How many times does one have to be subjected to specific information ad nauseam before some begin to actually believe it? Thought reform is alive and well in the city of Halifax in the province of Nova Scotia. The city that is currently vying to win the honour of hosting the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Those responsible for an onslaught of excessive verbosity have over the last 18 months or so not only created chaos in this city but in the process, have freely and frequently offered ammunition for our competition in Glasgow, Scotland.
Now, just weeks away from the Commonwealth Games Federation's deadline for submission of the final bid proposal, a Scottish reporter has written an article in which he describes the Halifax bid committee as being in disarray and worse, on the "brink of implosion". Sadly, he could very well be correct in his assumptions. Sadly, the vocal opponents of our bid to be chosen as host city in 2014 may have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams if by no other means than by long-term redundancy.
Of course many of us know the identity of the leader of the anti-Games pack so he will be referred to simply by his initials - BDV. His unwritten motto, 'anywhere but here' revolves around his personal goal to ensure that Halifax does not win our bid to host the 2014 Games. His reasoning? We're too poor and we have potholes that need fixing. He has appointed himself as Halifax's personal saviour as he works on the false belief that Halifax actually needs to be saved from itself. He has gathered a devout following of newly like-minded individuals who have fallen into his cult-like mentality which insists that perceived extreme poverty cancels out hosting an international event. At least one local radio personality has also fallen under his spell and offers BDV unlimited free airtime to espouse his thought reform on the few unsuspecting people that are still roaming freely and supporting Halifax's bid. The last of the great unwashed, so to speak.
This self-appointed saviour hasn't however restricted his prejudicial propaganda to this side of the Atlantic but has branched out all the way to one of Halifax's competitors - Glasgow, Scotland who are also in the race to be selected host city for the 2014 Games. He and a couple of his pack members have been frequenting a hugely popular website discussion board and at one point last year had for all intents and purposes taken over one popular topic - the 2014 Commonwealth Games as it pertained to the Glasgow bid process.
He and his cohorts posted so many articles from Halifax papers in an effort to support BDV's position that the regular members including the board owner threatened them with banning if they didn't stop "spamming" the boards. But did that stop them? Absolutely not. As recently as this past February, one cohort added a post under this intro: "just to update the state of the games bid for Glasgow readers" and proceeded to supply our competitors with even more fodder in which to discredit one of their rivals. This cohort added that he could not wait for the moment when [Halifax] "City Council pulls Financial support for the games bid before the May submission deadline."
It was shortly after that submission to the Glasgow website discussion board that we saw in the Scotsman newspaper an article penned by a respected reporter describing Halifax's bid as being ready to implode. The opinions expressed in that article prompted Halifax 2014 CEO Scott Logan to make the following statement - "The media frenzy here, the constant striving to find some kind of dirt or blood or something wrong here to find scandal in everything we do, has made it very difficult on the politicians and made it very challenging on the bid committee."
Logan's response reflects the views of many residents in and around the Halifax Regional Municipality including my own. The vocal opponents to Halifax's bid process and led by BDV has indeed evolved into a negative media frenzy not only practiced by our local print news but emanating from local radio talk shows and the frequently visited local website discussion boards. BDV and his ilk would travel to the ends of this earth in order to take possession of one more tiny bit of information that might support his cause and the dirtier and bloodier that info was, the better.
The general consensus of the anti-Games movement is one of arrogance. They truly believe that they possess a far better understanding of the inner workings of the Halifax 2014 CWG bid committee than anyone actually connected with it including Scott Logan, its CEO. The bid committee's every move is carefully monitored and commented upon in a negative manner. Every decision made by the committee is criticized and embellished in order for the opponents to further verify their claims of gross mismanagement, ineptitude, stupidity and wild over-spending on the part of the committee members. The committee has been accused of lining their own pockets at the expense of the taxpayers and of travelling throughout the Commomwealth for pleasure thinly disguised as business. Logan and his staff have been made out to be liars and cheats with one simple goal - to bilk as much money as possible for their own personal bank accounts and to be successful in being chosen as host city for one purpose - the prestige.
And every time a new accusation is uttered, it gets picked up by one media source or another thanks in large part to BDV. All this information, much of it based on nothing more than rumour, conjecture and innuendo is read voraciously by our competitors' press. And it results in articles by Scottish reporters accusing our bid committee and our bid process as being in complete disarray. The people of Scotland who are in any way interested in the 2014 Commonwealth Games are being supplied with a plethora of information surrounding Halifax's bid process. Way more information than would be considered healthy from a Halifax perspective. Conversely, how much does the average Canadian know about the Glasgow bid process? Not much. Glasgow and its citizens got it right. Loose lips sink ships.
So here we are today. Scotland officials believe they have been given an edge in the competition. Most likely they have and they are delighted. The opponents here in Halifax have managed to decimate the purpose of this prestigious international sporting event by replacing the spirit of the Games with the almighty buck as the only aspect that is important. The damage done by BDV and his pack reaches far beyond jeopardizing Halifax's chanches of hosting the event. The damage done has the potential of creating a false sense by the international community that Canada and specifically eastern Canada wants nothing to do with progress or competition in the 21st century. If that happens, the next time an international event rolls around, we won't even be asked if we want to take part in the first place. It will be assumed that not only are we not interested, we are too impoverished to even consider it. Afterall, we do have those nasty potholes to take care of.
And finally, I'll end this piece by offering another quote, this time by Mr. Bruce DeVenne himself, a man so successful in his mandate of deliberate interference he was voted CJCH's Hotline Show Person of The Year in 2006, a man who has managed to take on the role of the 21st century version of the pied piper, and I quote:
"Congratulations to Glasgow. I and a growing number of people in Halifax Nova Scotia not only offer our congratulations on being chosen to bid in hosting the 2014 games but we are pulling for you (or somebody else) to win."
What a guy..
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