These games are nothing but a globalist party at our expense. A mock run of police state tactics for games 'security'... and a public that funds a multi billion dollar 2-week party so politicians can smile in front of a camera as people are put out of work for the disruptions.

Lets not forget that the liberals are globalists that destroyed our forest industry by enabling raw log exports, throwing wasteful administration money at the pine beetle problem with no real long term diversification answers or any real funding to make that happen... and we are now going to be paying for that ignorance to the provinces main industry for IMO decades to come. BC lost the economic initiative under the BC liberals in everything but the globalist give aways and government privatizations.

The Olympics will have no benefit to any business in this province other then retailers and hotels in the Lower Mainland. Vanoc will use our tax dollars to fund huge teams of lawyers to ensure this. I can testify to that as they used every dirty trick in the book to stop my eco-tourism 2010 idea of promoting eco-tourism in Northern BC with the idea of having the infrastructure (parks updates, certification, and marketing) in place for the birth of that industry in the North.

Vanocs argument was that eco-tourism is competion to their Olympics and they have a right to sole marketing use of the year 2010 as if the year itself is an Olympic trademark in anything associated with the year 2010 and tourism.

Vanoc has a monopoly given by our province on tourism for the entire year of 2010, and not just the 2-weeks they will be operating in the winter months. This effectively means they have the right to block any attempts by any business or community in BC to promote 2010 tourism... unless Vanoc themselves have the managing right to the event no matter if it has no relation geographically or otherwise to the games.

IMO expect no free enterprise benefit from the Olympics or the high profile tourism potential other than a warm feeling while the games are being held... and then a big bill for the costs after the party is over and the globalist Olympics have made their billion dollars plus from the event.

As a side note one will notice Vanoc wants the horse track and casino in Vancouver closed for the 2-months around the Olympics... it has nothing to do with security of the games and everything to do with snuffing out tourism competition that they don't control and benefit financially from... its extortion IMO and Gordon Campbell supports it.

Ben is right. We have been stuck with this event.
Wouldn't it be nice to live in a democracy? Too bad we don't. If we did, we probably wouldn't be going through this exercise.
We might still own the BCR. We might have control of BC Hydro, BC Medical.
We likely wouldn't be having the five ring circus because ALL of BC would have had a chance to vote on it. Not just Vancouverites.
We must not forget that this can easily be hung on the treasonous actions of Mike Harcourt and the NDP government of his day.
His was the government that gave use the whimpy crock of 'stuff' we have for recall and initiative legislation.
They traded control of politicians and the political processes for promises of "ACCOUNTABILITY". Can someone tell me what that is? Because it's sure not control of politicians...

What I dont understand is why they are not giving those people at the racetrack and casino jobs withing the Olympics? And why are they closing them down for 2 months when the event is not that long? This is becoming a nightmare and I am fearfull of the end of this.

Hey Shellshadow I hope your young enough to actually see an end. This farce will carry on through my children's, children. And NO I will never just sit back and accept this. I will raise a generation to fight back against political trickery!Gordon Campbell you are nothing but a smug SOB!

Still waiting for the numbers to be published on the number of 2010 olympic teams that are training or have scheduled training in Prince George. Remember how we were told this was going to happen after our ex-mayor and company came back from their trip to Turin on our nickel.

Yes Resident. Just like they said that the Olympics was going to cost us nothing in the end. LOLOLOL

I came across this quote from a book by Len Deighton, "If you dine with the rich, you wind up paying the bill." I believe he caught the spirit of the bill for the games.

Apparently the casino only opened one and a half years ago and the operators knew that the Olympics would shut the casino down for one month for security reasons.

The racetrack opens every year on April 1, so that would be AFTER the Olympics are over.

"We must not forget that this can easily be hung on the treasonous actions of Mike Harcourt and the NDP government of his day."

Treasonous? That's news to me.

However, one fact can not be glossed over:

British Columbians were so totally fed up after a decade of NDP mismanagement that all the NDP MLAs were turfed out except for two. A landslide of their own making.

How soon we forget, sadly enough.

How soon many forget that what replaced the NDP wasn't any improvement. More of the same kind of ineptitude, only cushioned a bit by a pick-up in world commodity prices.

The cost over-runs are just as bad, or worse, on major capital projects. Overall long-term debt continues to grow apace. And our 'cost of living' is still advancing faster than our 'standard of living', and that's true even in these recessionary times, whether the purposefully chosen statistics indicate it or not.

Just go to the grocery store and see how much of your paycheque, if you still have one, goes towards those basic necessities of life.

Gordon Campbell and his crowd have substituted 'inflation' for 'prosperity'. That's the 'real' story behind the Olympics. We'll have already paid for it through higher retail prices on everything we need by the time it's finished.

And then we get to pay for it a couple of more times, at least, through taxes to service and (maybe, eventually) retire the debt.

Meanwhile, VoteMike's " BC Re-federation" crowd, (if they could, in the wildest stretch of the imagination, be called a 'crowd'), fools around dreaming they could solve everything by re-writing the Constitution. If that is acceptable to the Banks, that is.

And what if it isn't? Do we finally move to take charge of our own 'economy' anyways ~ the provision of the means of access to first needed, and then desired, goods and services to ALL British Columbians, as, when and where required?

Or do we continue to "dance to the tunes of Finance", like a bunch of brainless wooden puppets too afraid of the supposed "power of money" to ever challenge it? You don't have to answer. We all know. Another example of the same kind of misplaced "thinking" that's brought us to another useless referendum on STV.

Love the writlashing, socredible. Especially about the cost of living advancing and standard of living crumbling for most.

inflation??

Too bad so many of our groceries come from the USA. Notice the exchange has been less than C$0.80 to the US$ in the last several months, after having been at C$1.10 and higher for a month or so last year.

It is called "the world" propping up the US and its currency as the largest market to suck up raw materials and products from the rest of the world is in dire straits and needs to be weaned off more, more, more.

Makes the Olympic waves look like little ripples in the ocean of storm waves of world trade.

Remember that the Alberta deficit is projected to be $1.6 billion, I believe, with the BC deficit about one third of that despite the fact that we have a larger population.

Both provinces had their macho chests out proud to put legislation in place that they would not run a deficit. A useless piece of legislation put in for show only.

PG is 10th best place to invest in for the 5 to 7 year window according to this study being reported on TV and in the newspapers, just behind Vancouver in 9th place.

http://www.timescolonist.com/business/fp/growth+towns/1378942/story.html

The comment at the bottom is what we have to battle to get higher on the list.