John Furlong at the Vancouver Board of Trade
October 17, 2007
Vancouver, BC
Thank you, very much, Graham. Good afternoon, everybody and thank you all for coming today and supporting us like you do every year at this event. I know the room is filled with people who have been great friends of ours and who do countless things to help us be successful day in, day out on the road to 2010. In the room today we have many of the people that work for Vancouver 2010 including board members, sponsors, partners who are all extraordinary contributors to this project. It’s just an incredible project to work on and to watch the spirit and the selflessness that exists in all of those people and all that they do quietly to help us achieve the success that we must achieve.
I was thinking, you know, six or seven years ago when we were still a developing idea, a number of us went to Sydney to have a look, to study what was going on in Sydney in the countdown to the Games. I happened to arrive in Sydney on the first day of the Olympic Games in the fall of 2000. And it was quite a remarkable city to land in. The city was dressed up. It was exciting and I was excited because I knew I was going to get to see the opening and the closing and be there for all of the magic that is the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.
So on the first day, I had to go into the city right away. I had traveled overnight, to go to a meeting in a place quite near Darling Harbour which is the waterfront in Sydney. And I was walking along looking for the address that I needed to get to, and I looked a bit harried and had been traveling for awhile, and I saw these two fellows in front of me, businessmen, both carrying briefcases, in their suits, clearly on their way to work. And I was trying to find my address and I walked up and I tapped one of them on the shoulder to ask him if he could direct me to where I needed to go. And he turned around, as they both did, and right there on their foreheads there was the Australian flag. And it was funny; I looked at them and they were in their suits, much like me but they had the Australian flag on their forehead. It’s hard to know what to think but I can tell you what I did think. The entire city and country of Australia and Sydney were putting on the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games. This was not about a few people inside the Organizing Committee or a few people that worked for the city or the region. Everybody was on that team. Everybody owned a piece of the responsibility and they were delivering it.
And in my interaction with them - I’ve never forgotten it - and they directed me to where I had to go and I saw for myself this incredible thing that was going on there which was, you know, you had this situation which was fueled on pride, on desire, on patriotism. Australians took what once they thought would be absolutely unimaginable, even unthinkable, and they turned it into breathtaking success. I don’t think anybody who went to Australia for 2000 would have walked away and thought, “Wow! How could you possibly top that?”
And in 1994, in Lillehammer, this little town of 23,000 in this country largely underestimated, all over the world showed everybody what human beings, what human achievement is all about, showing the limits that humans can stretch to are bound only by their own imagination. And today, you know, Australia, it just glows as a country. Everybody respects Australia. Everybody respects what they did; they’re taken very seriously. And to no one’s surprise, Norwegians have recently been voted by a vast majority, the most trusted people on Earth. They got everybody’s attention and they did it together. Everybody was involved in this project. And I think it’s pretty clear that when you look at these stories of triumph, these achievements that have taken place time and again in different parts of the world, that nations are capable of lifting far beyond their weight. That cities, provinces, countries, just like their people, are limited only by the boundaries of their own dreams. People can do anything they want to and it’s been proven time and again.
And so, of course, this is, of course, where we start and we have this wonderful dream of what we can do. And I think it’s fair to say that people really, I think, are deemed to be great not by what they say, but by what they do. And looking back over recent Olympic history and using the Olympic Games as an example, I think it would be almost fair to say that humility, a giving spirit, and keeping your word may be the very best attributes of any people, anywhere. And for sure, the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games are not organized by committees but by entire countries. This is a calling for everybody, for everybody to be a part of. And success is vested entirely in how great that effort is by all of us.
“Ça prend tout un pays pour organiser des Jeux” And I’ll come back to this later if you didn’t understand it. You know, last Sunday, one of the things in our project, it never sleeps, it never goes away, it’s always there and you’ve heard me talk about this before. For me, how I manage my time is I use time on the weekend to regroup, to regather, to read, to catch up with what’s going on. And almost every weekend there are people on the road, on our team, that are out there doing all kinds of things that are critical to our success. And last Sunday at the office, I was at the office, I got in there at about nine o’clock in the morning and I was preparing for a number of things that had to be done this week. And as the day evolved, I noticed cars pulling in to the parking lot and at about three o’clock, our parking lot was full. And these are men and women who work on our team, our unsung heroes, nobody would every know that they were there. And as I was getting ready to leave, I kind of wandered off to see who was there. And I got to one desk and I stopped to talk to this young fellow who was busy looking into his computer. And I asked him what he was doing and he said, “Well, I’m preparing for the visit of the French Olympic Committee coming on Tuesday or Wednesday.” And I said, “Could you not have organized this from home?” And he said, “No, I couldn’t.” He said, “This is too important. People are counting on me; they’re relying on me. I need to perform at a very high level. This is a major committee; what they have to say about us is critical.”
And there he was and I walked away thinking, gosh, you know, how lucky we are that young men and women will do that, without anybody pushing them to because they know it’s important, that they know their colleagues are counting on them. And they do it day in, day out every single day on the way to 2010. We’re so proud of them. Every single one of them in every corner of the company are pushing themselves to limits that you can’t imagine. We’re so proud.
Today we’re, you know, about 550 strong and growing rapidly and each one, if you were to walk up to their desk and look them in the eye and say, “What do you do here?” They would, I think, probably say to you, “I’m putting on the Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games,” and so that the internal magnetics of that are-- they’re just incredible. It’s awesome to watch.
[applause]
So today is sort of annual report day. It’s the time of the year that we choose to come and chat to you about how it’s all going. A little bit of a chance to look back. Perhaps a chance to look forward at what’s coming and give you a chance to mark your card on how you think we’re doing. And I hope today that you’ll leave here, you know, better informed, a bit more confident, little more inspired. And that you’ll walk out that door determined that there’s a piece of this project that belongs to you. And that when you leave here, that’s something that you’re going to do and whether it’s directly connected to the work that’s going on Vancouver 2010, doesn’t matter. That it’s something that you’re going to own, that’s going to make a difference in 2010, and that you’re committed to that.
This coming Friday we’ll release our audited financial statements. It’ll be a good news report because every target, financial target, we set for this year has been met and in many cases has been passed. We’re where we would like to be. Let’s face it: we’re not home yet, but it has gone well. And between the directors and the committees and the people that work on this stuff every day, they’re just giving it everything they have. And we’ve now moved another football field up and we’re getting well positioned to deliver on the promises that we’ve been making.
So last year here we talked a little bit about, you know, where the venue program was going. We talked about the business plan which had not yet been announced. We talked about the monies that had to be raised from the private sector, the growth that we needed to see in our team. And then also this concept of Canada’s Games and sharing this project with the entire country. And also how much the project relies on our team being spectacularly good and ready to take on the world in 2010.
I’m not going to spend a lot of time going back over last year but I’ll touch on a few things. The business plan, we completed it in the early part of the year and it’s doing everything we would have wanted it to do. We toiled over this plan for a long, long time and there was a lot of pressure to release it, put it out there, let people see. The goal was to not put it out until we thought it was perfect, until the numbers could be relied on. That it was a plan that we could measure ourselves against. And as I said today, the targets are being met, the plan is working and by the middle of next year, we’ll probably do some recalibration to make sure that we’re zoning right in on finishing this project exactly the way you would expect us in 2010 and leave a positive financial legacy.
A couple of weeks ago or last week - time is passing fast - we announced our ticketing plan. And, you know, ticketing is one, and you may not appreciate this, but for an organizing committee, it’s one of the five milestone events, really, on the way to the Games. It’s gotten lots of committees into trouble. They’ve had struggles with it. Our team has spent 18 months on this plan. But they were given an extra challenge. We asked them to-- remember, we made a promise to give 50,000 tickets away to people who could never afford to be at the Games no matter what. We made commitments that we would make tickets available for people anywhere in the country who could, using the next two years, could find a way to raise the money to be able to acquire tickets to go to the Games. That we’d make them accessible. So we asked them to do a lot of things and still make sure that the plan would deliver the revenues that were necessary for us to complete our business plan obligations.
And the worldwide pick up on that ticketing announcement was very positive for us last week. I’m very grateful for that and so I think the stage has been set to really make it possible for more Canadians from more places to come and be part of it all. And the driving force behind that plan was the lure, for someone to be able to say, “I was there. I had a ticket. I don’t care what the event was. I was there. I saw it for myself.” That was the goal of our team and I’d like to think that we’ve achieved it.
This time last year we were concerned a little bit about what was going on in accommodation because we have now discovered, no surprise to probably anyone in the room, that more people want to come. All of the groups are growing. There’s a desire to be here and, of course, this is always good news if you’re in the hospitality and tourism industry. But it has to be managed. And so we’ve spent the last many, many months trying to make sure we’ve got the inventory together to satisfy the demand. And in the early part of the summer we got over the giant hurdle which was trying to accommodate the media for the Games. And now we’re getting close to really having this well managed. So the problem has been, I wouldn’t say it’s completely wrestled to the ground, but it’s pretty well down and we’re now trying to finesse it and grow it. And I’ll touch on that a little bit later again.
The idea of trying to make this about everybody is not easy. We’re a big country. We are so many times bigger than Europe. It’s a long way to go from the west coast to the east coast. So to be able to call this Canada’s Games, your partners have to believe that. Everyone has to be engaged in that idea; they have to believe it’s a good thing. You have to believe it’s a good thing that every Canadian should be able to get some value from this. So this year, our goal was to try to find a way to engage every province and territory in the Games. We thought that if they formally connected with what we were doing, it would say a lot about the importance of a moment like this in our history.
So in the summer we got invited to speak to the premiers of all the provinces and territories about Canada’s Games, about what this represented, the sport opportunity, the cultural opportunity, the international promotional opportunity for Canada and for the provinces and territories. And to really lay out what the opportunity really looked like. Three and a half billion people will be watching us in 2010 and it’s necessary for us to try to build our team.
So we asked the premiers and we asked the territories to become engaged, to join in, to be part of this. And I have to say at the same event, the premier of the province was there and he extended, as glowing and as emphatic an invitation to the country, to come here and be part of this as I’ve ever seen. And it was just so positive for us to walk out of that meeting with all of the premiers from all provinces and territories and go in front of the media and declare a complete buy-in. Every province and every territory saying “yes” to the Olympics, “yes” to the Paralympics. And I would say that give or take, and the guy responsible for this file is sitting over there sweating, but within a month, we will probably have an agreement with every single one of them. It’s just fantastic.
[applause]
So one of the other things, of course, that we’ve been pushing hard on is trying to find the resources to support our team, to make sure we have the team to beat, that it’s not just talk. And you all know that back in pre-Salt Lake, we were fifth or six in the world and then we became fourth and in Torino we got to third. And this last winter we went into a completely new zone. We passed the United States to be ranked second in the world as a winter sport nation and we’re now chasing Germany.
And so OTP which really is a collaboration that involves Canada, B.C., other provinces, our partners, Vancouver 2010, people who are out there trying to get these funds in place, to give these athletes the extra edge, has made an enormous difference. And you can be absolutely certain that in almost every activity at 2010, Canadians are going to matter. They’re going to count. And when you do turn on your television set, you’re going to see that maple leaf in every sport. The excitement is now-- it almost looks like it’s a certainty.
So we have set the stage. They have work to do. There’s two years to go, but there’s great optimism that this team will be profoundly strong in 2010. But for the athletes themselves, to know that they can come to the Olympic Games and that they’ve been given the help, that they’ve been given the extra support that they need, the science. All of the other things that tend to go missing when you don’t have enough money.
I’ve got this note here from this young athlete who was one of the athletes who’s benefited from it. And I just thought I’d let you hear what she had to say. And I’ll just take a snip from her quote to us. It says, “I am so thankful that Own the Podium is behind all of the athletes of Canada. It gives me great pride to represent Canada, and I’m looking forward and dreaming of the day that I might represent Canada at the 2010 Olympics. If I can ever be of service to you and the rest of Own the Podium team, please do not hesitate to ask.” These kids have been given a real lift by this effort that’s gone into and, of course, the result may be we might win these Games and wouldn’t that be just the most extraordinary outcome.
[applause]
So that’s a great story and then the last highlight from last year to share with you is that you all know we spent a lot of time thinking about how we were going to put the ceremonies program together. The ceremonies is when the country, the city, the region steps up on the world stage and speaks to the planet. And we were determined that we would have a show at both ends of the Games, and we would have nightly celebrations that completely reflected the glow of our country, the character of its people and the incredible talent that exists in all parts of Canada.
So we set out to find the people that could extract that from us, that they could draw that from Canada and show it through the power of the opening and closing ceremonies and these other celebrations that will take place. It was a long process; it took 18 months. It was led inside of Vancouver 2010 by Jeff Mooney who chaired the committee with Terry Wright who is our vice-president responsible for this, who worked tirelessly to go through a long list of potential applicants. And we came up with a team that we announced recently which we’ve referred to as David Atkins and Associates. And it’s a global team. It’s got some of the best people in the world at what they do, some of the best Canadians at what they do, if not the best. It’s a fabulous group of people who have come together with one mission: to put Canada on that world stage and take the world’s breath away.
To give you a chance to assess for yourself what the capacity of this group is, I’m going to stop for a minute and let you see this little piece of video which is a snapshot of the work that this group has done on their way to joining our team. So take a look at the screens.
[video clip]
Anyway, I think you would agree that we have pretty talented people on that part of the project going forward now. One of the areas that’s dominated our discussions in the past has been the venue program. So let me just give you a quick snapshot of where we are and how this is all going.
Let me say this to start with. In six to ten weeks from today, the contractors on all of the outdoor venues for the Olympic and Paralympic Games will be handing in their keys. The project will be over for them. The projects will be completely finished at-- for alpine skiing at Whistler Creekside which is the picture that you’re looking at now. The biathlon course in the Callaghan will be finished and that site will be ready for athlete use. The freestyle skiing course at Cypress Mountain’s been finished for over a year. The ski jumping facility in the Callaghan will be finished. It’s within, again, weeks of being done. The bob, luge, and skeleton facility on Blackcomb Mountain, all of the concrete’s been poured. It will be done and be getting commissioned by December. The snowboarding facility on Cypress Mountain will be done. The cross-country skiing stadium in the Callaghan will be done. The number two and number three rinks at the University of British Columbia are done already and already in use. GM Place is, obviously, ready, Games-time ready. And the figure skating facility and short track facility at the Coliseum will be done.
So just pretty fantastic. We set a target that these venues would be done at the end of this year and they are. And just before I go on to the ones that are ahead, I’d just like to make a comment about what’s actually gone on here. This has been actually quite different than our wildest dreams would have hoped for. The man running the construction program for us, Dan Doyle, is about as humble a guy as you’re ever going to meet. But the team running this project, these are as inspired a group of people as you can imagine. But they’ve taken that inspiration and they’ve moved it right into the contractors. The contractors on these sites know very that we are being watched all over the world and that deadlines have to be met. We’re being judged by the performance of these crews. And I hear every day stories of individuals who get back in their vehicles and drive out to these venues to tend to little pieces of work that would make these venues that much more perfect.
If you could hover in a helicopter for five minutes above the Callaghan and look down, you know what, there’s no words that could describe what you would be looking at. These venues are so stunning when you look down on them. The trails are so well manicured, they’ve been so thoughtfully prepared that you could be convinced from 200 feet above them that they’ve been paved. They are really beautifully done. You’d be very, very proud and you will, I’m positive, benefit from the comments that people, either people will say about these venues throughout the Games period in 2010. They are just-- it’s remarkable work.
In the coming year, in 2008, you’ll see the completion of the number one hockey arena at the University of British Columbia which will be used for women’s hockey and sledge hockey. You’ll see the curling facility at Hillcrest will be also finished in the third quarter. The speed skating facility at the Richmond Oval will also be substantially complete and the two villages, obviously, are continuing and are exactly where they need to be to deliver on the objective of having them ready in time for the Games. But we will be the first organizing committee in Olympic history to be able to say that when the opening ceremonies of the Games that preceded it take place that our field-of-play facilities for our Games will be done completely.
[applause]
So we’re very proud and, of course, the icing on the cake is they’ll be done and they will be completed for that budget that we told you we would complete it for last year. The $580 million budget is intact and we will complete all of that work from inside of that budget and we’re very, very proud of it.
[applause]
I’d like to just turn for a second to the concept of partnerships. You know, there are many engaged in the staging of the Games many of you probably don’t know about, but there are many. And it’s interesting about partnerships. I think athletes have no trouble with this concept because they rely heavily on each other and they trust each other. And I would say, to be honest, this is not an area that we excelled at in the beginning. We could have been better but we’ve worked hard at it. We’ve worked hard to respect that in our partners there’s extraordinary capacity, ability, talent, inspiration and vision. And we have worked to try to bring that together, to try to harness that into something dramatically more powerful than it might have been.
And I was caught a little bit by surprise by a letter I had from the IOC after the last Coordination Commission visit where we get our report card, and the report card ticks the boxes that you might expect. But at the end of it, there was this comment which was essentially saying that these partnerships are clearly going to be one of the great legacies of the 2010 Games. Never expected to see it. These can be very challenging things to hold together for organizing committees.
And you know, my father would have been a hundred years old this year. He was a very humble, quiet but disciplined, focus person. Always teaching. He was always looking at his kids and trying to teach them something new. And he did something to me when I was a teenager that I almost never forgave him for. But one day he went and bought himself a new pair of shoes. And they were, you know, big, ugly new shoes. And the ones he was giving up were even uglier. And he gave them to me. And he told me I had to wear them. And I looked at him thinking, “What is it that I’ve done to you that you could make me wear those? Those are the ugliest, most horrible shoes I have ever seen. And they’re heavy, they’re uncomfortable. No person, no student would wear these, Dad.” And it was quiet humiliating, I have to say. And my fellow students kind of laughed at me. I was the only boy in school who had shoes that were so big you could almost paddle from them. And in order to kind of overcome this period, I went and bought myself a pair of sneakers, cheap sneakers, and I put them into a plastic bag and I would stick them into the bushes on the way to school. And each morning I would change from these shoes. That’s how bad they were. And I never forget it.
And my father didn’t live to be an old man but when he was sick, we took turns to spend a lot of time with him close to the end of his life. And we were reminiscing one night and talking about the past and growing up and the things that we did together as we were kids. And I asked him, I said, “Why did you do that to me? Why did you make me wear those ugly shoes?” And I said, “Did you know how they made me feel?” And he looked at me and he said, “You know what? You might be a far better person if you learned once in awhile how to walk in someone else’s shoes.” And he said, “If we could all see the world as other people see it, everybody would be quite a bit better off. And we’d be all more respectful and look what could get done.”
Well, it took awhile for this to sink in for us and I’d say today our partnerships are strong because we have found a way to become a real team. I look around and I see these many visions that are there. I mean, there’s no partner that has the same vision as any other partner. But there’s one common vision: everybody knows that we are being watched and we have this incredible opportunity together to contribute to this marvelous thing that will happen in front of the world in 2010. And in the name of that project, we become teammates, first and last, we found common ground. We wear each other’s shoes. We are showing a lot of respect for each other and, like athletes, we have grown to depend on each other. And it’s very special and we’re very, very proud of it. And I think at the end we will succeed entirely because of it. And the goal now has to be growing this right down to individuals on the street who would also see themselves as a partner in making this all come together.
So the road ahead, if I could look to what’s coming next and a quick snapshot of the year in front of us. Next year, you just heard about the ticketing program. On October the 11th next year, tickets will be available to people. And I’d like to think based on how people have reacted to this, our website just went crazy right away when we announced these tickets, that very soon, after October 11th, the demand will far exceed the supply. And this, of course, would be great and certainly seems to us that Canadians are looking very carefully at gathering here and we know that there’s going to be a lot of pressure from around the world.
In just weeks, you will meet the mascots for the Games. You can see here the mascots from Calgary and Beijing and Torino and, no, that child is not the mascot. But we think that this child will be quite inspired by what’s in store. In February, we will be passing yet another major milestone when the volunteer program is launched. And we believe that the challenge for us will be managing thousands and thousands and thousands of applications from people whose dream is to be on Canada’s team for 2010. And sifting through that, to put the very best team on the ground in Vancouver so that every person’s experience here is just a remarkable one.
This year we will spend a lot of time on the transport plan for the Games. This is a very significant undertaking for the Organizing Committee and everybody knows that one of the key pieces of this transportation model that has to be finessed and made perfect is how we move people from Vancouver to Whistler every day. So that will be big and, of course, the Beijing Games will be in August and the spotlight will, in one second, turn to Vancouver. It’ll move off of Beijing quickly and on us and we will feel the glow and the pressure and the expectations that people have.
And, of course, the athletes will be here because the venues will be done. Our team will have gathered here. They’ll prepare here. They’ll learn the twists and turns of the bobsleigh facility. They’ll be on the ice. They will test the snow and they’ll get ready. And they will know that the world is coming to take them on.
Our team will have grown, today from about 550 now to 950. And you should know that today our team is representative of individuals from 13 countries who speak 22 languages plus English and French.
The other thing that’s starting to happen which you’re going to hear a lot about are the test events. The test events, really, are the-- they’re really not the best way to describe. We have these world class events that will be coming our way over the next year and a half or so that, really, are the opportunity for us and our partners to get ready, to test our mettle, to look at the technologies and all the things that we have to do to deliver a perfect Olympic experience. And the first one of these is coming up in Whistler in February when we host the World Cup events at Whistler Creekside. So that’s a big part of it. So the year will be somewhat dominated by those activities.
Now one of the things that we’re spending a lot of time on right now is the thinking and dreaming around the torch relay. I have here in my hands the torch from Calgary. And, you know, I remember, I mean, we watched this since we were children and watched people carry this flame and thought, “Gosh, wouldn’t it be an incredible thing to hold this in your hand?” And I got that phone call. I got that phone call to carry the torch in the Athens relay. I thought they were joking when they called me. I never really thought that this was meant for me. But I got the call and I was so delighted. I couldn’t speak I was so delighted to do it because I’d been watching it since I was ten years old.
And it’s funny, at the time I got called the schedule was really difficult. So I flew on the red eye to Montreal and I got off the plane in Montreal. And I took a bus to city hall and they gave us our gear and they gave us our instructions and they told us that we would go out on the course. And at some point you’ll be told to get off the bus and the torch will come around the corner and when it’s in your hand you’re going to run for awhile and take it all in. And it’s going to make you feel quite a bit different than you feel right now. And I didn’t really know what to think, to be honest. But we were on that bus and I looked around and there was a lot of people in there. They were like little children going to their first party.
And it was my turn. And I got off the bus and I stood on the street and there were just thousands of people out there, watching this. And then it was handed it to me. And, you know, it weighs a couple of pounds; it felt like it weighed fifty. And the 800 metres I had to run, it felt like eight miles and honest to God, I thought I’d be the first guy that ever carried this and the flame would go out. But I’ll tell you, the one thing I can say to you about this is-- the Governor of Utah said it best when he was here, “This is not any old fire on a stick.” This is the essence of the Olympic Spirit. When you hold this in your hand you realize your responsibility. You know how important this is and what it represents. And everybody wants to hold it. And our responsibility as an organizing committee, is to try to find a way to put this in the hand of the most Canadians that we possibly can.
One hundred and twenty-one Fridays from this Friday, this flame will make its way through the streets of Vancouver and into that stadium. And life as we know it will change. We will feel quite a bit differently about a lot of things and when that flame comes into the stadium and we light that torch, we will look back and revel in what we have done together.
And our goal, as I said, is to make it touch everybody. And you know, we argue about where this is going. But the arguments aren’t about which communities to include. We argue about the places we may not go to. The places that we might not be able to connect to because we all know the pressure the team feels to put this in the most hands possible is intense.
So there’s amazing power in this and this is a way for the whole country to enjoy this event and feel that it’s not something they’re watching but it’s something that they own. And we prepared this little video which is called “Lights to Guide You Home” which really best reflects the spirit of this. And I’d just like you, while you’re watching this piece of video, just to reflect in your own mind what this means to you and just think about the good we can do through the power of the Olympic Flame. So let’s have a look at that video.
[video clip]
I think if I saw that, I would run all 10,000 legs consecutively without a break. So we now go from the drawing board to become operational. It’s time for the garden to grow. It’s time for the project to come up and move and to engage and become alive. So we’re moving through a changing period. And just to give you a sense of what we’re now heading towards, let me just show you this slide here. This is typically what you would see at a World Cup event and now the Olympic Games. This is the difference in, and this is what our team is now focused on, is creating this remarkable atmosphere of moving from this, which is typical of the kind of events that we typically organize year in, year out, to creating this atmosphere that everybody will really feel that they’ve shared in the experience that is the Olympic and Paralympic Games itself.
So we now turn from the organizing and planning to the experience itself. To creating what it is that it’s going to be, to engaging people more, to talking to business about what they can do, to the community, to individuals, to youth, about powering up the project and making it about everyone. It’s time now to start, to bring out the best that we have to offer, to let all of it come and be part of this great thing that we’re doing.
Recently, we had Gerhard Heiberg from Norway here and I asked him, I said, “What was the toughest ask you had to make?” And he said, “Well, I had to get in my car one day and drive from Oslo to Lillehammer to basically ask the town to park their vehicles for two weeks.” He said, “You know, I didn’t know if they would. But they did. Went in and told them that we needed every Norwegian to be on this team. We needed every single person to find a way to be a player, to contribute, to show the best of Norway to the whole world.” And he said, “I walked away a happy man. And I went all over Norway asking people if they did nothing else, but become a smiling, happy, engaging, welcoming citizen for 16 days, that would be a gift to the country. And they did. And people’s memories of Norway would reflect that.” He asked people to be on the team, to play a role, to do something.
So we have a great city and we have a great country. But our goal must be to make it even better. To be a more livable city, to be a more livable region, to be a more hospitable community when the world arrives. To be more generous, to be happier and smiling, to be more welcoming. To find ways to really light this up for people who come here that we may not typically do. To engage every citizen. To have every citizen say, “I did something.” That when it’s over they could say, “Gosh, it happened and I did my bit. I played my part.” So that every single person could be a friend and part owner of the Games, to play some role. Anything at all.
In the year ahead, you’ll hear us talk about being engaged in things like homestay, being prepared to open your home and take in people from around the world, to be part of the transportation solution, maybe park your car, take the bus. We might ask you to think about your work day, whether it could start early and end early, start late and end late. But to find a way to just make the city work the best it can work during that period so it’s the most enjoyable it can be for everyone. It’s a job for all of us.
When Lillehammer ended, Gerhard Heiberg took-- there was a lot of credit for what they did because they were small. And he was invited to do a speaking tour in North America of their success and off he went. And he talked to many audiences like this one and at the end of every presentation he would have a question and answer period. And he went to speak at a university in the United States and there was a couple of thousand people came out. And he gave his talk and everybody was very happy to hear what he had to say. And then he got into this question and answer period. And some fellow put his hand up and he asked him for his question. He said, “Well, I don’t really have a question but I have a comment.” He said, “I was there. I saw it for myself. It was just absolutely remarkable,” he said. “You thought of absolutely everything.” And Heiberg said, “Well, give me an example.” And he said, “Well, it really struck me when we were in Lillehammer that you didn’t have enough hotel rooms and enough restaurant space, so you improvised. You put in all these tents and you had all these areas where people could celebrate.” And he said, “But the thing I noticed was that there weren’t enough porta potties. And as I would walk back to my accommodation every night, I could see these yellow dots in the snow. But in the morning, when I would get out of bed to go off to a venue, the yellow dots were gone.” And he said, “Somebody took care of those yellow dots.” And Heiberg said, “Well, I am really, really happy that that happened,” he said. “But that wasn’t someone on my team.”
They didn’t have the budget for that and neither do we. But somebody in Lillehammer did that. Somebody got up every morning and went out there with a can and got rid of those yellow dots ‘cause it didn’t look so good. And no one still knows who this yellow-dot bandit is. But it’s a fantastic story.
And there is a way for everybody to do something. And we don’t all have to know about it. But there is a way to contribute and show yourself in this project. I was in Calgary a couple of weeks ago at an event a bit like this one. And at the end of the event, there was a surprise. I didn’t know what it was but I was asked to sit in the front row and this cowboy came out onto the stage. And there was a grand piano up here and there was a great big sound system and speakers and he sat down to the grand piano with his cowboy hat and there was some musicians helping him out. And he had written a song and it was called, “My Canada.” And I just listened to this man and he put the words up on the screen and he started to sing. And it was song that took about four or five minutes and I had tears in my eyes watching this man. And you know what? For one thing, I do not have the heart to tell him that he would not be involved in anything that we’re doing. This is a man who has for a year, in his home, toiled over this song. And he’s written this, “My Canada” song. And it’s his dream that somehow it could fit in, that he could come here, that he could be part of some show. How many men like this and women and children like this are there? And why can’t they all dream and find their way to be part of this in some form?
This is the story of our project. This is what we have to try to do to let everybody’s dream be realized. But it will only happen if we all take a turn at bat. Everybody has to be part of the solution. This is your Canada. These are your Games. This is your dream. Votre Canada; votre rêve. The journey has begun. These are your Games. And when you leave today ask yourself the question, what are you prepared to do? And whether you tell us or don’t tell us, please do something. Decide on the bit you will do so that when it’s over, someone doesn’t walk up to you in five years and say, “Well, what did you do?” And you won’t have a good answer. You want to be able to say, “My goodness, this was one of those occasions where the entire country found a way to step up and do something at the same time.”
This is nation building when we all decide that it’s important enough and it is. This is nation building. The world will be watching us. It’s in us to do a great thing. I thank you, very much for the opportunity to come and talk to you again.
[applause]
Thank you.
Vancouver, BC
Thank you, very much, Graham. Good afternoon, everybody and thank you all for coming today and supporting us like you do every year at this event. I know the room is filled with people who have been great friends of ours and who do countless things to help us be successful day in, day out on the road to 2010. In the room today we have many of the people that work for Vancouver 2010 including board members, sponsors, partners who are all extraordinary contributors to this project. It’s just an incredible project to work on and to watch the spirit and the selflessness that exists in all of those people and all that they do quietly to help us achieve the success that we must achieve.
I was thinking, you know, six or seven years ago when we were still a developing idea, a number of us went to Sydney to have a look, to study what was going on in Sydney in the countdown to the Games. I happened to arrive in Sydney on the first day of the Olympic Games in the fall of 2000. And it was quite a remarkable city to land in. The city was dressed up. It was exciting and I was excited because I knew I was going to get to see the opening and the closing and be there for all of the magic that is the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.
So on the first day, I had to go into the city right away. I had traveled overnight, to go to a meeting in a place quite near Darling Harbour which is the waterfront in Sydney. And I was walking along looking for the address that I needed to get to, and I looked a bit harried and had been traveling for awhile, and I saw these two fellows in front of me, businessmen, both carrying briefcases, in their suits, clearly on their way to work. And I was trying to find my address and I walked up and I tapped one of them on the shoulder to ask him if he could direct me to where I needed to go. And he turned around, as they both did, and right there on their foreheads there was the Australian flag. And it was funny; I looked at them and they were in their suits, much like me but they had the Australian flag on their forehead. It’s hard to know what to think but I can tell you what I did think. The entire city and country of Australia and Sydney were putting on the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games. This was not about a few people inside the Organizing Committee or a few people that worked for the city or the region. Everybody was on that team. Everybody owned a piece of the responsibility and they were delivering it.
And in my interaction with them - I’ve never forgotten it - and they directed me to where I had to go and I saw for myself this incredible thing that was going on there which was, you know, you had this situation which was fueled on pride, on desire, on patriotism. Australians took what once they thought would be absolutely unimaginable, even unthinkable, and they turned it into breathtaking success. I don’t think anybody who went to Australia for 2000 would have walked away and thought, “Wow! How could you possibly top that?”
And in 1994, in Lillehammer, this little town of 23,000 in this country largely underestimated, all over the world showed everybody what human beings, what human achievement is all about, showing the limits that humans can stretch to are bound only by their own imagination. And today, you know, Australia, it just glows as a country. Everybody respects Australia. Everybody respects what they did; they’re taken very seriously. And to no one’s surprise, Norwegians have recently been voted by a vast majority, the most trusted people on Earth. They got everybody’s attention and they did it together. Everybody was involved in this project. And I think it’s pretty clear that when you look at these stories of triumph, these achievements that have taken place time and again in different parts of the world, that nations are capable of lifting far beyond their weight. That cities, provinces, countries, just like their people, are limited only by the boundaries of their own dreams. People can do anything they want to and it’s been proven time and again.
And so, of course, this is, of course, where we start and we have this wonderful dream of what we can do. And I think it’s fair to say that people really, I think, are deemed to be great not by what they say, but by what they do. And looking back over recent Olympic history and using the Olympic Games as an example, I think it would be almost fair to say that humility, a giving spirit, and keeping your word may be the very best attributes of any people, anywhere. And for sure, the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games are not organized by committees but by entire countries. This is a calling for everybody, for everybody to be a part of. And success is vested entirely in how great that effort is by all of us.
“Ça prend tout un pays pour organiser des Jeux” And I’ll come back to this later if you didn’t understand it. You know, last Sunday, one of the things in our project, it never sleeps, it never goes away, it’s always there and you’ve heard me talk about this before. For me, how I manage my time is I use time on the weekend to regroup, to regather, to read, to catch up with what’s going on. And almost every weekend there are people on the road, on our team, that are out there doing all kinds of things that are critical to our success. And last Sunday at the office, I was at the office, I got in there at about nine o’clock in the morning and I was preparing for a number of things that had to be done this week. And as the day evolved, I noticed cars pulling in to the parking lot and at about three o’clock, our parking lot was full. And these are men and women who work on our team, our unsung heroes, nobody would every know that they were there. And as I was getting ready to leave, I kind of wandered off to see who was there. And I got to one desk and I stopped to talk to this young fellow who was busy looking into his computer. And I asked him what he was doing and he said, “Well, I’m preparing for the visit of the French Olympic Committee coming on Tuesday or Wednesday.” And I said, “Could you not have organized this from home?” And he said, “No, I couldn’t.” He said, “This is too important. People are counting on me; they’re relying on me. I need to perform at a very high level. This is a major committee; what they have to say about us is critical.”
And there he was and I walked away thinking, gosh, you know, how lucky we are that young men and women will do that, without anybody pushing them to because they know it’s important, that they know their colleagues are counting on them. And they do it day in, day out every single day on the way to 2010. We’re so proud of them. Every single one of them in every corner of the company are pushing themselves to limits that you can’t imagine. We’re so proud.
Today we’re, you know, about 550 strong and growing rapidly and each one, if you were to walk up to their desk and look them in the eye and say, “What do you do here?” They would, I think, probably say to you, “I’m putting on the Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games,” and so that the internal magnetics of that are-- they’re just incredible. It’s awesome to watch.
[applause]
So today is sort of annual report day. It’s the time of the year that we choose to come and chat to you about how it’s all going. A little bit of a chance to look back. Perhaps a chance to look forward at what’s coming and give you a chance to mark your card on how you think we’re doing. And I hope today that you’ll leave here, you know, better informed, a bit more confident, little more inspired. And that you’ll walk out that door determined that there’s a piece of this project that belongs to you. And that when you leave here, that’s something that you’re going to do and whether it’s directly connected to the work that’s going on Vancouver 2010, doesn’t matter. That it’s something that you’re going to own, that’s going to make a difference in 2010, and that you’re committed to that.
This coming Friday we’ll release our audited financial statements. It’ll be a good news report because every target, financial target, we set for this year has been met and in many cases has been passed. We’re where we would like to be. Let’s face it: we’re not home yet, but it has gone well. And between the directors and the committees and the people that work on this stuff every day, they’re just giving it everything they have. And we’ve now moved another football field up and we’re getting well positioned to deliver on the promises that we’ve been making.
So last year here we talked a little bit about, you know, where the venue program was going. We talked about the business plan which had not yet been announced. We talked about the monies that had to be raised from the private sector, the growth that we needed to see in our team. And then also this concept of Canada’s Games and sharing this project with the entire country. And also how much the project relies on our team being spectacularly good and ready to take on the world in 2010.
I’m not going to spend a lot of time going back over last year but I’ll touch on a few things. The business plan, we completed it in the early part of the year and it’s doing everything we would have wanted it to do. We toiled over this plan for a long, long time and there was a lot of pressure to release it, put it out there, let people see. The goal was to not put it out until we thought it was perfect, until the numbers could be relied on. That it was a plan that we could measure ourselves against. And as I said today, the targets are being met, the plan is working and by the middle of next year, we’ll probably do some recalibration to make sure that we’re zoning right in on finishing this project exactly the way you would expect us in 2010 and leave a positive financial legacy.
A couple of weeks ago or last week - time is passing fast - we announced our ticketing plan. And, you know, ticketing is one, and you may not appreciate this, but for an organizing committee, it’s one of the five milestone events, really, on the way to the Games. It’s gotten lots of committees into trouble. They’ve had struggles with it. Our team has spent 18 months on this plan. But they were given an extra challenge. We asked them to-- remember, we made a promise to give 50,000 tickets away to people who could never afford to be at the Games no matter what. We made commitments that we would make tickets available for people anywhere in the country who could, using the next two years, could find a way to raise the money to be able to acquire tickets to go to the Games. That we’d make them accessible. So we asked them to do a lot of things and still make sure that the plan would deliver the revenues that were necessary for us to complete our business plan obligations.
And the worldwide pick up on that ticketing announcement was very positive for us last week. I’m very grateful for that and so I think the stage has been set to really make it possible for more Canadians from more places to come and be part of it all. And the driving force behind that plan was the lure, for someone to be able to say, “I was there. I had a ticket. I don’t care what the event was. I was there. I saw it for myself.” That was the goal of our team and I’d like to think that we’ve achieved it.
This time last year we were concerned a little bit about what was going on in accommodation because we have now discovered, no surprise to probably anyone in the room, that more people want to come. All of the groups are growing. There’s a desire to be here and, of course, this is always good news if you’re in the hospitality and tourism industry. But it has to be managed. And so we’ve spent the last many, many months trying to make sure we’ve got the inventory together to satisfy the demand. And in the early part of the summer we got over the giant hurdle which was trying to accommodate the media for the Games. And now we’re getting close to really having this well managed. So the problem has been, I wouldn’t say it’s completely wrestled to the ground, but it’s pretty well down and we’re now trying to finesse it and grow it. And I’ll touch on that a little bit later again.
The idea of trying to make this about everybody is not easy. We’re a big country. We are so many times bigger than Europe. It’s a long way to go from the west coast to the east coast. So to be able to call this Canada’s Games, your partners have to believe that. Everyone has to be engaged in that idea; they have to believe it’s a good thing. You have to believe it’s a good thing that every Canadian should be able to get some value from this. So this year, our goal was to try to find a way to engage every province and territory in the Games. We thought that if they formally connected with what we were doing, it would say a lot about the importance of a moment like this in our history.
So in the summer we got invited to speak to the premiers of all the provinces and territories about Canada’s Games, about what this represented, the sport opportunity, the cultural opportunity, the international promotional opportunity for Canada and for the provinces and territories. And to really lay out what the opportunity really looked like. Three and a half billion people will be watching us in 2010 and it’s necessary for us to try to build our team.
So we asked the premiers and we asked the territories to become engaged, to join in, to be part of this. And I have to say at the same event, the premier of the province was there and he extended, as glowing and as emphatic an invitation to the country, to come here and be part of this as I’ve ever seen. And it was just so positive for us to walk out of that meeting with all of the premiers from all provinces and territories and go in front of the media and declare a complete buy-in. Every province and every territory saying “yes” to the Olympics, “yes” to the Paralympics. And I would say that give or take, and the guy responsible for this file is sitting over there sweating, but within a month, we will probably have an agreement with every single one of them. It’s just fantastic.
[applause]
So one of the other things, of course, that we’ve been pushing hard on is trying to find the resources to support our team, to make sure we have the team to beat, that it’s not just talk. And you all know that back in pre-Salt Lake, we were fifth or six in the world and then we became fourth and in Torino we got to third. And this last winter we went into a completely new zone. We passed the United States to be ranked second in the world as a winter sport nation and we’re now chasing Germany.
And so OTP which really is a collaboration that involves Canada, B.C., other provinces, our partners, Vancouver 2010, people who are out there trying to get these funds in place, to give these athletes the extra edge, has made an enormous difference. And you can be absolutely certain that in almost every activity at 2010, Canadians are going to matter. They’re going to count. And when you do turn on your television set, you’re going to see that maple leaf in every sport. The excitement is now-- it almost looks like it’s a certainty.
So we have set the stage. They have work to do. There’s two years to go, but there’s great optimism that this team will be profoundly strong in 2010. But for the athletes themselves, to know that they can come to the Olympic Games and that they’ve been given the help, that they’ve been given the extra support that they need, the science. All of the other things that tend to go missing when you don’t have enough money.
I’ve got this note here from this young athlete who was one of the athletes who’s benefited from it. And I just thought I’d let you hear what she had to say. And I’ll just take a snip from her quote to us. It says, “I am so thankful that Own the Podium is behind all of the athletes of Canada. It gives me great pride to represent Canada, and I’m looking forward and dreaming of the day that I might represent Canada at the 2010 Olympics. If I can ever be of service to you and the rest of Own the Podium team, please do not hesitate to ask.” These kids have been given a real lift by this effort that’s gone into and, of course, the result may be we might win these Games and wouldn’t that be just the most extraordinary outcome.
[applause]
So that’s a great story and then the last highlight from last year to share with you is that you all know we spent a lot of time thinking about how we were going to put the ceremonies program together. The ceremonies is when the country, the city, the region steps up on the world stage and speaks to the planet. And we were determined that we would have a show at both ends of the Games, and we would have nightly celebrations that completely reflected the glow of our country, the character of its people and the incredible talent that exists in all parts of Canada.
So we set out to find the people that could extract that from us, that they could draw that from Canada and show it through the power of the opening and closing ceremonies and these other celebrations that will take place. It was a long process; it took 18 months. It was led inside of Vancouver 2010 by Jeff Mooney who chaired the committee with Terry Wright who is our vice-president responsible for this, who worked tirelessly to go through a long list of potential applicants. And we came up with a team that we announced recently which we’ve referred to as David Atkins and Associates. And it’s a global team. It’s got some of the best people in the world at what they do, some of the best Canadians at what they do, if not the best. It’s a fabulous group of people who have come together with one mission: to put Canada on that world stage and take the world’s breath away.
To give you a chance to assess for yourself what the capacity of this group is, I’m going to stop for a minute and let you see this little piece of video which is a snapshot of the work that this group has done on their way to joining our team. So take a look at the screens.
[video clip]
Anyway, I think you would agree that we have pretty talented people on that part of the project going forward now. One of the areas that’s dominated our discussions in the past has been the venue program. So let me just give you a quick snapshot of where we are and how this is all going.
Let me say this to start with. In six to ten weeks from today, the contractors on all of the outdoor venues for the Olympic and Paralympic Games will be handing in their keys. The project will be over for them. The projects will be completely finished at-- for alpine skiing at Whistler Creekside which is the picture that you’re looking at now. The biathlon course in the Callaghan will be finished and that site will be ready for athlete use. The freestyle skiing course at Cypress Mountain’s been finished for over a year. The ski jumping facility in the Callaghan will be finished. It’s within, again, weeks of being done. The bob, luge, and skeleton facility on Blackcomb Mountain, all of the concrete’s been poured. It will be done and be getting commissioned by December. The snowboarding facility on Cypress Mountain will be done. The cross-country skiing stadium in the Callaghan will be done. The number two and number three rinks at the University of British Columbia are done already and already in use. GM Place is, obviously, ready, Games-time ready. And the figure skating facility and short track facility at the Coliseum will be done.
So just pretty fantastic. We set a target that these venues would be done at the end of this year and they are. And just before I go on to the ones that are ahead, I’d just like to make a comment about what’s actually gone on here. This has been actually quite different than our wildest dreams would have hoped for. The man running the construction program for us, Dan Doyle, is about as humble a guy as you’re ever going to meet. But the team running this project, these are as inspired a group of people as you can imagine. But they’ve taken that inspiration and they’ve moved it right into the contractors. The contractors on these sites know very that we are being watched all over the world and that deadlines have to be met. We’re being judged by the performance of these crews. And I hear every day stories of individuals who get back in their vehicles and drive out to these venues to tend to little pieces of work that would make these venues that much more perfect.
If you could hover in a helicopter for five minutes above the Callaghan and look down, you know what, there’s no words that could describe what you would be looking at. These venues are so stunning when you look down on them. The trails are so well manicured, they’ve been so thoughtfully prepared that you could be convinced from 200 feet above them that they’ve been paved. They are really beautifully done. You’d be very, very proud and you will, I’m positive, benefit from the comments that people, either people will say about these venues throughout the Games period in 2010. They are just-- it’s remarkable work.
In the coming year, in 2008, you’ll see the completion of the number one hockey arena at the University of British Columbia which will be used for women’s hockey and sledge hockey. You’ll see the curling facility at Hillcrest will be also finished in the third quarter. The speed skating facility at the Richmond Oval will also be substantially complete and the two villages, obviously, are continuing and are exactly where they need to be to deliver on the objective of having them ready in time for the Games. But we will be the first organizing committee in Olympic history to be able to say that when the opening ceremonies of the Games that preceded it take place that our field-of-play facilities for our Games will be done completely.
[applause]
So we’re very proud and, of course, the icing on the cake is they’ll be done and they will be completed for that budget that we told you we would complete it for last year. The $580 million budget is intact and we will complete all of that work from inside of that budget and we’re very, very proud of it.
[applause]
I’d like to just turn for a second to the concept of partnerships. You know, there are many engaged in the staging of the Games many of you probably don’t know about, but there are many. And it’s interesting about partnerships. I think athletes have no trouble with this concept because they rely heavily on each other and they trust each other. And I would say, to be honest, this is not an area that we excelled at in the beginning. We could have been better but we’ve worked hard at it. We’ve worked hard to respect that in our partners there’s extraordinary capacity, ability, talent, inspiration and vision. And we have worked to try to bring that together, to try to harness that into something dramatically more powerful than it might have been.
And I was caught a little bit by surprise by a letter I had from the IOC after the last Coordination Commission visit where we get our report card, and the report card ticks the boxes that you might expect. But at the end of it, there was this comment which was essentially saying that these partnerships are clearly going to be one of the great legacies of the 2010 Games. Never expected to see it. These can be very challenging things to hold together for organizing committees.
And you know, my father would have been a hundred years old this year. He was a very humble, quiet but disciplined, focus person. Always teaching. He was always looking at his kids and trying to teach them something new. And he did something to me when I was a teenager that I almost never forgave him for. But one day he went and bought himself a new pair of shoes. And they were, you know, big, ugly new shoes. And the ones he was giving up were even uglier. And he gave them to me. And he told me I had to wear them. And I looked at him thinking, “What is it that I’ve done to you that you could make me wear those? Those are the ugliest, most horrible shoes I have ever seen. And they’re heavy, they’re uncomfortable. No person, no student would wear these, Dad.” And it was quiet humiliating, I have to say. And my fellow students kind of laughed at me. I was the only boy in school who had shoes that were so big you could almost paddle from them. And in order to kind of overcome this period, I went and bought myself a pair of sneakers, cheap sneakers, and I put them into a plastic bag and I would stick them into the bushes on the way to school. And each morning I would change from these shoes. That’s how bad they were. And I never forget it.
And my father didn’t live to be an old man but when he was sick, we took turns to spend a lot of time with him close to the end of his life. And we were reminiscing one night and talking about the past and growing up and the things that we did together as we were kids. And I asked him, I said, “Why did you do that to me? Why did you make me wear those ugly shoes?” And I said, “Did you know how they made me feel?” And he looked at me and he said, “You know what? You might be a far better person if you learned once in awhile how to walk in someone else’s shoes.” And he said, “If we could all see the world as other people see it, everybody would be quite a bit better off. And we’d be all more respectful and look what could get done.”
Well, it took awhile for this to sink in for us and I’d say today our partnerships are strong because we have found a way to become a real team. I look around and I see these many visions that are there. I mean, there’s no partner that has the same vision as any other partner. But there’s one common vision: everybody knows that we are being watched and we have this incredible opportunity together to contribute to this marvelous thing that will happen in front of the world in 2010. And in the name of that project, we become teammates, first and last, we found common ground. We wear each other’s shoes. We are showing a lot of respect for each other and, like athletes, we have grown to depend on each other. And it’s very special and we’re very, very proud of it. And I think at the end we will succeed entirely because of it. And the goal now has to be growing this right down to individuals on the street who would also see themselves as a partner in making this all come together.
So the road ahead, if I could look to what’s coming next and a quick snapshot of the year in front of us. Next year, you just heard about the ticketing program. On October the 11th next year, tickets will be available to people. And I’d like to think based on how people have reacted to this, our website just went crazy right away when we announced these tickets, that very soon, after October 11th, the demand will far exceed the supply. And this, of course, would be great and certainly seems to us that Canadians are looking very carefully at gathering here and we know that there’s going to be a lot of pressure from around the world.
In just weeks, you will meet the mascots for the Games. You can see here the mascots from Calgary and Beijing and Torino and, no, that child is not the mascot. But we think that this child will be quite inspired by what’s in store. In February, we will be passing yet another major milestone when the volunteer program is launched. And we believe that the challenge for us will be managing thousands and thousands and thousands of applications from people whose dream is to be on Canada’s team for 2010. And sifting through that, to put the very best team on the ground in Vancouver so that every person’s experience here is just a remarkable one.
This year we will spend a lot of time on the transport plan for the Games. This is a very significant undertaking for the Organizing Committee and everybody knows that one of the key pieces of this transportation model that has to be finessed and made perfect is how we move people from Vancouver to Whistler every day. So that will be big and, of course, the Beijing Games will be in August and the spotlight will, in one second, turn to Vancouver. It’ll move off of Beijing quickly and on us and we will feel the glow and the pressure and the expectations that people have.
And, of course, the athletes will be here because the venues will be done. Our team will have gathered here. They’ll prepare here. They’ll learn the twists and turns of the bobsleigh facility. They’ll be on the ice. They will test the snow and they’ll get ready. And they will know that the world is coming to take them on.
Our team will have grown, today from about 550 now to 950. And you should know that today our team is representative of individuals from 13 countries who speak 22 languages plus English and French.
The other thing that’s starting to happen which you’re going to hear a lot about are the test events. The test events, really, are the-- they’re really not the best way to describe. We have these world class events that will be coming our way over the next year and a half or so that, really, are the opportunity for us and our partners to get ready, to test our mettle, to look at the technologies and all the things that we have to do to deliver a perfect Olympic experience. And the first one of these is coming up in Whistler in February when we host the World Cup events at Whistler Creekside. So that’s a big part of it. So the year will be somewhat dominated by those activities.
Now one of the things that we’re spending a lot of time on right now is the thinking and dreaming around the torch relay. I have here in my hands the torch from Calgary. And, you know, I remember, I mean, we watched this since we were children and watched people carry this flame and thought, “Gosh, wouldn’t it be an incredible thing to hold this in your hand?” And I got that phone call. I got that phone call to carry the torch in the Athens relay. I thought they were joking when they called me. I never really thought that this was meant for me. But I got the call and I was so delighted. I couldn’t speak I was so delighted to do it because I’d been watching it since I was ten years old.
And it’s funny, at the time I got called the schedule was really difficult. So I flew on the red eye to Montreal and I got off the plane in Montreal. And I took a bus to city hall and they gave us our gear and they gave us our instructions and they told us that we would go out on the course. And at some point you’ll be told to get off the bus and the torch will come around the corner and when it’s in your hand you’re going to run for awhile and take it all in. And it’s going to make you feel quite a bit different than you feel right now. And I didn’t really know what to think, to be honest. But we were on that bus and I looked around and there was a lot of people in there. They were like little children going to their first party.
And it was my turn. And I got off the bus and I stood on the street and there were just thousands of people out there, watching this. And then it was handed it to me. And, you know, it weighs a couple of pounds; it felt like it weighed fifty. And the 800 metres I had to run, it felt like eight miles and honest to God, I thought I’d be the first guy that ever carried this and the flame would go out. But I’ll tell you, the one thing I can say to you about this is-- the Governor of Utah said it best when he was here, “This is not any old fire on a stick.” This is the essence of the Olympic Spirit. When you hold this in your hand you realize your responsibility. You know how important this is and what it represents. And everybody wants to hold it. And our responsibility as an organizing committee, is to try to find a way to put this in the hand of the most Canadians that we possibly can.
One hundred and twenty-one Fridays from this Friday, this flame will make its way through the streets of Vancouver and into that stadium. And life as we know it will change. We will feel quite a bit differently about a lot of things and when that flame comes into the stadium and we light that torch, we will look back and revel in what we have done together.
And our goal, as I said, is to make it touch everybody. And you know, we argue about where this is going. But the arguments aren’t about which communities to include. We argue about the places we may not go to. The places that we might not be able to connect to because we all know the pressure the team feels to put this in the most hands possible is intense.
So there’s amazing power in this and this is a way for the whole country to enjoy this event and feel that it’s not something they’re watching but it’s something that they own. And we prepared this little video which is called “Lights to Guide You Home” which really best reflects the spirit of this. And I’d just like you, while you’re watching this piece of video, just to reflect in your own mind what this means to you and just think about the good we can do through the power of the Olympic Flame. So let’s have a look at that video.
[video clip]
I think if I saw that, I would run all 10,000 legs consecutively without a break. So we now go from the drawing board to become operational. It’s time for the garden to grow. It’s time for the project to come up and move and to engage and become alive. So we’re moving through a changing period. And just to give you a sense of what we’re now heading towards, let me just show you this slide here. This is typically what you would see at a World Cup event and now the Olympic Games. This is the difference in, and this is what our team is now focused on, is creating this remarkable atmosphere of moving from this, which is typical of the kind of events that we typically organize year in, year out, to creating this atmosphere that everybody will really feel that they’ve shared in the experience that is the Olympic and Paralympic Games itself.
So we now turn from the organizing and planning to the experience itself. To creating what it is that it’s going to be, to engaging people more, to talking to business about what they can do, to the community, to individuals, to youth, about powering up the project and making it about everyone. It’s time now to start, to bring out the best that we have to offer, to let all of it come and be part of this great thing that we’re doing.
Recently, we had Gerhard Heiberg from Norway here and I asked him, I said, “What was the toughest ask you had to make?” And he said, “Well, I had to get in my car one day and drive from Oslo to Lillehammer to basically ask the town to park their vehicles for two weeks.” He said, “You know, I didn’t know if they would. But they did. Went in and told them that we needed every Norwegian to be on this team. We needed every single person to find a way to be a player, to contribute, to show the best of Norway to the whole world.” And he said, “I walked away a happy man. And I went all over Norway asking people if they did nothing else, but become a smiling, happy, engaging, welcoming citizen for 16 days, that would be a gift to the country. And they did. And people’s memories of Norway would reflect that.” He asked people to be on the team, to play a role, to do something.
So we have a great city and we have a great country. But our goal must be to make it even better. To be a more livable city, to be a more livable region, to be a more hospitable community when the world arrives. To be more generous, to be happier and smiling, to be more welcoming. To find ways to really light this up for people who come here that we may not typically do. To engage every citizen. To have every citizen say, “I did something.” That when it’s over they could say, “Gosh, it happened and I did my bit. I played my part.” So that every single person could be a friend and part owner of the Games, to play some role. Anything at all.
In the year ahead, you’ll hear us talk about being engaged in things like homestay, being prepared to open your home and take in people from around the world, to be part of the transportation solution, maybe park your car, take the bus. We might ask you to think about your work day, whether it could start early and end early, start late and end late. But to find a way to just make the city work the best it can work during that period so it’s the most enjoyable it can be for everyone. It’s a job for all of us.
When Lillehammer ended, Gerhard Heiberg took-- there was a lot of credit for what they did because they were small. And he was invited to do a speaking tour in North America of their success and off he went. And he talked to many audiences like this one and at the end of every presentation he would have a question and answer period. And he went to speak at a university in the United States and there was a couple of thousand people came out. And he gave his talk and everybody was very happy to hear what he had to say. And then he got into this question and answer period. And some fellow put his hand up and he asked him for his question. He said, “Well, I don’t really have a question but I have a comment.” He said, “I was there. I saw it for myself. It was just absolutely remarkable,” he said. “You thought of absolutely everything.” And Heiberg said, “Well, give me an example.” And he said, “Well, it really struck me when we were in Lillehammer that you didn’t have enough hotel rooms and enough restaurant space, so you improvised. You put in all these tents and you had all these areas where people could celebrate.” And he said, “But the thing I noticed was that there weren’t enough porta potties. And as I would walk back to my accommodation every night, I could see these yellow dots in the snow. But in the morning, when I would get out of bed to go off to a venue, the yellow dots were gone.” And he said, “Somebody took care of those yellow dots.” And Heiberg said, “Well, I am really, really happy that that happened,” he said. “But that wasn’t someone on my team.”
They didn’t have the budget for that and neither do we. But somebody in Lillehammer did that. Somebody got up every morning and went out there with a can and got rid of those yellow dots ‘cause it didn’t look so good. And no one still knows who this yellow-dot bandit is. But it’s a fantastic story.
And there is a way for everybody to do something. And we don’t all have to know about it. But there is a way to contribute and show yourself in this project. I was in Calgary a couple of weeks ago at an event a bit like this one. And at the end of the event, there was a surprise. I didn’t know what it was but I was asked to sit in the front row and this cowboy came out onto the stage. And there was a grand piano up here and there was a great big sound system and speakers and he sat down to the grand piano with his cowboy hat and there was some musicians helping him out. And he had written a song and it was called, “My Canada.” And I just listened to this man and he put the words up on the screen and he started to sing. And it was song that took about four or five minutes and I had tears in my eyes watching this man. And you know what? For one thing, I do not have the heart to tell him that he would not be involved in anything that we’re doing. This is a man who has for a year, in his home, toiled over this song. And he’s written this, “My Canada” song. And it’s his dream that somehow it could fit in, that he could come here, that he could be part of some show. How many men like this and women and children like this are there? And why can’t they all dream and find their way to be part of this in some form?
This is the story of our project. This is what we have to try to do to let everybody’s dream be realized. But it will only happen if we all take a turn at bat. Everybody has to be part of the solution. This is your Canada. These are your Games. This is your dream. Votre Canada; votre rêve. The journey has begun. These are your Games. And when you leave today ask yourself the question, what are you prepared to do? And whether you tell us or don’t tell us, please do something. Decide on the bit you will do so that when it’s over, someone doesn’t walk up to you in five years and say, “Well, what did you do?” And you won’t have a good answer. You want to be able to say, “My goodness, this was one of those occasions where the entire country found a way to step up and do something at the same time.”
This is nation building when we all decide that it’s important enough and it is. This is nation building. The world will be watching us. It’s in us to do a great thing. I thank you, very much for the opportunity to come and talk to you again.
[applause]
Thank you.
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