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A Game at Poverty Olympics: Stretching the Truth
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by jr | February 5, 2008 at 04:21 pm
901 views | 2 Recommendations | 3 comments
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Just two years before the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, the Poverty Olympics were held on Sunday. Participants marched up Hastings St. to Carnegie Center on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside carrying placards and even an Olympics torch. Inside the Carnegie Center theatre, a packed audience watched as medals were awarded for such games as: Welfare Hurdles, Bed Bug Broadjump, Buy-athon, and Poverty Line High Jump.
But another game was clearly being played here: Stretching the Truth.
Jean Swanson, representing Raise the Rates and the Carnegie Action Project, told the crowd that one reason the Poverty Olympics had been organized was to draw the world's attention to the fact that: "People in Canada, like people in poorer countries, have to search through garbage for food and things to sell. In Canada. So they can survive."
Swanson deserved a medal, at least a silver. She must have spent years in training to stretch the truth that far.
To read the rest of this original article or to see a photo of Swanson speaking at the Poverty Olympics, go to Downtown Eastside Enquirer.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (3)
at 11:01 on February 6th, 2008
It's about addiction.......stupid!
People don't starve or go without shelter due to lack of resources. They do so because they have spent the money given to them by British Columbia's hard working tax payers on drugs and/or alcohol. Period. I challenge Jean Swanson or any member of the poverty industry to find me a sober person on welfare that is starving and homeless. Where, if not on drugs and alcohol, did they spend their welfare money? Raising welfare rates or the minimum wage will not solve the root problem - addiction. And if people can't see that then they must be high too!
at 11:27 on February 6th, 2008
jr, I like this story. It's good stuff.
at 14:12 on February 6th, 2008
I wrote my thesis on the affects of the Olympics on the Downtown Eastside population and one key facts that I discovered is that the homeless population in general has decent access to supplies, shelter and most importantly, food at all times of the day. Now I'm not saying that 'oh my gosh it must be so great to be homeless then', I just mean that not one of the homeless people I interviewed (which was alot) said they ever had to go through the garbage to eat or survive.