Politics

Vancouver learned to stop worrying and love mega-events

Published

2 months ago

June 21, 2026

VANCOUVER — On the opening day of the 2010 Winter Olympics, protesters marched to BC Place, the culmination of a decade-long tug-of-war over whether Vancouver had room for a global sports mega-event. Activists first tried to block the Olympics from coming to town, then tried to use it to extract social commitments from organizers, and finally to shame anyone involved.

On Thursday, when Canada was preparing to play the most important match in the country’s soccer history, the streets around BC Place appeared to be free of protesters, filled only with gleeful fans swathed in patriotic red and the occasional dishdasha preferred by the Qatar Football Association’s traveling contingent.

“It’s kind of a nothing-burger,” observed Am Johal, who as the chair of the Impact on Communities Coalition had been a leader of the city’s anti-Olympics movement, hours before kickoff on the World Cup’s second match day.

Johal was walking through the Downtown Eastside, a scruffy neighborhood that had been the site of the greatest pre-Olympic friction, along the lines of conflict that define the modern North American city — between new transplants and existing residents, tourists and locals, police and civil-rights activists, global capital and local resistance.

Now, however, Johal was carrying a fiscal conservative’s laments rather than those of the community organizer. Canada’s governments were projected to spend over $1 billion to host World Cup matches in Vancouver and Toronto, with a roughly even split between funds coming from the federal budget as opposed to provincial and local ones. More than 70 percent of voters in both cities told pollster Angus Reid that it was not worth the public cost.

“I think if the government is looking to spend a billion of public funding related to economic and social benefit, it should really do a proper opportunity cost,” said Johal. “If there’s a massive public subsidy being done to groups that are unaccountable to the broader city — if these things are going to go ahead — why is public money going into them?”

Those were arguments Johal made when Vancouver voters were asked in November 2002 to weigh in on the merits of an Olympic bid. Almost two-thirds of those casting ballots in the municipal plebiscite voted to proceed. But over the course of the decade, as the games grew near, the coalition of skeptics appeared to grow. (The Vancouver Sun dismissed them as “whiners and grumble-bunnies.”)

There were anti-gentrification activists who feared that an Olympic Village and other new developments would price out renters and displace property owners. Anti-consumerist radicals, many with ties to the Vancouver-based magazine Adbusters, saw it as a corporate spectacle. Civil libertarians anticipated heavy-handed police measures to clear streets of the homeless and drug users. (Vancouver is home to North America’s first supervised injection facility.) Environmental activists and tribal groups, who hold disproportionate sway in British Columbia’s politics, sought to protect what they said was unceded aboriginal land.

As the anti-Olympic coalition grew, it split along the lines that often fracture protest moments. Johal’s community coalition sought to extract 37 specific policy commitments to ensure what one City Council resolution described as a “transparent, inclusive and socially sustainable” games.

The Anti-Poverty Committee took a more militant approach, threatening to “evict” members of the local Olympics organizing committee from their homes, attacking branches of games sponsor Royal Bank of Canada with rocks, and vandalizing the office of British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell, a leading Olympic booster. The militants also took aim at those on their own side, even if more playfully: David Eby, who as executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association had been the anti-Olympics’ movement most prominent spokesman, received a pie to the face after arguing for non-violence at a community meeting.

Despite the irreconcilable “diversity of tactics,” as activists politely described it, the rebellion attracted notice beyond Vancouver, inspiring a new era of local resistance to global mega-events. Veterans of the Vancouver campaign shared lessons with activists in Boston, who in 2015 forced then-Mayor Tom Menino to withdraw plans to bid for the 2024 Summer Games due to civic opposition. Two European cities, Hamburg and Budapest, subsequently killed their bids once voters expressed their disapproval in referenda. The NOlympics LA movement, currently attempting to rally political opposition to the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles, draws from the lessons of Vancouver.

Evidence of that legacy has been scarce on the streets of Vancouver this month, even after the city enacted “FIFA Bylaws” designed to give police specific tools to use against street vendors and buskers and remove advertising that interferes with the World Cup sponsorship deals. The Pivot Legal Society deployed crews of “legal observers” who chased law-enforcement officials through the Downtown Eastside, and activists shared Vancouver Police Department press releases boasting of new drone surveillance capacities.

“These are always moments where policing gets new tactics and technologies,” observed Johal, “and they oftentimes get deployed during mega events as a way of moving forward.”

But the Downtown Eastside did not feel like a neighborhood under siege, as it had in 2010. Even if it competes with the Olympics in cultural and geopolitical salience, the World Cup is a more logistically diffuse experience. Rather than being consolidated within a single metropolitan area for two jam-packed weeks, this year’s World Cup lasts for more than five weeks and is spread across 16 cities in three countries.

In 2022, the same year that Vancouver offered itself up to host World Cup matches, Eby was elected British Columbia’s premier. Now instead of using his words to inspire the activists who massed outside BC Place, he was inside. Inside a luxury box, Eby greeted sports executives who lobbied him to make a new commitment to the Vancouver Whitecaps franchise that joined Major League Soccer the year after the Olympics. (Eby’s office did not make him available for an interview.)

“We’re so excited to be hosting,” Eby said in one social-media video. “And we’re so excited to have a win under our belts.”

Politics

These mayors live along Lake America’s shores. But they won’t be calling it that.

Published

47 minutes ago

September 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Robert Corradino has never lived anywhere but Oswego, New York. As the only commercial port city on the southeastern shore of Lake Ontario, everything bears the lake’s name — the streets, the convention center, the historic fort.

And in his first term as mayor, Corradino — a Republican who said he previously voted for President Donald Trump — said he worries that a distant political feud is threatening to erase part of his city’s history.

In the days following Trump’s executive order renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America, Corradino and other mayors in upstate New York said Trump’s decision is “regrettable” and could upset voters in the region — and even further impact an economy so closely tied to the U.S.’s relationship with Canada.

“The water is part of our identity,” Corradino said. “Not only our identity, but the economy and the history of the lake is tied to the city.”

Oswego, a city of 17,000, is split between Democrats and Republicans, Corradino said. However, the larger Oswego County is one of the reddest in the state and 61 percent of its voters went for Trump in the 2024 election.

Yet on Monday, several Oswego County legislators from both parties approved a resolution rejecting the new name, out of concern for the cost of the rebrand on taxpayers and businesses. The resolution said it does not intend to diminish the authority of the federal government, rather it aims to “recognize the longstanding historical and regional significance of the name Lake Ontario.”

Last Thursday night, at Oswego’s weekly summer concert series, Corradino said everyone he interacted with said they didn’t support the name change and they weren’t sure why it was happening. The general sentiment, he said, was frustration.

Asked about the issues Oswego residents actually care about, Corradino said his constituents are concerned about less immigration enforcement and the war with Iran.

“In general the consensus I see is it just seems like the country is heading in a direction that we’re not all happy about,” Corradino said.

The pushback is not isolated to Oswego. Hours after Trump signed the executive order, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat who runs the only state that borders Lake Ontario, said in a post to social media, “New York won’t be calling it that.”

And there’s been mixed adaptation nationally — similar to when Trump dictated that the Gulf of Mexico now go by Gulf of America.

Signs mark the entrance to the Lake Ontario State Parkway on Aug. 25, 2026, in Rochester, N.Y.

On Saturday, Google Maps, which uses the U.S. Geographic Names Information System that comes from official government sources, officially changed the name. Map users on the American side will see “Lake America” while users in Canada will see “Lake Ontario.” For users outside of both the U.S. and Canada, they will see both names. Apple Maps followed suit, using the same naming approach as Google.

But MapQuest — the once-dominant mapping service of the 1990s and early 2000s — rocketed up app stores after refusing to use Lake America.

Long before the lake was renamed, Alex Morgia — a Democrat and mayor of Sackets Harbor, N.Y. — said his community has been grappling with the deteriorating relations between the U.S. and Canada.

Sackets Harbor, located along the eastern shores of Lake Ontario, is home to a number of Canadian residents. A village of 1,400 people, it was a major military outpost and naval command center during the War of 1812, when the U.S. clashed with British and Canadian forces.

Since 1971, the village has hosted the Can-Am festival to commemorate the village’s Canadian-American heritage.

The festival “reminds everyone that it’s not very nice to be at odds with your neighbor,” Morgia said. “Having good relationships with your international neighbors is important, particularly for people that live along the border on either side.”

Last year’s festival was the first time residents began making floats of maple leaves and Canadian flags to protest the Trump administration’s calls to make Canada the “51st state” and to remind Sackets Harbor residents that there were Canadian citizens among them, Morgia said.

This year, as Trump has continued to roll out tariffs against Canadian products, and relations with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney continued to worsen, Morgia joked that the theme for this year’s parade should’ve been “we’re sorry.”

The overall atmosphere at this year’s parade in July was “somber,” Morgia said.

“I kind of hoped that the Canadian issue had gone by the wayside, but you know [Trump] seems to bring it up when he needs to,” Morgia said.

Sackets Harbor is split between Democrats and Republicans, Morgia said. Jefferson County, which encompasses Sackets Harbor, overwhelmingly supported Trump in the 2024 election with 61 percent of its vote.

“It’s a three-hour drive to Montreal, a two-hour drive to Toronto and a six-hour drive to New York City,” Morgia said. “The biggest metropolitan cities near us are Canadian, and a lot of North Country businesses and people rely on the southern part of Canada. … I’m hopeful that voters will think about that at the polls in November and in 2028.”

In the village of Sodus Point, N.Y. — which is located along the southern border of the Great Lake — Republican Mayor Pat Nolan said he’s disappointed by the name-change as “Ontario” is rooted in the Indigenous history of the region.

The name Ontario, is largely believed to come from Iroquoian roots, meaning “beautiful lake” or “sparkling water,” according to the Canadian government. The Canadian province of Ontario, is named after the lake.

A village of 1,000 people, Sodus Point is located in Wayne County, where Trump received 61 percent of the vote in 2024. Nolan was elected in a write-in campaign last year.

“My hope is that, rather than allowing this decision to become another wedge that further divides people,” Nolan wrote in an email, “it can encourage a broader discussion about the history of this great body of water, the Indigenous people who first gave it its name and the generations of communities that have grown along its shores.”

Politics

Trump invites battleground Republicans to Rose Garden dinner

Published

10 hours ago

September 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump has invited a group of GOP lawmakers including Republicans in competitive races to dine with him Wednesday night at the White House as many in the party press the president to unleash his massive war chest ahead of the November elections, according to four people with direct knowledge of the matter.

The White House plans to hold the dinner in the Rose Garden, according to two of the people who know about the invitation. The people were granted anonymity to discuss private planning. Some House Republicans in tough races were sent invitations, including Reps. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) and Tom Barrett (R-Mich.), who are planning to attend, along with a wider group of GOP lawmakers and senators.

“Of course,” Van Orden said when asked if he would go to the dinner.

The White House invited at least several dozen lawmakers, according to two people familiar with the invitation list. The dinner also comes ahead of next week’s GOP midterm convention in Dallas, though attendance from Republican lawmakers is expected to be mixed. Barrett, for example, said in an interview Tuesday he is not planning to attend the convention and will instead campaign and spend time with his family. A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump’s political operation, MAGA Inc., has spent little of its $400 million war chest to help GOP lawmakers. But he recently helped boost Sen. Darline Graham over the line in her heated primary.

Senate Republicans are eager for him to start spending for Ken Paxton in Texas as he has thus far been outspent on the airwaves by Democrat James Talarico and his allies.