Looking Back...

Unsurprisingly, the 2010 Winter Olympics that were held in Vancouver, British Columbia were voted top Canadian news story of the year in the annual survey of newsrooms across the country by The Canadian Press:

Forty-three years after the Centennial flame flickered to life on Parliament Hill, Canadians came together for 17 glorious days in February beneath the glow of another fiery symbol of peace and goodwill: the Olympic torch. 

In fact, according to surveys, 8 in 10 Canadians "still feel a sense of pride from the Games" and, anyway, could 3.6 million pairs of mittens be wrong?

And to top it off, in a report that was released with Canadian parliamentarians on Winter break and only a week before Christmas, VANOC reported that the $1.884 billion dollar operations budget resulted in neither surplus nor deficit.  This was generally reported without inquiry across Canada, though a few, like Bob Mackin, asked the obvious question about whether a budget can be 'balanced' when it required $187 million from Canadian taxpayers to balance it?  And should Canadian citizens be concerned that VANOC released no quarterly reports, why the names of senior managers and directors are nowhere to be found on the report and why there is footage of a Shred-it paper shredding truck in the VANOC parking lot recently.  Aw, hell, I'll let him ask the tough questions.

The Canadians should be careful; pretty soon they'll be making Salt Lake 2002 look transparent.