A Contemporary Classic

Charges galore on April 1, 2011 for Contemporary Security Canada and an assortment of senior executives and staff over an alleged lack of licenced and uniformed staff at the G8 and G20 summits in Ontario during June 2010.

CSC was paid $20 million by the RCMP in an expedited contract award, shortly after it wrapped a $97 million job at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.

CSC spokesperson Lecia Stewart, who helped broker Aeroguard's involvement with the Los Angeles-headquarted Contemporary Group, downplayed the charges (because they're under a private security law, not the criminal code) and claimed the company was properly licensed. More on Stewart and her intriguing connections at another time.

CSC has a date in an Ottawa courtroom on April 29.

While I've been chasing any and all news on the Olympics, including what happened to your tax dollars because of those multi-million dollar contracts, Toronto Sun columnist Joe Warmington has been keeping tabs on the G8 and G20 mess. Here's Joe's latest.

Contemporary continues to have a Vancouver presence with contracts with B.C. Pavilion Corporation for the Vancouver Convention Centre and with the Strathcona Business Improvement Association on the edge of the Downtown Eastside ghetto. Contemporary CEO Damon Zumwalt did not return my phone call to his Northridge, Calif. home office.

Below is what the OPP released April 1. No fooling.

CSC File - List of Charges Against Corporation and Individuals
1822479 Ontario Corporation o/a Contemporary Security Canada, ULC Vancouver, B.C

7(1)(a) Unlawfully did hold out as being engaged in the business of selling the services of security guards while not being licensed under the provisions of the Private Security and Investigative Services Act, 2005. (3 counts)
Sec 31. Being a business entity engaged in the business of providing security guards, unlawfully did employ as a security guard a person who was not the holder of a licence issued under the provisions of the Private Security and Investigative Services Act. (1 count)
Regulation 362/07, section 8 Being a business entity engaged in the business of providing security guards, unlawfully did fail to ensure that employees wear a uniform. (2 counts)

OFFICIALS OF CSC-7
Stephen Vincent MIRABILE
President – Contemporary Security Canada, ULC
Vancouver, British Columbia
7(1)(a) Unlawfully did hold out as being engaged in the business of selling the services of security guards while not being licensed under the provisions of the Private Security and Investigative Services Act, 2005. (3 counts)

Jane Elizabeth GREENE
Vice-President – Contemporary Security Canada, ULC
Toronto, ON
7(1)(a) Unlawfully did hold out as being engaged in the business of selling the services of security guards while not being licensed under the provisions of the Private Security and Investigative Services Act, 2005. (3 counts)

Damon Ray ZUMWALT
Director – Contemporary Security Canada, ULC
Northridge, CA
7(1)(a) Unlawfully did hold out as being engaged in the business of selling the services of security guards while not being licensed under the provisions of the Private Security and Investigative Services Act, 2005. (3 counts)

James Hugh SERVICE
Secretary – Contemporary Security Canada, ULC
Glendale CA
7(1)(a) Unlawfully did hold out as being engaged in the business of selling the services of security guards while not being licensed under the provisions of the Private Security and Investigative Services Act, 2005. (3 counts)

Keith Jay GRANIRER
Treasurer – Contemporary Security Canada, ULC
Sherman Oaks CA
7(1)(a) Unlawfully did hold out as being engaged in the business of selling the services of security guards while not being licensed under the provisions of the Private Security and Investigative Services Act, 2005. (3 counts)

Mark Anthony CAMILLO
Director – Contemporary Security Canada, ULC
Clarksburg, Maryland
7(1)(a) Unlawfully did hold out as being engaged in the business of selling the services of security guards while not being licensed under the provisions of the Private Security and Investigative Services Act, 2005. (3 counts)

Paul Russell MOORE
Director – Contemporary Security Canada, ULC
Calgary AB
7(1)(a) Unlawfully did hold out as being engaged in the business of selling the services of security guards while not being licensed under the provisions of the Private Security and Investigative Services Act, 2005. (3 counts)

EMPLOYEES-3

Todd Eric SEVERSON
Project Director – Contemporary Security Canada, ULC
Darlinghurst, NSW, Australia
7(1)(b) Not being an employee of a licensee - unlawfully did hold out as being engaged in the business of selling the services of security guards while not being licensed under the provisions of the Private Security and Investigative Services Act, 2005.
(1 count)

Lorraine FOSTER
Division Manager – Contemporary Security Canada, ULC
Vancouver, B.C
7(1)(b) Not being an employee of a licensee - unlawfully did hold out as being engaged in the business of selling the services of security guards while not being licensed under the provisions of the Private Security and Investigative Services Act, 2005.
(1 count)

Alexandre HOULE
Compliance Manager – Contemporary Security Canada, ULC
Vancouver, British Columbia
7(1)(b) Not being an employee of a licensee - unlawfully did hold out as being engaged in the business of selling the services of security guards while not being licensed under the provisions of the Private Security and Investigative Services Act, 2005.
(1 count)

Green Gregor to balance budget with bike tolls?

Vancouver city hall's latest bid to balance the budget is a plan to toll cyclists on downtown bike lanes.

A document obtained by QMI shows that sensors were embedded in the pavement along Dunsmuir and Hornby streets and the Burrard Bridge. A sole-source contract was awarded to Cubic Technologies, the San Diego company behind
TransLink's 2013 Compass card and fare gates, to sell the mandatory transponders to cyclists.

Cyclists will be required to pay $5 to affix the transponder to their bikes. They will be charged 25 cents per city block and be billed monthly by Verrus, which also handles mobile phone parking meter payments for the city.

A press conference is planned for noon April 1.

Vancouver borrows card name from San Diego

Hong Kong has the Octopus

London has the Oyster

Seattle has the Orca

Vancouver is getting the… drum roll… Compass.

The Compass?

While the public transit authorities in the world's other great seaside cities chose to name their reloadable, digital-wallet transit passes after sea creatures, Vancouver chose a name already used in San Diego. See it here. The emphasis will be comPASS not COMPass, even though TransLink's goal is to stop fare evasion: asses who take complimentary trips.

TransLink's rejected, shortlisted names were Starfish and TPass.

Starfish would have been ideal. It has five points, like your hand. There are five modes of transportation in Metro Vancouver: bus, SkyTrain, SeaBus, West Coast Express and air. The pass is applicable to the first four and would bring commuters to Vancouver International Airport and the Coal Harbour seaplane terminal. The five points of a starfish would've also been a subtle way to remember the five-ring circus of 2010.

Contactless smart cards for commuters are not new and go hand-in-hand with turnstiles and fare gates, which Vancouver still doesn't have after more than 25 years.

Hong Kong's Mass Transit Railway began the Octopus Card in 1997. Transport for London started the EDS and Cubic Corporation-provided Oyster Card in 2003. Seattle's 2009-introduced Orca card is actually ORCA (One Regional Card for All) and was developed by ERG, the Australian company behind Octopus.

In 2006, TransLink was mulling the idea of a smart card and leaning towards the MasterCard contactless card system tested in New York City. The plan was to get it in use in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics. The International Olympic Committee requires free transit for pass-holders and limited free transit for ticket-holders.

It took until Jan. 27, 2011 to finally announce a contract with San Diego-based, New York Stock Exchange-listed Cubic. The company gets $84 million to design, build and install the smart card and fare gate system by 2013. Cubic gets $13 million a year for a decade plus a five-year option and a $6 million, one-time "transition cost."

To get the contract, Cubic hired lobbyist Ken Dobell, the chairman of VANOC's board finance committee, chairman of Hill and Knowlton Vancouver, former city manager and deputy minister to Premier Gordon Campbell.

What do you think of the Compass? Email me or comment below.

Lights on at the Green House

There are 8,760 hours in a year on Earth (8,784 in a leap year), but the World Wildlife Fund chooses one on the last Saturday of March for its Earth Hour promotion.

WWF reported $224,159,728 in revenue in 2010 and spent $186,770 on programs. WWF is a savvy marketer, having forged relations with Mars and perennial Olympic sponsor Coca-Cola. (Some readers might question WWF's intentions because of Coca-Cola's labour relations in Third World countries, as seen in the National Film Board's Coca Cola Case.)

WWF uses Earth Hour to stoke the flames of fear, particularly on climate change, and to earn a donation or two. Turn off your lights and the world will be a better place. Leave them on and you're going to bring the planet and humanity closer to the brink. Those who go with the flow get a shiny, happy feeling, then go about their lives for the next 8,700-plus hours until they can do it all over again. It may be the biggest single-day of publicity WWF gets in a year. Imagine all the people rushing to view the WWF website and use the donation portal -- things one can't do without electricity.

Earth Hour seems to have lost its novelty. In Vancouver, lights were on at the Vancouver Convention Centre (including the Olympic cauldron and spinning globe) and B.C. Place Stadium, where construction continues. Bon Jovi was rocking Rogers Arena and, I understand, it was not a hippy-dippy, acoustic affair in the dark. A Hollywood North film shoot closed Pender Street near Thurlow as floodlights turned night into day. A public art installation outside the Vancouver Public Library at Homer and Robson remained on.

City hall was mostly dim, but not the house of Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson. From the street, I could clearly see lights were on inside the front window on the main floor. Most of the Mayor's neighbours were also not drinking Earth Hour juice: one neighbour had Christmas lights on in what may have been a show of defiance against Mr. Green Capital. I found out later that the Mayor was in Calgary at the Inter-American Development Bank annual meeting. Evidently someone in his own house didn't get the Earth Hour memo. Or they all mistakenly thought that Vancouver is a big city without a single curious reporter.

I'm exercising discretion and not publishing the Mayor's home address. British Columbia politicians like former Premiers Bill Vander Zalm and Glen Clark gave up their privacy because of sleazy business deals that mixed their personal real estate with their political duties. I have no evidence that Robertson is in the same league. I'm also not going to publish the photograph of Robertson's house for now. I won't hesitate if his minions doubt my credibility.

Conservation is a noble goal, but the rhetoric and spin are outrageous. The world is not running out of oil or natural gas. It's just that it costs a lot of money and creates a lot of waste and pollution to extract and use such resources. Waste and pollution are not healthy, and wouldn't it be nice if more money could be spent on finding a cure for cancer or HIV, feeding the famished and housing the homeless.

The United Nations wants to spend $100 billion by 2020 from a climate change pool funded by taxpayers around the world, based on the conclusions of some (but not all) scientists that humans are to blame. Imagine if that money was spent instead to help victims of earthquakes and tsunamis rebuild their shattered lives and to do whatever is needed to prepare for the potential of deadly tremors and waves in the most vulnerable, seismically hyperactive places on Earth.

Fear of global warming is not something that keeps residents of Port-Au-Prince, Haiti; Banda Aceh, Indonesia; Chengdu, China; Christchurch, New Zealand; or Sendai, Japan up at night. Instead, it's the memories of dead friends and loved ones.

Olympics boss gets another board gig with a VANOC contractor

The gigs keep coming for VANOC chief executive John Furlong.

First he was named chairman of the Own the Podium advisory board after the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics. Then came last fall's appointment as a director of the reorganized Whistler Blackcomb. Now he is a director of Rocky Mountaineer Railtours, the luxury train that run from North Vancouver to Whistler and Banff.

Furlong's duties with Own the Podium are logical. VANOC and the Canadian Olympic Committee created the high performance funding plan that helped Canadian athletes win a record 14 gold medals at home after giving Canadians golden goose eggs at Montreal 1976 and Calgary 1988.

The other two appointments are worthy of greater scrutiny.

Furlong is not only a director, but chairman of the corporate governance committee for the Toronto Stock Exchange-listed Whistler Blackcomb Holdings. One of his boardmates is Wall Street bigshot Wesley Edens, whose Fortress Investment Group paid the way too high price of $2.8 billion for Whistler Blackcomb parent Intrawest in 2006 and whose Fortress Credit Corporation walked away from financing the Vancouver Olympic Village when the Great Recession began in September 2008. Fortress exploited a loophole in the Olympic Village deal that allowed it to exit because the City of Vancouver promised to complete the project, now in receivership. Intrawest was on its knees in early 2010 and there was even some worry that bailiffs would padlock the Olympic venue.

Whistler Blackcomb reported last fall that it got $32.1 million in its make-whole compensation deal with VANOC, but felt it was shortchanged by $6 million. Whistler Creekside hosted alpine skiing and Blackcomb is site of the Whistler Sliding Centre.

I asked VANOC ethics commissioner Martin Taylor on Nov. 16, 2010 whether his advice had been sought regarding Furlong's role on the board of private sector venue owner Whistler Blackcomb. This was Taylor's answer:

"During the present calendar year I have not been called on by VANOC for advice or ruling on any matter, including that which you mention, nor have I conducted any investigation this year in my capacity as Ethics Commissioner."

We may not know the truth about VANOC's business machinations until 2025 when VANOC meeting minutes and financial statements are unsealed by the City of Vancouver archives. A deal signed by city manager Penny Ballem included a loophole that shields the records from the Freedom of Information act.

Now Furlong, whose name is on a SkyTrain car, is on the board of another tourism company that did business with VANOC and its sponsors.

Peter Armstrong's Gray Line West was listed as the successful proponent for VANOC Request for Proposals 065. The contract size was not disclosed, but it was awarded Nov. 29, 2006. Armstrong bought Gray Line West from Greyhound in 2005, but shut down the Vancouver operation in late 2007. The Victoria and Banff operations remained open.

VANOC's deal with Gray Line shifted to MTR Western, a Seattle company with Oregon-plated, luxury motorcoaches. MTR shuttled official VANOC visitors, including those at the 2008 World Press Briefing, throughout Vancouver and Whistler.

MTR's owner Darren Berg became the Cascadian answer to Bernie Madoff in 2010 when his empire collapsed and he was charged in a Ponzi scheme. He faces trial in October 2011.

Armstrong's company offered VANOC use of its Rocky Mountaineer Railtours rolling stock, which runs on the same BC Rail right-of-way effectively owned by CN Rail. The successful 2003 bid even contemplated using rail to shuttle Games-goers. But the Olympic organization opted to go all rubber-tire for its transport of ticketholders, media and dignitaries from Vancouver to Whistler. (VANOC revealed in December 2010 that it paid $173.5 million for transportation -- $50 million more than budgeted in May 2007!)

Alberta, which became a provincial sponsor of VANOC, did a complex $6 million deal with Rocky Mountaineer to rent its False Creek flats station for parties and to charter its trains for daily round-trips to promote Alberta tourism.

Armstrong is also politically connected, known for delivering loads and loads of cash into B.C. Liberal party coffers.

Elections BC political finance records show that Armstrong and his Rocky Mountaineer Railtours and Great Canadian Railtour Company made 43 donations worth $197,170 to the governing Liberals between 2005 and 2009.

Most recently, Great Canadian gave finance minister Kevin Falcon $10,000 for his leadership campaign and $2,000 to George Abbott's bid.

More Village idiocy

Yet another chapter was written in the history of the Vancouver Olympic Village on Feb. 26 with a pro-housing protest turned awry.

I'm not in Vancouver this weekend. I'm instead in Los Angeles, where the 1984 Olympic Village was a truly sustainable project that left a legacy of student housing.

The Vancouver project was marketed as sustainable. Sure, it has green roofing, energy use monitors and other pioneering features. But, until proven otherwise, it is a financial disaster. Activists are also quick to remind us that it is also not socially sustainable. The promised 252 affordable units were halved.

The tent village threatened for Feb. 12 didn't happen. It was delayed two weeks, but is unlikely to become an ongoing protest. The weather and the police may have the last say. Here are two reports from those involved in the incident.

From Tristan Markle of VAN.ACT at 6:16 p.m.

On February 26th 2011, housing activists and community groups set up a tent city in the public square in the Athlete's Village. The police shut it down. The activists moved to an unused lot near the Athlete's Village and the police once again kicked them off the land. Determined not to be intimidated by the police and to still draw attention to the lack of social housing at the Athlete's Village and on the Downtown Eastside, activists have now, as of 6:00pm, occupied a large suite on the main floor in the Athlete's Village.

Text message from activist Alissa Westergard-Thorpe at 8:36 p.m.

"Nine or 10 arrests for break and enter and assault by trespass (not for violence but only criminal charge that exists for trespass), for all -- as we heard it anyway. Person in Olympic Village suites opened door on 1st between Ontario and Manitoba and as many got in as could or wanted to before shutout. We protested outside and they put up signs inside and took cops a while to arrest them. Before that, 100 plus people moved by cops as (the people) tried to tent in a couple places and cops blocked entry to Creekside centre. No tents stayed up, replanning before next try."

Were you a witness? Were you a protester? Do you live in the Village on False Creek? I want to hear from you. Please email bob.mackin@sunmedia.ca

Wannabe premiers show their donation dockets

The score is Kevin Falcon $708,664.58, Christy Clark $519,040 and George Abbott $427,842.

Those are the donation tallies released Feb. 22 by three of the four candidates in the race to succeed Gordon "Red Mittens" Campbell as B.C. Liberal leader and the new premier of British Columbia. A telephone and Internet vote will be held Feb. 26. Will the winner have the biggest war chest or will it be a cost-effective victory?

Why do people donate to politicians and parties? The tax receipt is often secondary or tertiary. Sometimes the donors are friends or business associates. Often it's a way to get noticed and even, ahem, receive future considerations. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. There are even some who -- gasp -- donate money because they actually believe in the policies of the candidate.

A closer look at the lists reveal some interesting connections.

Francesco Aquilini, owner of the Vancouver Canucks and Rogers Arena, stayed true to his word. He told me in January after a Board of Trade lunch that he'd be happy with Abbott, Clark or Falcon. The owner of the rink where the biggest hockey game in history happened Feb. 28, 2010 sent $25,000 cheques to each of them.

Concord Pacific, which hosted Molson Canadian Hockey House during the Games, gave $5,000 to Falcon and $2,500 each to Abbott and Clark. (Coincidentally, Abbott Street leads to Concord property and Clark Drive isn't far away. Falcons are few and far between on False Creek.)

Clark got $500 from former Canadian tennis pro Grant Connell, now a high-end real estate agent. Oh-so-popular and tenant-friendly landlord (oh, the sarcasm!) Hollyburn Properties donated $10,000. Does this mean Clark is beholden to the West End's notorious "renovictionists"?

Encana, the company whose northern B.C. pipelines were allegedly (and suspiciously) bombed in the months leading up to the 2010 Winter Olympics, gave $1,500 to Clark but $3,000 to Abbott. (Hey, whatever happened to Wiebo Ludwig or was that RCMP raid a form of "security theatre" connected to the Olympic torch relay? Just askin'.) They both received $1,500 cheques from MDA Corporation, the Richmond-based military contractor which mysteriously became involved in the RCMP surveillance camera contract for the Olympics.

Lurking in the shadows of Clark's campaign is Patrick Kinsella, the veteran political strategist, lobbyist and racehorse owner. Kinsella's Progressive Group donated $20,000. Kinsella was behind Social Credit Premier Rita Johnston's epic 1991 election loss and Tory Prime Minister Kim Campbell's equally impressive 1993 federal loss. Johnston and Campbell were crowned by their parties, but the people voted against them because of their unfit to govern parties.

Will the K-Man use Clark to complete his trifecta of female futility? For those keeping score at home, he's the Liberal insider involved heavily in BC Railscam who figuratively boasted he had a "foot into" VANOC. Who's powerful leg it was attached to remains a mystery.

Then there's $10,000 from Pacific Customs Brokers. That's the company run by Kinsella's horse racing partner Glen Todd. PCB received a lucrative and exclusive contract by VANOC to handle customs clearance and freight forwarding for the 2010 Games. Not a small job, seeing as how PCB had its hands all over heavy and expensive things like backup power generators, bobsleds and satellite dishes that came and went across the border. At previous Olympics, global logistics giant Schenker signed sponsorship/supply deals. The Vancouver 2010 bid book in 2003 mentioned customs clearance and freight forwarding as a potential sponsorship category. For some reason, never properly explained by VANOC, PCB was given a service contract. Meanwhile, Brenda J. Kinsella kicked in $3,000.

Who else is on the Clark list? Condo king Bob Rennie's Rennie Marketing Systems ($15,000) and Peter S. Malek ($2,500) of Millennium Development. Remember Millennium, don't you? The company's division that developed the Olympic Village went into receivership on Nov. 17, 2010 over a $740 million debt to Vancouver taxpayers.

Clark's coffers were also filled by developer Peter Wall ($15,000), Bruno Wall ($10,000) and Wall Financial ($25,000).

Falcon's campaign may be brought to you by the letter K. Kebet Holdings is another name for the Beedie Group. Real estate tycoon Ryan Beedie's $30,000 was only exceeded by the $40,000 from Keg Restaurants. Kyle Washington, whose company supplied the barge on which the Olympic rings floated in Coal Harbour, gave $10,000.

Shato Holdings (the Toigo family company which owns the Vancouver Giants) gave $5,000 to Falcon and Abbott. Richmond builders and former Vancouver 86ers' owners Maureen and Milan Ilich sent $5,000 to each of the three. Falcon doesn't have a slush fund, but a Slurpee fund. He had $4,000 from 7-Eleven.

Falcon is a former highways minister, so it's no surprise that Langley Concrete Group ($5,000), Mainland Sand and Gravel ($2,000), Mainroad Home ($5,000) and Pacific Blasting ($5,000) shovelled cash his way. They all had Olympic contracts. Dueck -- the massive GM dealership owned by Moray Keith -- gave $1,000 to Falcon and Abbott.

Theresa Emerson, wife of former federal Olympics minister David Emerson, gave $1,000 to Falcon but $500 to Abbott.

Rusty Goepel, the longtime Gordon Campbell loyalist and chairman of VANOC (yes, it still exists) gave $250 to Abbott. Interesting, because Abbott's logo is a crudely drawn torch.

Furlong's fuzzy math

The International Olympic Committee has read John Furlong's memoir Patriot Hearts and it wants Furlong to explain something. Specifically, it wants more details about the secret deal with Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov for the votes of Russia's IOC members at the July 2, 2003 election of the 2010 Games host city.

In a nutshell, Furlong promised Luzhkov the Vancouver bid team would hold a "how to build your own bid" seminar for the Moscow 2012 Summer Games bid team. Luzhkov agreed that would be enough for Russian IOC members to vote for Vancouver at the 115th IOC session in Prague.

I was first to report on this on Jan. 31. Here is my Feb. 23 update. Luzhkov, by the way, was fired by Russian president Dmitry Medvedev last September. There is even a WikiLeak about Luzhkov.


In Patriot Hearts, Furlong incorrectly claims the Russians had "six or seven" votes. The roll call for the vote shows only three Russian IOC members with voting privileges: Russian Olympic Committee honorary president Vitaly Smirnov, Russian Tennis Federation president Shamil Tarpischev and four-time gold Olympic medal swimmer Alexander Popov (above). All three are now on the Sochi 2014 advisory board. See the full circa 2003 list of IOC members below.

As it happened, Vancouver beat PyeongChang 56-53. A slim, three-vote margin. The Games came and went. Moscow lost its 2012 bid, but Sochi, Russia beat PyeongChang for the 2014 Winter Games. PyeongChang hopes third time's a charm as it battles Annecy, France and Munich, Germany for the 2018 gig.

Who voted for whom on July 2, 2003 was never revealed. There were 126 eligible IOC members, but seven were disallowed from voting because they were from the three bid countries. That left 119 voters, but only 109 were counted on the last ballot. For some reason never fully explained, 10 votes were not cast or counted.

Regardless of whether the Russians respected the Luzhkov deal, Vancouver's previous claim to submitting a lily-white bid is over. Furlong claims it was all done by the rules, but one need only read the IOC's own ethics manual to see it was not legal. No promises of any value are allowed.

Expect the IOC to review the matter and line-up its specially appointed group of members in finely tailored suits to wag their fingers and go "tsk-tsk" in their central European accents during a future closed-door IOC board meeting. The Vancouver Games are over and there's no putting this toothpaste back where it came from.

Or hell could freeze over and the IOC could tell Furlong he broke the rules and he's forever unfit to ever be appointed to the Lausanne, Switzerland-based non-governmental sports government.

International Olympic Committee Prague 2003 Session Annex Roll Call

Flashback: Feb. 22, 2010

VANOC bus driver dies
Bob Mackin, QMI Agency

Tragedy struck the Olympic Bus Network Monday morning when a 71-year-old driver suffered a heart attack and died at the wheel on Highway 1 near the Port Mann Bridge.

The man, whose name was not immediately released, was shuttling five other bus drivers westbound from their Fraser Valley motels. One of the passengers grabbed the wheel and safely stopped the vehicle around 4 a.m. The surviving drivers were given the day off and offered counseling.

“Health and safety, it’s our number one priority,” said VANOC vice-president of communications Renee Smith-Valade said. “Nothing is sadder for us than to lose someone on the workforce.”

VANOC budgeted $52.3 million for charter bus systems and hired Orlando, Fla.-based Gameday Management to handle logistics. Most of the 1,100 vehicles and their drivers are from the United States, including Alabama, Texas and Wisconsin. Gameday event operations vice-president Mike Witte did not return a Monday phone call.

An OBN driver, who asked that his name not be published, told 24 hours that a drug test was required for employment, but not a medical certificate.

Edison Transportation-contracted drivers nearly revolted Feb. 4 over 18 hour work days. Commercial vehicle safety rules say drivers cannot exceed 13 hours daily and must have 10 hours off-duty per day. VANOC replaced, at its own cost, 100 public transit buses which were supplied north by Shuttle Bus Leasing of Riverside, Calif.

(Postscript: Through the kind help of a contracted driver with Edison Transportation, I eventually found Jeanette Roberge, widow of Dale Roberge. Read about him here and here. Many tears were shed over the deaths of Nodar Kumaritashvili and Therese Rochette. Rightly so. VANOC mentioned the death of Mr. Roberge at a news conference on Feb. 22, 2010, though his name was not announced. VANOC, however, did not contact Mrs. Roberge to offer condolences. Sadly, the couple was three weeks shy of wedding anniversary number 50.)

Flashback: Feb. 21, 2010

Del Bosco crashes
Bob Mackin, QMI Agency

WEST VANCOUVER: Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

Another Canadian crashed on the way to the podium at the 2010 Winter Olympics. This time it was Chris Del Bosco, the Sudbury, Ont., resident who is ranked third on the skicross world cup tour.

Del Bosco was racing fourth in the final of the first skicross event in Olympic history Sunday at Cypress Mountain.

He improved to third and then tumbled before the climactic jump to the finish. Del Bosco landed on his side and hit his head and shoulder. He received medical attention before leaving the course. Del Bosco finally spoke to the media more than two hours after the race, sporting a blackened right eye from the crash.

“It just didn't work out for me,” Del Bosco said, pausing to wipe tears from his eyes. “Third, I guess it's all right for some people, but I wanted to give 100% for my sport, my country.”

Del Bosco, 27, was the 2010 Winter X-Games gold medallist in January. The Vail, Colo., native with dual citizenship previously competed as a national-level alpine skier and mountain biker for the United States until drug and alcohol violations derailed his career.

“I left it all out there, that’s what I came to do,” Del Bosco said. “It could’ve happened in any round. I made it to the final.”

World cup leader Michael Schmid of Frutigen, Switzerland became the sport’s first gold medallist. He edged silver medallist Andreas Matt of Flirsch, Austria and bronze medallist Audun Groenvold of Oslo, Norway.

"I was in fourth behind Chris and I was thinking, 'It isn't over until you cross the finish line',” said Groenvold. “I hung on his tail. When you see someone crash like that, it's a mixed feeling."

Davey Barr, a 32-year-old from Brackendale, B.C., finished second in the consolation final and sixth overall. He was called upon as an 11th hour replacement for teammates David Duncan and Brady Leman, who were both injured training at Cypress.

“Everybody else had the two days of training before today,” Barr said. “I managed to get three runs in this morning before the race.”

Skicross was the only sport added to the Olympics for Vancouver 2010.

“We showed the world today what a cool sport this is,” Barr said.

Reigning world champion Ashleigh McIvor of Pemberton, B.C., leads Canada’s women into their first Olympic skicross race on Tuesday at Cypress.