Winter Olympics: Noble Games? Organisers say they've tried

A carbon-neutral torch relay.

A multimillion-dollar partnership with Canada's aboriginals.

Bouquets for medal winners made by former prostitutes and drug addicts.

Even before the first event - and the first big protest rally - organisers of the Winter Games claim to have set new Olympic standards for environmental and social responsibility.

A progress report released yesterday detailed the scope of the efforts by the Vancouver Organising Committee - extending far beyond now-expected efforts to minimise environmental damage and maximise conservation.

"We have forged a new level of sustainability performance for the Olympics," said VANOC's chief executive, John Furlong.

One of the most ambitious initiatives was to reduce and offset emissions throughout the seven-year preparation period, so the end results would be a carbon-neutral Olympics.

With the 16 busiest days still ahead, organisers believe they can reach that goal.

The transport fleet includes scores of hybrid vehicles, and VANOC says these are the first Olympics with an "official supplier of carbon offsets".

On the social-issues front, VANOC started early on with outreach to Canada's aboriginal communities. They encompass more than one million of Canada's 33 million people, and have had long-standing grievances about factors contributing to their relatively high rates of poverty, substance abuse and other social ills.

Some modest protests flared when legs of the transcanada torch relay passed through aboriginal reserves, but most native leaders have supported the Games since VANOC signed a sweeping partnership with the four First Nation communities whose lands in British Columbia overlap the Olympic region.

The leaders of these four communities - one of them, the Tsleil-Waututh, with only about 425 members - will be accorded status equivalent to head of state at the games.

VANOC says native businesses have had more than $56 million in Olympic spending since 2003, and 96 aboriginal artists from across Canada were contracted to produce artworks for the venues.

"I'd give VANOC an A," said Tewanee Joseph, chief executive of the Four Host First Nations.

The Games abound with aboriginal motifs, from the Inukshuk, a traditional Inuit symbol that adorns the official Vancouver 2010 logo, to the thunderbird and eagle represented on the Canadian hockey teams' jerseys.

There will be Olympic telecasts in several aboriginal languages, including Cree, Mohawk, Ojibway and Inuktitut.

Some aboriginal activists remain discontented, and even non-native protesters have adopted the slogan: "No Olympics on Stolen Land."

That alludes to the fact that in much of British Columbia, unlike other provinces, treaties were never signed over the takeover of land by white settlers.

But Lea MacKenzie, who has represented the host First Nations in their dealings with VANOC, said most of Canada's aboriginals hope the Olympic partnership will set an example for future initiatives benefiting their communities.

"It used to be: 'What can we get out of these games?' and now it's: 'What can we contribute?"' MacKenzie said yesterday. "This has gone beyond tokenism."

Another target of VANOC's outreach has been Vancouver's inner-city neighbourhoods, notably the skid-row Downtown Eastside where homelessness and drug addiction abound. VANOC says it has spent more than $3 million on services and products from inner-city businesses, and has trained about 200 at-risk young people and newly arrived immigrants in a carpentry programme whose products included the medal-ceremony podiums.

The 1800 bouquets to be handed out at those medal ceremonies were made by what VANOC calls "marginalised" women - recovering drug addicts, victims of domestic violence, and women trying to leave the sex trade or newly released from prison.

There's even a plan for a socially responsible lost-and-found operation during the games. An inner-city social service agency has been hired to run the operation, and the estimated 10,000 unclaimed lost items will be distributed to low-income residents.

VANOC's efforts haven't deterred an array of activists from planning a rally today outside the stadium where the opening ceremonies will be held.

There's also been a "Poverty Olympics," organised by activists seeking to draw attention to Vancouver's social problems.

"Visitors in 2010 are being treated to a city with almost as many homeless people as athletes competing in the games," said the Poverty Olympics Organising Committee.

- AP