Vancouver Olympics wants private industry to loan and pay for 1,500 employees
With the Vancouver Olympics only six months away, it's pretty hard to turn on the TV these days without hearing some excited voice telling you every five minutes how great the Games will be next year.
But with a price tag of two billion dollars and growing, the Vancouver Olympics looks like it's going to be a big hole this country will be throwing money into for decades to come.
Last week the Vancouver Olympics organizing committee asked for private companies to lend their employees to the Games while still paying their salaries. The committee has more than 1,500 new Olympics-related jobs to fill and no money to hire anyone. Or, no money they want to spend to hire anyone, that is.
Dave Cobb, deputy chief executive officer for the organizing committee, told reporters last week the Vancouver Olympic operating committee has the money in its budget to hire the staff it needs but wants to hold onto it.
"I think given that uncertainty in the economy, we want to remove as much risk out of our budget as we can," Cobb said.
"Obviously it will reduce our financial risk going forward if we have these people loaned to us."
Personally, I think the idea of asking for private businesses to pay their employees to help out at the Games when the organizers have the money to hire employees is kind of slimy.
But then again, mostly everything I'm hearing about the Vancouver Olympics has a pretty thick coating of slime attached to it.
Like the plan to forcibly round up and relocate Vancouver's homeless population during the Games. Or the idea to restrict protestors to two or three "free-speech zones," in areas of the city where they won't be seen or heard.
British Columbia is even putting lives at risk by slashing 2,000 surgeries next year during the games to help keep costs down while the committee blows $1 billion to lease 900 security cameras and hire almost 16,000 security personnel, a sickening waste of money and manpower.
All this, and the organizing committee has the guts to ask private industry to float them 1,500 workers and pay them out of their own pockets? Unbelievable. "We still obviously need these people to come fill important roles we have, they are not jobs we don't need," Cobb said.
It's shameless for the organizing committee to be looking for handouts from companies that are really suffering from the poor economy and don't have the rainy day money the committee does. And it's shameful the committee's trying to hold onto that extra money rather than spend it to hire it's own employees.
But if there's any consolation to this travesty it's that once it's over with, it'll be decades before Canada will ever have to worry about hosting another multi-billion dollar Olympic Games.
But with a price tag of two billion dollars and growing, the Vancouver Olympics looks like it's going to be a big hole this country will be throwing money into for decades to come.
Last week the Vancouver Olympics organizing committee asked for private companies to lend their employees to the Games while still paying their salaries. The committee has more than 1,500 new Olympics-related jobs to fill and no money to hire anyone. Or, no money they want to spend to hire anyone, that is.
Dave Cobb, deputy chief executive officer for the organizing committee, told reporters last week the Vancouver Olympic operating committee has the money in its budget to hire the staff it needs but wants to hold onto it.
"I think given that uncertainty in the economy, we want to remove as much risk out of our budget as we can," Cobb said.
"Obviously it will reduce our financial risk going forward if we have these people loaned to us."
Personally, I think the idea of asking for private businesses to pay their employees to help out at the Games when the organizers have the money to hire employees is kind of slimy.
But then again, mostly everything I'm hearing about the Vancouver Olympics has a pretty thick coating of slime attached to it.
Like the plan to forcibly round up and relocate Vancouver's homeless population during the Games. Or the idea to restrict protestors to two or three "free-speech zones," in areas of the city where they won't be seen or heard.
British Columbia is even putting lives at risk by slashing 2,000 surgeries next year during the games to help keep costs down while the committee blows $1 billion to lease 900 security cameras and hire almost 16,000 security personnel, a sickening waste of money and manpower.
All this, and the organizing committee has the guts to ask private industry to float them 1,500 workers and pay them out of their own pockets? Unbelievable. "We still obviously need these people to come fill important roles we have, they are not jobs we don't need," Cobb said.
It's shameless for the organizing committee to be looking for handouts from companies that are really suffering from the poor economy and don't have the rainy day money the committee does. And it's shameful the committee's trying to hold onto that extra money rather than spend it to hire it's own employees.
But if there's any consolation to this travesty it's that once it's over with, it'll be decades before Canada will ever have to worry about hosting another multi-billion dollar Olympic Games.
posted by Street Wise Guy | 3:34 AM
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