Proposed Vancouver city bylaw takes dead aim at anyone who might express a contrary view or protest during the Winter Olympics
In the flush of bidding for and winning the right to host the Olympics, nobody talked about how staging them might mean limiting civil liberties.
It's only now, with seven months until the 2010 Winter Games begin, that organizers and compliant politicians are revealing plans to make it more difficult to exercise our fundamental constitutional rights to free speech, peaceful assembly and free expression.
For months now, police have been knocking on the doors of known activists and tracking them down in their neighbourhoods to "chat" about their Olympic protest plans. But that's only part of it.
An omnibus bylaw that staff insists is "critical to the success of the Games" goes to Vancouver city council today.
The bylaw relaxes rules for Games-related events, limits free expression and speech in public and private spaces, and grants sweeping discretionary powers to Mayor Gregor Robertson and City Manager Penny Ballem to do whatever is "warranted," "necessary or desirable" to ensure the Olympics' "safety and security" and "protection of commercial rights."
It also claims none of this is intended to impact political expression or the right to lawful protest.
That might not be the intent, but it may be the result. And rather chillingly, we may never know whether any of this is legal because there's little time left for anyone to initiate a court case against these rights-challenging changes before the Olympics begin in February.
