disparity between the hours of coverage is significant. The Canadian consortium led by CTV, for example, broadcast more than 2,200 hours of coverage during the Olympics, but for the Paralympics it has devoted 57 hours: 30 in French and 27 in English.

The only live broadcasts in Canada will be of sledge hockey games involving Canada, as well as the medal rounds.

Friday’s opening ceremony won’t be broadcast live, but will be repackaged Saturday afternoon into a four-hour block with a replay of the first Canada-Italy sledge hockey game.”

Not as many hours being put on television?  Fair enough.  But to not even broadcast the Opening Ceremonies?  That is a national disgrace.  And what, pray tell, are they putting on their schedule instead?  Let’s take a look:

6pm – CTV News with Bill Good, which is something that could easily be moved to 5pm or after the big show at BC Place just as it was during the Olympics.

7pm – Etalk Daily with Ben Mulroney, the most annoying television personality this side of Jared from the Subway commercials – and of course, the son of Brian Mulroney.  Enough said.

7:30pm – Access Hollywood with Billy Bush – Thankfully not the son of George W. Bush, but another grating television persona for the ages nontheless.  That said, if Access Hollywood was preempted, we would miss seeing co-host Maria Menounos, who according to her bio has the distinction of conducting the only interview with the entire Obama family.  The bio boldly states the interview was “touted by political experts as one of the defining moments leading to Obama’s victory.” Gag.

8:00pm – The Ghost Whisperer with acclaimed thespian Jennifer Love-Hewitt.  In this episode, Jennifer’s character fights for the soul of a little girl trapped in a haunted house.  Ooohhh…spooky (speaking of course about the acting rather than the storyline).

First of all, this kind of decision is shortshighted from a business point of view.  I can guarantee you that there would be more interest in a spectacle like the Paralympic Opening Ceremonies than this line-up of crap.

Secondly, it is disgraceful that CTV would think that it was appropriate to broadcast a highlights package of the ceremonies a day later and peg viewers and Olympic & Paralympic observers (the same people who have bought out every ticket in BC Place for tomorrow night’s festivities) as not being interested.

Finally, there is the snub by the BC Government at the Paralympic torch relay stopover at Riley Park yesterday.

Who did the provincial government send as a representative to the event?  Not the Premier, who couldn’t give up the spotlight for the torch relay for the entirety of the Olympics.  Not the Honourable Mary McNeil, Minister of State for the Olympics and ActNow BC.  Not any of the Vancouver MLAs like Margaret MacDiarmid for Vancouver-Fairview or Dr. Moira Stilwell, MLA for Vancouver-Langara.

No, they sent backbench MLA representing Richmond Centre, Rob Howard.

So, now that the cameras are gone and the attention has died down, so too has the interest from the provincial government regarding the Paralympic Games.

There isn’t much more to say about these kinds of snubs other than that I am utterly disgusted.

For fear of writing something more that I might regret, I am going to cool down and get off the keyboard.

]]> http://civicscene.ca/paralympic-snubs-an-absolute-disgrace/feed 0 http://civicscene.ca/cbc-radio-update http://civicscene.ca/cbc-radio-update#comments Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:49:27 +0000 Jonathan Ross http://civicscene.ca/?p=3348 My appearance has been postponed for the time being because as I have been told by the field producer that called me, they want to do a little more checking on where responsibility for the mishap lies.

Fair enough…by all means do your due dilligence.  But unlike Mike Howell from the Vancouver Courier, who tiptoed around the issue of blame attribution in his story, I will not.

Readers can once again carefully review my post detailing the chronology of initiatives, guidelines, motions and reports having to do with accessibility and inclusion, and all of which can be directly connected to former Mayor Sam Sullivan’s leadership, or lack thereof.

I certainly hope that CBC isn’t backing away from the story because of another reporter.

As I have been told, there is going to be some kind of follow-up once more comments and information become available.  Let’s see.

Tomorrow, I will cover another national disgrace when it comes to the Paralympic Games and our official Games broadcaster CTV.

CivicScene will be on CBC Radio this afternoon.

I will be appearing on CBC Radio’s “On The Coast” program at 5:20pm PST today to discuss the Olympic Village inaccessibility controversy.  CBC is 690 on the AM dial and 88.1 on FM.

On a more sombre note, I want to wish my long-time friend Councillor Geoff Meggs a speedy recovery after a brutal accident yesterday morning.  My family is thinking of you and hope you will be back to your usual frantic pace in short order.

Paralympic Ambassador Sam Sullivan has a very short memory about his own record in office.

Today’s Vancouver Courier arrived on my doorstep with the following front page headline:

“Athletes Village balconies aren’t wheelchair accessible: Former mayor and Paralympic Games ambassador calls situation a ’scandal‘”

In consideration of the efforts of Sullivan to make Vancouver the most accessible jurisdiction in the world in advance of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, this is most definitely a scandal.

The problem for the current Paralympic Ambassador and former Mayor, however, is that responsibility for the scandal rests solely on his shoulders.

I had the opportunity to assist in writing the draft report for the Accessible/Inclusive Cities and Communities (AICCP) project back in 2005.

The AICCP was conceived through the introduction of a motion to Vancouver City Council by Councillors Sam Sullivan and Tim Louis (refer to Appendix 1 in the above-linked report).

The motion was premised on two fundamental objectives:

1. To foster greater opportunities within the City of Vancouver and across British Columbia for people with disabilities.
2. To harness the 2010 Winter Olympic Games as a catalyst for the creation of such opportunities.

While there was a healthy and diverse disability infrastructure that already exists in the province, the motion attempted to create a new lens in which to consider the broader implications of disability.  New paradigms of opportunity and community were supposed to be created in British Columbia as a result of the Olympic Games being awarded to Vancouver, a fact that became abundantly clear after Councillors Louis and Sullivan engaged the public through a series of community meetings designed to expand upon their vision.

The project was eventually absorbed into 2010 Legacies Now.  It is a fantastic initiative that I am supremely proud to have been associated with.

So here we are in 2010, just days away from the opening of the Paralympic Games, and this is what Sullivan is telling the Courier:

“That’s a scandal.  I just talked to the guy building the Georgia hotel and he told me he had to fight for it but he has now achieved an agreement that he can build flush balconies. So if a private sector guy in a very expensive building like that can do it, why couldn’t the Athletes’ Village do it?”

Great question Ambassador.  So let’s examine some of the facts.

On April 16, 2006, the City awarded the contract to  develop the Olympic Village to Millennium Properties.  Their bid assembled a large team of designers and consultants, including Millennium’s Hank Jasper as the representative tasked with providing a linkage to the City of Vancouver’s Project Office team and Roger Bayley, a professional engineer and founding partner of Merrick Architecture, who stepped into the role of design manager.

Amongst many other tough requirements, the development was to be a community that encouraged vitality, diversity and cultural richness.

The Southeast False Creek Official Development Plan was enacted on July 19, 2005, and guided the proposals from Millennium and other developer bids.

It specifically outlines requirements for:

“2.2.7 Housing diversity and equity – Development is to promote opportunities for housing for a range of income groups along with social and physical infrastructure that is accessible to the whole community, especially children.”

According to the City of Vancouver’s project timeline, actual construction began in early 2007.

On March 13, 2008, the Standing Committee of Council and Planning and Environment heard a motion brought forth by Councillor Heather Deal, that originated from a meeting of the Access and Inclusion Advisory Committee on February 5, 2008:

“Brad McCannell, Canadian Barrier Free Design Inc., provided an update concerning accessibility issues involving raised thresholds in developments in Southeast False Creek and sought the Committee’s feedback on addressing this matter.

During discussion, it was suggested building envelope regulations may be focused on ensuring no leakage thereby including raised thresholds in the door ways and balconies of new developments. Councillor Heather Deal, together with staff, responded to questions regarding appropriate action on this matter.

Members agreed that this should be brought to Council’s attention.”

The motion, which passed unanimously, resolved:

THAT Council direct staff to;

A. take timely action on ensuring that building envelope regulations that are creating raised thresholds to the front doors and balconies of developments in Southeast False Creek and other Olympic facilities, are changed to allow for flush transitions, and

B. bring recommendations to Council that are more universal for ensuring flush transitions throughout any new developments, and

C. send a copy of this Motion to Mayor and Council for the Municipality of Whistler.”

Furthermore, as the buildings were going up, the City of Vancouver in conjunction with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and the Government of Canada, also commissioned a Design for Inclusion Toolkit, which was released in April, 2008.  The document is listed as one of the Southeast False Creek official documents, meaning it was initiated specifically to guide the construction of an inclusive neighbourhood to host the Olympic Village.

This is what Brent Toderian, the City of Vancouver’s Director of Planning, said about the report:

“Whether it is used for an entire community or a single building, the CMHC Toolkit will help local governments, designers, developers and builders to better meet the needs of people with varying levels of mobility and sensory ability. Its Matrix and an easy-to-use Checklist for Design provide concrete and clear direction, forming a starting point for creative design solutions. Ultimately, the Toolkit challenges city builders to design and build communities which are more “complete” in terms of who can visit and live in the neighbourhood.”

The Courier article quotes Roger Bayley as stating the following:

“I can tell you we went through an awful lot of discussion on this issue and everyone concluded that at the end of the day, [building] envelope performance had to trump the access to the balconies.

He agreed with Sullivan that a suite could be built so a balcony would be flush with the living area. But, he said, it would be expensive because of the added cost of making specially designed concrete slab forms.”

So there you have it – Millennium’s Bayley confirms that this was a decision made about cost, having nothing to do with consideration for accessibility.  In fact, it goes against all accessibility-related guidelines, motions and directions that City Council specified throughout the development process.

So my questions to Sam Sullivan are the following:

1. Were you aware of this kind of decision-making regarding accessibility within the Olympic Village?  And if so, why didn’t you take action while you were Mayor?
2. If indeed you were kept in the dark about this issue, does this not confirm that, as pointed out in my Vancouver Sun column from yesterday, city staff are regularly withholding information from elected officials?

Either way, this is a monumental failure of leadership on the part of Sullivan, particularly as the number one advocate for accessibility issues regarding the Olympics and Paralympics over the past seven years.