How is it that the CBC’s “news” channel is getting away with constantly and repetitiously cheerleading for the Olympic Games?
When one considers that the Olympic Games include a bunch of phony physical activities like skeleton, where a person slides down a chute head first; luge, where a person slides down a chute feet first; biathlon, where a person skis then shoots at a target with a rifle and so on till the end of the course; Nordic combined, where a person ski jumps and later does some cross country skiing; bobsleigh, where two or more people hurtle down a chute in a large sled.
Now, just ask yourself how many people do these activities on a regular basis in Canada or, for that matter, anywhere?
“None,” is the answer. These contrived activities properly belong in the section of the Guinness Book of World Records where they list such things as the person with the longest fingernails, the largest jigsaw made of tents and the world’s heaviest onion.
What the “news” channels should be reporting about the Olympics is the fact that taxpayers are being fleeced since scholarly research has found that any gains from hosting are difficult to identify.
In the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, a total of $6 billion of taxpayer dollars was spent by the three levels of government and Crown corporations with precious little to show for it. The 1976 Montreal Olympics were a financial disaster for Montreal, as the city faced debts for 30 years.
Is it too much to ask that the CBC, which the taxpayers of Canada support with our dollars, show some integrity and report real news about the glorified Olympics?