GIMME A BEER, EH!

Hume: Canada's Olympic pavilion an ugly pre-fab dud
Feds' official building is a $10 million architectural portrait of public-sector cynicism
February 10, 2010

Christopher Hume

I love my country at least the physical part.

It's easy to love Canada when you live in British Columbia, in Vancouver yet.

Coming from Toronto - which I also loved while I was there and a very inexperienced traveller, BC is unbelievably beautiful - mountains and water everywhere.

But I guess if I were to travel to Europe, I would be ecstatic about the mountains and the oceans there too.

So here I am in Vancouver a few days away from the opening of the Olympic Games, and I read this article by C. Hume.

I saw the Canada Pavilion as I was walking in the Granville, Robson, Burrard neighborhood. At first I did not realize it as a pavilion. My eyes wandered to the second floor - the top floor - of a gray rectangular aluminum and glass structure that honestly looked to me like a large storage unit or mechanics garage with some of the panels replaced with glass.

I allowed my gaze to stay there until I figured out what I was actually looking at and frankly, it took me a while to see that it was a pavilion - and that it was Canada's - Chris Hume is so right - how embarrassing.

After my surprise, then disappointment I had to laugh - Canada is a joke -

I couldn't agree more with everything he writes in his article. That this thing cost $10 million is shocking. That is was built by an American firm shows a total lack of respect for the Canadian economy, and indeed it sends a message to me that we Canadians are being laughed at and disrespected by our own elected government.

I just wanna Duck tape it all up - Red Green style - with our own symbol for "gimme a beer, eh!"

And then I learned that all of the uniforms for the volunteers were made in China, and that The Bay has an exclusive on selling the official Olympics products - all of the proceeds go to the Olympic fund - so they say. The Bay is also American owned.

I'm not usually as nationalistically patriotic as I am lately - but the more I pay attention to what is going on the less I enjoy it. Even our Mayor, the man I voted for, Gregor Robertson, who seriously wants to make this the greenest city in the world - is allowing our only tropical garden, the Bloedel Conservatory to be closed - it happens to be located on one of the highest part of Vancouver in a beautiful park with a beautiful view (after they chopped some of the trees down).

Me thinks they want to get their hands on the Moore sculpture worth $11 million for some reason - I wonder which developer will acquire the rights to build housing for the rich up there.

Wow I sound so jaded - is it my age?