STORY posted on February 4, 2010 by dawn

Police to receive "Olympic Legacies"

Vancouver, Richmond police departments to move into Games related digs

by Dawn Paley →2010 Olympics

VANOC's HQ, soon to become the home of the VPD // VANOC

Planned space of the Force Options Training Center in 2007// CoV

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As soon as the 2010 Olympic Games are over, the Vancouver Police Department will be moving in to a the facility now occupied by the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (VANOC). The Richmond Police Department will be taking over the headquarters of the Integrated Security Unit, a 2010 Olympics specific police unit which comprises the RCMP, the VPD and RPD, and the Canadian Forces.

“This move has been long anticipated and we are very pleased that the timing was such that our new building will be a valuable and cost efficient legacy of the 2010 Winter Games,” said VPD Chief Constable Jim Chu in a January 18 press release.

The move to reward police with new office space doesn't surprise critics of the Games.

"It's very appropriate that the police would move into the VANOC headquarters, since that's their little puppet masters for the duration of this Olympic regime that they've imposed on the city," said Gord Hill, the editor of no2010.com and member of the Olympics Resistance Network.

"They also got other facilities that they have now, including the Force Options Training Center near Clark Drive and First Avenue, so you see a real expansion of the police forces here in the city, as a result of the Olympic security budget that they put in place," said Hill. The Force Options Training Center is almost complete and will be ready for 2010.

Chris Shaw from 2010 Watch told the Vancouver Media Co-op that rewarding police with new equipment and new offices paid for by taxpayers was typical of the Olympics.

"[International Olympic Committee President] Jaques Rogge was very clear about this, he said you get a 'Security Legacy' and he's exactly right, that what you get," said Shaw. "Unfortunately most of us don't want that."

Both the federal government and the City of Vancouver have prioritized the upgrading of police facilities over the provision of other services in these difficult financial times. The feds will contribute $5 million to the move, and the City will contribute $10 million.

The idea that the 2010 Olympics would leave a positive legacy for Vancouverites, specifically for poor people in this city, has long been forgotten.

In addition to the boost for local police, tangible Olympic legacies for Vancouver will go to real estate developers like Bob Rennie, who developed and is marketing the 2010 athletes village through his company Rennie Marketing Systems, and to the corporations that got in on the flurry of Olympic spending while the getting was good.