VANCOUVER — John Furlong was stunned Premier Gordon Campbell was forced from office by the political maelstrom over the harmonized sales tax so soon after overseeing a wildly successful 2010 Winter Olympics.
The former boss of the Vancouver Games, who released his memoir Patriot Hearts on the Olympic anniversary, said he didn’t immediately realize at the time in late October that Campbell was in the midst of resigning.
“I think history will see him as a great man,” Furlong said in an interview with Black Press, calling public opposition to the HST an unfortunate misunderstanding.
“I do believe in his heart he was trying to do a good thing and improve the quality of life in this province and create a more prosperous future, which has always been his focus.”
Campbell was a relentlessly energetic supporter of the Games and a wellspring of ideas and advice for VANOC, he added.
Furlong’s book airs his frustrations with other politicians, including “moments” of disagreement with federal heritage minister James Moore and Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, who talked his way into the torch-lighting ceremony in Greece.
“If there was one politician I had a real dustup with it was (former Vancouver Mayor) Larry Campbell, who decided he was going to have a plebiscite with just four months to go before the decision on the Games,” Furlong recalls.
Olympic live sites, free concerts, pavillions and other cultural events were critical in helping defuse the sense of some locals that the Olympics were an unaffordable playground for the elite and affluent.
“It was a huge impact because it caused the city to fill up every night,” Furlong said. “The cultural Olympiad in many ways was bigger than the Games, in fact overshadowed the Games.”
“It was important that downtown Vancouver was like a very big arena,” he said.
It meant people weren’t just watching as spectators but living the experience.
“When (International Olympic Committee president) Jacques Rogge said the Olympics can never go back from this, they were talking about this pouring into the streets of people, not just in Vancouver and Whistler and Surrey and Richmond but across the country.
“This happened everywhere.”
— Black Press
