Document(s) 3 of 11

Introduction

Research questions

• Actors and motives — Who were the actors in the eviction issue? What were the interests and motivations of the various actors in the eviction process? How did the various actors relate to each other? What actions were taken by the governments and the sponsors of the hallmark events to prevent evictions from occurring?
• Forms of social resistance — What were the actions undertaken to prevent the evictions? What were the reasons for the success or failure of these actions?
• Institutional context — What was the legal and jurisdictional context of the eviction process? What rights did landlords, tenants, governments, and hallmark-event sponsors have? What options did the community have to prevent the evictions? Were these options used? What sorts of discussion took place on the issue of housing rights?
• Effects of evictions — At the microlevel, how many people were evicted? What were the housing conditions of the affected parties before, during, and after the evictions? What were the health effects of the eviction process? What impact did the evictions have on existing social networks in the community? Were there any gender-specific issues? At the macrolevel, what was the impact of the hallmark events on housing stock in the community? What were the roles of the hallmark events in redeveloping urban space? What were or could be some of the long-term implications of such redevelopments for tenants? 

Research methods

Fieldwork was carried out for 1 week in both Calgary and Toronto in 1991. Ten to 15 people were interviewed in each of the three cities on the research questions. The Vancouver case was an update of previous research conducted by the author (Olds 1988), but in the Calgary and Toronto cases, completely original research was conducted for this study.

Because of the nature of the research questions, the analysis was primarily qualitative, and it told a story from an informed perspective. Some quantitative data were drawn on to illustrate specific points.

Background: hallmark events and forced evictions

major one-time or recurring events of limited duration, developed primarily to enhance the awareness, appeal and profitability of a tourism destination in the short and/or long term. Such events rely for their success on uniqueness, status, or timely significance to create interest and attract attention.

Little research has been carried out on the issue of evictions related to hallmark events and no comparative (regional or international) research has been done. Olds (1988) examined the changing nature of the World's Fair since the late 1800s. In the last two decades, the hallmark events' use as an inner-city redevelopment-planning tool, in combination with the pressures created by millions of fair visitors, has tended to create four main forms of housing impact: on-site impact; post-announcement speculative impact; pre-event tourist-accommodation supply impact; and post-event impact. In cities as diverse as Brisbane, Knoxville, Montréal, New Orleans, San Antonio, Seattle, and Spokane, hundreds to thousands of tenants have been evicted because of event-induced pressures. For example, between 1 000 and 1 500 people were evicted in Knoxville, Tennessee, because of redevelopment pressures associated with Expo '82. Consequently, the Korean and Canadian cases in this book represent a first step toward the detailed examination of the social impacts of hallmark events, impacts that clearly contravene the human right to housing.

Overview of research findings in the three case studies

In Vancouver, although no housing was demolished on the Expo '86 site, post-announcement speculative impacts were created in the inner-city Downtown Eastside neighbourhood that bordered the fair site. Land values increased after the announcement, and between 1 000 and 2 000 lodging-house units were demolished or closed down. This loss occurred between 1978 and 1984 (Expo '86 was announced in 1980), with another 600 units permanently lost between 1984 and 1986. However, Expo '86 was only one of several factors contributing to this loss. Pre-event tourist-accommodation supply impact began occurring vigorously 3 to 4 months before 2 May 1986, when Expo '86 opened. By July 1986, the impacts ceased, leaving a total of 500–850 residents dislocated. Many of the poor, elderly, and primarily male evictees faced serious health problems, and several committed suicide, or died prematurely. Following Expo '86, Downtown Eastside vacancy rates returned to prefair levels, and the vast majority of evicting residential hotels began catering to traditional clientele. Some hotel owners faced serious financial difficulties because reality did not meet their expectations of tourist demand. The Downtown Eastside housing and land market remained unstable after 1986. The future development plans for the site of Expo '86 and other downtown areas were beginning to create pressures on existing residents, and these could be expected to continue over the next 20-year development phase (Hulchanski 1989b).

Community action based on the right to housing was vigorous and strategic in Vancouver, but it had little ameliorative impact. This was because of the "politics of planning": the issues of political jurisdiction, ideology, and ideological differences. The provincial government alone could pass rent and eviction-control legislation. Analysis of comments by provincial politicians and their supporters suggests an ideology that values the exchange value of housing over the use value; a belief in the primacy of economic relations; a belief that the inner city must be redeveloped; and a belief that Downtown Eastside residents did not live in a community, but in a geographic area without bonds to the physical or social environment, and obviously without the right to housing. Long-term housing impacts continued to be addressed by the community, with only partial support from the government. Unfortunately, in the long-run, the residential-displacement process would be more damaging to the community than the Expo '86 eviction saga. Although people in the community were active, they were engaged in an exhausting struggle in a long-term process that received little supportive attention from policymakers.

The 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics caused or contributed to four forms of housing impact. First, in the construction phase of the games, a stadium was sited in a recreational area bordering one of Calgary's poorest residential communities, Victoria Park. The stadium was sited in this area, against most of the community's wishes, in a process of autocratic decision-making. This decision contributed to the ongoing destabilization of the community to accommodate future expansion plans for the recreational area — the Calgary Stampede and Exhibition grounds. Second, about 740 tenants were displaced from two apartment-building complexes in Calgary. The tenants were offered moving assistance and financial incentives to move. But it should be noted they had no legal alternative, as the Alberta Landlord and Tenant Act (1988) permitted eviction without cause. Third, several dozen long-term dwellers in residential hotels were relocated from their rooms (with incentives again) to make room for visitors to the Winter Olympics. Fourth, about 1450 students were temporarily displaced from residences at two Calgary educational institutions. Again, assistance and prior notice were offered to the students to help them move, but they had no choice.

Community resistance was ineffective in Victoria Park and failed to develop significantly in the other cases. This was because of lack of access to, and support from, powerful local and provincial politicians and event organizers (groups with interlocking networks), who also had long-term plans for the community's land. Moreover, provincial laws governing landlord and tenant relations enabled such displacement to take place, effectively annulling the reasoning behind the tenants' protests. This situation both reflected and contributed to the perception of tenants in Alberta as second-class citizens.

Toronto failed to win the bid for the 1996 Summer Olympics. However, housing issues, including the potential for evictions, were incorporated into the bidding process, and a plan to address such concerns was developed by the city and agreed to by the provincial government. The main reasons for this included (1) active and strategic community work on the issues; (2) important support for community concerns from some political and bureaucratic actors; and (3) contextual factors, including an ongoing housing crisis, which made various actors aware of the need to address housing concerns, and historically strong tenancy laws (relative to Vancouver and Calgary), which effectively forced all debates to be based on the assumption that evictions should be categorically abhorred. However, numerous weaknesses in the landlord and tenant laws were identified by community activists in the bid-preparation process, demonstrating that even with rhetoric, as well as law, political commitment is needed to implement the right to housing.

The case studies

Vancouver — Expo '86

Vancouver is Canada's third largest city; in 1991, it had an urban population of about 460000 and a regional population of 1.4 million. Located on the west coast of North America, the city has been the western terminus of the cross-Canada railway since the turn of the 20th century. In the first seven decades of the 1900s, Vancouver grew rapidly, acting as a service centre for British Columbia's growing resource economy (primarily logging, mining, and fishing). The city had a relatively small (compared with a city like Toronto) manufacturing base, which was gradually shifting to the suburbs.

From the 1970s on, Vancouver's tourism industry grew at a rapid pace, and Expo '86 could be seen as both symbolizing and contributing to this growth. Overall, the city was generally perceived to have made a successful transition from industrial to post-industrial status (Ley 1980). Vancouver had become a centre for higher order producer services (for example, accounting, engineering) not only for the province but also for much of western Canada, as well as increasingly for the Pacific Rim (Davis and Hutton 1992). Such structural change contributed to the ongoing transformation of industrial land in the centre of the city, toward residential and commercial uses, and this increased land values in the inner city, the location of much of Vancouver's low-cost housing. In 1986, Vancouver was the second-most expensive city in Canada to live in (after Toronto), and by 1992 it overtook Toronto in terms of overall living expenses.

Vancouver won the bid for Expo '86 during a major recession in British Columbia, as resource industries were being ravaged by global restructuring processes. Also, a neoconservative provincial government was developing and implementing a highly contentious restraint program. Expo '86 was designed to be a "feel-good" spectacle to help people forget the conflict and economic hardships felt in the 1980s, to create jobs (construction and tourism), and to demonstrate to the world the potential for investment in various sectors of the province's economy, including real estate. As noted in The Expo '86 General Report, "it was imperative that this exposition transcend the reality of a troubled decade" (GoC 1986, p. 75).

Expo '86

After reading the Iredale concept study, its sponsor, the Provincial Recreation and Conservation Minister, proposed an "international exposition to complement Vancouver's 1986 centenary" (Bennett 1980). Vancouver's centenary was simply a suitable excuse to hold a World's Fair, given that all fairs are linked to important dates, such as the centennial of the French Revolution (Expo 1889), the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Columbus in America (Expo 1893), and the 10th anniversary of the gold rush (Expo 1909). This linkage is required to attract support from the community, all levels of government, and the Bureau of International Expositions (BIE).

In January 1980, Premier William Bennett announced his "vision for the future, a vision to build a great meeting place for all our people that we would call British Columbia Place" (Bennett 1980). His vision consisted of a sports stadium, a World's Fair, and a brand new rapid-transit line linking the central business district to the World's Fair site and the suburbs. He mentioned the enormity of the site and the consequent benefits for all people of Vancouver, if it were developed properly. Most important from the perspective of this research was the use of a fair to launch the redevelopment project:

The trigger for this development will be Transpo '86. … We see in this Exposition an opportunity to host both a major World Fair and to proceed with developments that suit our present and future needs. … We see in Transpo '86 the chance for a celebration that will leave a lasting legacy.

(Bennett 1980)

Evictions, displacement, and community action in Vancouver

Unfortunately, in 1986, residential hotel dwellers were not even protected by the RTA, as they were classified as licencees or guests, rather than as tenants. Moreover, the landlord was considered an innkeeper. In this context, the relations between these two actors were governed by the Innkeepers Act, which laid out the rights and obligations of all hotel owners (and their guests) in the province. In effect, this Act covered guests and owners of the luxurious Hyatt Hotel, as well as those living in and owning decrepit residential hotels. The impact of residents' being defined as licencees included the following (TRC 1986):

• Guests were only permitted between certain hours, and they were charged extra if they stayed overnight;
• Eviction was permitted at any time for any reason; and
• Guests' goods could be seized at any time. 

EXPO '86'S NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOUR: DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE — Vancouver's Downtown Eastside community bounded the northern and eastern edges of the site of Expo '86. The 1981 Census found 16608 people living in Downtown Eastside, with just under half (45%) residing in lodging houses (residential hotels, rooming houses, nonprofit hostels, and multiple-conversion dwellings). A 1986 survey by the City of Vancouver Social Planning Department (CVSPD) registered about 9 600 lodging-house units in Downtown Eastside. The lodging-house population (the residential-hotel residents in particular) came under examination in this case study. As characterized by the Downtown Eastside Residents Association (DERA 1987), a typical Downtown Eastside resident was an unemployed man, about 55 years old, receiving social assistance, living alone in a small housekeeping room, and paying $225 a month. He had probably lived in the community in a variety of lodging houses on and off for the past 15 years. He had previously worked in primary industries (for example, logging, mining) and may have become disabled while working.

Residents of Downtown Eastside tended to be fiercely independent individuals with links to informal social-support systems. A strong sense of community existed in Downtown Eastside. The residents had been represented by DERA since 1973. This community organization was formed after residents became upset with the decades of intransigence and neglect they had been forced to endure. In the last two decades, DERA had become involved in a wide array of activities, including critical analyses of plans for the area, lobbying, and affordable-housing development. Led by Jim Green for the past decade, DERA was one of Canada's most organized and powerful community organizations and had received much attention from the media and academics (see, for example, Gerecke 1991; Ley and Hasson 1994). DERA had about 4 000 members when the Expo '86 eviction crisis began.

THE EXPO '86 EVICTION SAGA — The first questions about the possible housing impacts of Expo '86 (then called Transpo '86) and British Columbia Place were raised during the summer of 1981, 6 months after BIE officially ratified the Expo '86 application. In Downtown Eastside, the First United Church representatives predicted that at least 800 low- and fixed-income residents would be evicted from residential hotels and rooming houses being upgraded for Expo '86's lucrative tourist trade (Rankin 1981; Lyotier and Shuter 1982; SDEC 1982). DERA began voicing concerns in public over the potential for evictions at this time, and it initiated a research project to discover what impacts occurred in cities where hallmark events had previously been held.

In response to community concerns and to calls from some local politicians for preventative planning, the CVSPD initiated work in October 1983 on a major initiative called the Expo Housing Program. This program involved seeking additional housing assistance from the Canada and Mortgage Housing Corporation to offset potential housing impacts of Expo '86. Community groups in Downtown Eastside, such as DERA, were to manage the newly constructed housing projects if the plan was accepted by the federal government.

DERA and CVSPD developed various other options in 1984. The most important and controversial of these was a rent-freeze and no-eviction program. This option was initially proposed by DERA and refined with CVSPD staff input. In the proposal, the long-term (more than 1 year) residents of lodging houses would receive protection from both rent increases and evictions during Expo '86. This option required approval from provincial government because the city did not have legal authority to enact either rent controls or eviction protection.

By June of 1985, the results were in from a CVSPD survey entitled Downtown Expo Housing Survey (COV 1985). In the report, it was noted that a large majority of hotel operators would not be undergoing major upgrading specifically for Expo '86 until the last possible moment — January or February 1986. DERA stepped up its lobbying activities and pressured all levels of government, as well as the Expo '86 authorities, to take preventative action. Local-community meetings were held on the subject.

The Downtown Expo Housing Survey prediction, and the lack of support from the Expo '86 organization and both senior levels of government for the Expo Housing Program, caused DERA and CVSPD to focus on the ounce-of-prevention option — time-limited, no-rent-increase, no-eviction legislation applied to long-term residents of residential hotels. By 13 August 1985, this option had come before Vancouver City Council for approval. It failed to pass as Council split 5 to 5 on the motion to request the provincial government to amend either the City Charter or the RTA until 13 October 1986 (the day Expo '86 was scheduled to close). There was firm opposition to this option from various members of City Council, including Alderman (now Mayor) Gordon Campbell, who aligned himself with the British Columbia Hotels' Association. Their perspective was that no hotel owners intended to evict tenants. Rather, in the words of Campbell, rent-freeze advocates were "trying to set up a bunch of straw men and burn them down . The hotels in the Downtown Eastside are not going to be prime locations for Expo" (Minovitz 1985). The same motion was entertained by City Council a month later, and it too failed to receive majority support.

By February 1986, at the exact time predicted by CVSPD, forced evictions had begun to occur. Lodging-house managers began evicting large numbers of short- and long-term residents to complete minor renovations so that they could attempt to rent the units to Expo '86 tourists. Once the media began covering the poor, elderly, and often handicapped people being forced out of their homes, City Council addressed the matter again. On 25 February 1986, Council finally passed a motion requesting the provincial government to legislate an end to the evictions. Certain members of City Council continued to oppose this option, however. A public debate was held the same day in the Downtown Eastside community. Mayor Mike Harcourt represented the city; Jimmy Pattison, Expo '86 (Pattison was president of the Expo '86 Corporation); and Jim Green, DERA. DERA and empathetic members of City Council hoped that Pattison would lobby the provincial government for the proposed legislation if he could be convinced that the situation was severe. Countless evictees paraded before Pattison to tell their story (see Kelly [1986] for a critical analysis of this self-made millionaire). However, the provincial government refused to act, because it did not perceive the evictions to be a serious problem. As the pace of evictions increased during the latter days of February, a major protest march was organized by DERA, in association with other local groups, and it attracted considerable media attention.

Six days after the rally, a Provincial–City Task Force was created and the city (via CVSPD) was pressured into creating a "clearing house" to relocate residents. At this time, tension in the community was extreme, with concern over the scale of the evictions and the potential health problems associated with evicting elderly, poor, and often already unhealthy people. The media covered the eviction issue with detailed daily reports during this period, which were generally empathetic toward the evictees.

During March and April, both the city and DERA continued to lobby the provincial government for legislation while identifying actions the city and community could take to slow the pace of evictions. By late May, the evictions had slowed to a trickle, and CVSPD considered closing the housing registry it had set up in Carnegie Centre. A Concert For The Evicted was held, featuring such luminaries of social protest as Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie.

In the summer of 1986, event-related evictions stopped taking place and the housing registry was closed. The City's Health Department and DERA continued to monitor the health status of the evictees. Little effort was devoted to lobbying for legislation because the eviction crisis was waning and because by now it was apparent the provincial government would not grant legislation. Expo '86 closed in October, and by spring 1987, the vacancy rate of Downtown Eastside lodging houses returned to normal (about 10–20%).

In summary, through a variety of strategies, the Downtown Eastside community, as represented by DERA, actively sought to prevent forced evictions. Before the start of the forced evictions, DERA undertook the following:

• Background research on the tenuous situation of area residents;
• Research on cities that had previously hosted hallmark events;
• Public-information meetings;
• Development of strategies to leverage permanent affordable housing for the area;
• Development of a temporary rent-freeze­no-eviction plan via changes to municipal regulations and the RTA;
• Lobbying efforts directed to all levels of government and Expo '86 Board; and
• Media campaigns. 

• Lobbying efforts directed to all levels of government and the Expo Board;
• Collaboration with supportive city politicians and officials on various initiatives;
• Relocation of evictees;
• Documentation of the issue — research and art;
• Protest rallies;
• Media campaigns; and
• Initiation of a campaign to boycott bars of residential hotels evicting residents. 

THE SOCIAL IMPACTS OF EXPO '86 — As noted above, generally four different types of housing impact are created by evictions. Three types of impact occurred in the Vancouver case.

1. Post-announcement speculative impact — Following the announcement of Expo '86 and the British Columbia Place development in 1980, some land speculation began in Downtown Eastside. Examination of data detailing changes in the value of downtown residential hotels points to a destabilized market with a rapid increase in land values or change in ownership. This was determined by examining land and building values in a sample of 70 downtown lodging houses in four subareas of Downtown Eastside. As land values in the area increased, the relative value of the buildings decreased. This signifies that redevelopment pressure on the housing stock as a whole (land + building) was not being used to its maximum economic potential. Notably, the ratio dropped following the 1980 announcement of British Columbia Place and Expo '86, and redevelopment pressure on the stock generally increased throughout this period. Similar conclusions can be drawn from the CVSPD lodging-house surveys for 1983 and 1985 (COV 1983, 1985). Substantial housing loss occurred in Downtown Eastside after 1978. Various estimates of the loss put it at between 1 000 and 2000 units for the period of 1978 to 1984. This is supported by data from the 1986 survey, which showed a permanent loss of about 600 lodging-house units (primarily sleeping–housekeeping units) between 1984 and 1986. As the Mayor of Vancouver put it (Harcourt 1984a),

In the past four years, about 80 private rooming houses — which provided more than 2,000 rooms for low-income families and individuals — have closed down. Some have been converted to non-residential use, others have been demolished.

Shayler (1986) and Hulchanski (1989a, b) also documented this trend. Thus, Expo '86 had a destabilizing effect on land values (and therefore housing supply) in Downtown Eastside before the fair. Other contributing factors included core commercial expansion, the expansion of the Chinese district, the low profit margins of this type of rental housing, the enforcement of city standard-of-maintenance bylaws, and general urban-redevelopment pressures.
2. Pre-event tourist accommodation-supply impact — This form of housing impact occurs when landlords evict tenants from housing units in order to rent these units to people working at or visiting the hallmark event. Generally, the rooms receive minor renovations (for example, paint) once the inhabitants have been evicted. The exact number of Downtown Eastside lodging-house residents who were displaced because of the pressure induced by Expo '86 was a controversial issue. Politicians, planners, and community representatives have suggested estimates of "a few" to 2 000 evictees. After examining various data sources (government and community reports, press clippings, and interviews with key actors), I estimated that between 500 and 850 evictions occurred from Downtown Eastside lodging houses because of pre-event tourist-accommodation supply impact. In addition, between 1 000 and 1 500 lodging-house rooms were switched from monthly rental to tourist-rental status during the spring of 1986. To put some perspective on both of these figures, the 1981 census tabulates about 7 461 lodging-house tenants living in Downtown Eastside and, as of April of 1986, about 9 600 lodging-house units in Downtown Eastside.

It should be noted that evictions were both direct (for example, receipt of an eviction notice) and indirect (for example, rent increases or implementation of strict regulations banning cooking in the rooms). The evictions had significant negative social implications for the displaced residents. Individuals were forced to relocate, either privately or with assistance, to another housing unit. If suitable vacant units could not be found in Downtown Eastside, some evictees were offered vacant public-housing units in outlying suburban districts. Many evictees moved to another unit, only to be evicted a second time. The impact in the case of Expo '86 was amplified because the average Downtown Eastside resident is unemployed, elderly, poor, and either handicapped or in a weak state of health. These residents could not adequately deal with the physical and psychological stress brought on by the eviction. As one evictee, 59-year-old John Muller, noted (Hume 1986),

I'm not going to move unless they force me out. I'm not a piece of garbage. I've been here three years and don't mind if they raise the rent, but I won't move. … Once you get used to a place, it's like a pair of shoes, they're comfortable. Even if they get worn out you still put your old shoes on.

This hotel to me is home. You go to the beer parlor, you know everybody. I like this place but what they've done - it's inhuman.

Some of the evictees who faced health problems after being evicted include Olaf Solhein, an 80-year-old man who "made a conscious decision to stop living" because of the stress associated with the eviction (J. Blatherwick, personal communication) and two men who committed suicide soon after receiving their eviction notices. DERA organizer Jim Green stated that 11 evictees had died as of March 1988 and numerous others experienced negative health impacts (personal communication).
3. Post-event impact — While Expo '86 was operating, a high proportion of the owners and operators of residential hotels from which residents were evicted failed to see the materialization of their dreams of financial gain. Significant negative publicity occurred because of the evictions and the poor quality of the renovation work. Also, Downtown Eastside residents stopped frequenting the bars of hotels where residents were evicted. This action cut off an important source of revenue.

Following Expo '86, many residential hotels attempted to bring back the previous residents. Some of the hotels initially attempted to continue catering to tourists, but their efforts had mixed results. By spring of 1988, only one hotel that formerly rented to long-term Downtown Eastside residents had remained a tourist hotel. Many hotels borrowed money to renovate and failed to make up this cost. Consequently, several of the hotels where residents were evicted went into receivership, and some have been sold. The rent levels in lodging houses returned to pre-event rates after Expo '86 closed, and the vacancy rate (as of October 1987) was about equal to the rate recorded more than 1 year before Expo opened.

Between 1986 and 1992, residential hotels continued to be demolished or closed down in Downtown Eastside (Hulchanski 1989b). Between 1985 and 1989, about 1 150 units were lost, leaving about 9 000 units in total (by 1989). This trend continues, with pressures exerted on the stock from a variety of redevelopment initiatives in the downtown area, including Pacific Place, the urban megaproject that is being built on the Expo '86 site (Beazley 1992). Some efforts were being made to develop nonprofit housing in Downtown Eastside to offset the loss of lodging houses (Hulchanski et al. 1991). Indeed, an ironic impact of the Expo '86 evictions was that it spurred DERA to get involved in affordable-housing development, and it now manages more than 600 units of housing in the community (including Solheim Place, named in honour of Olaf Solheim, who died after being evicted). However, given the inadequate and steadily decreasing funds for nonprofit-housing programs in Canada, future trends would most likely have a negative impact on current Downtown Eastside residents.

Community action and impact: the critical factors

The recommendation for preventative legislation met stiff opposition as soon as it was publicly considered in late 1984. At the municipal level, the mere suggestion of the possibility of evictions, let alone the consideration of a legislative solution was considered by several alderpersons to be only politically motivated. For example, in September 1985, one stated (Rogers Cable TV, Vancouver, September 1985),

I think it's an arbitrary and political type of action which doesn't serve anybody's needs in the long run. … I think that this has been a scare campaign that frankly, is strictly politically motivated and not one based on any kind of fact. … It should be a non-issue but I think some people are trying to make it an issue.

save everyone a lot of trouble if they all were put on buses to the Kootenays [a region 300 miles from Vancouver]. … The world runs by greed … everyone is greedy in one way or another. What we're talking about is relative greed. It's not a question of dire necessity. It's a question of choice of location. People are saying "I don't want to live in the Kootenays … I want to live where the action is."

(Glavin 1986)

The provincial government refused to seriously consider a legislative solution to the pre-event tourist accommodation-supply impact of Expo '86. Instead, it put its full weight behind relocating tenants through the housing registry. The province felt that evictees should be grateful for this assistance. For example, when several evictees displayed reluctance to move into distant suburban social-housing units far from their community, Jack Kempf, Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing, stated that

The old adage that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink sure holds true in this situation. You can provide all the accommodation you want to those so-called evictees but you can't make them move into it.

(Vancouver Sun 1986b)

Although the resources and power existed at the provincial level to prevent evictions (thereby acknowledging the residents have at least some housing rights), a decision was made to allow the evictions to occur. This is because the view of the politicians reflected a philosophy that emphasizes the exchange value over the use value of housing; a belief in the primacy of economic relations; a belief that the inner city must be redeveloped; and a belief that Downtown Eastside residents do not live in a community. Rather, those with power considered Downtown Eastside residents to live in a geographic area, without bonds to the physical or social environment.

The right to housing, including security of tenure, simply does not exist, according to this view, unless you can purchase this right with adequate personal income. This philosophy continued to be demonstrated in the early 1990s as affordable albeit often inadequate housing in Vancouver's poorest community continued to disappear in the face of market-led redevelopment pressures and inadequate government protection.

Calgary — the 1988 Winter Olympics

The Calgary context

Calgary has grown rapidly since the 1960s. Employment opportunities in a variety of economic sectors have attracted people from across Canada. The population has swollen with an educated white-collar labour force (indeed, it is the most educated population of all Canadian cities); most of these people come to Calgary seeking a comfortable existence in sprawling suburban settlements. Links to the past remain, however. Calgary is home to the Calgary Stampede, an annual July event with cattle-tying contests, chuck-wagon races, and hearty breakfasts. The mythology surrounding the Stampede continues in the later part of the 20th century, even though the majority of the population makes a living in enclosed office space (Campbell 1984). This event, along with plans for the Stampede site, were linked to the Olympic Games as well, and they contributed to the destabilization, and likely also the breakup, of a lower income community bordering the Stampede site.

The 1988 Winter Olympics was an important stage in the planned image transformation of this former western-Canadian cow town to that of a more international city — a city that presents its inhabitants and visitors with world-class recreational activities, high-tech manufacturing opportunities, and tourism thrills (CEDA 1988; Scott 1992). In keeping with the tradition of "boosterism" and progrowth goals that long characterized prairie cities like Calgary (Artibise and Stelter 1979; Reasons 1984), the Winter Olympics were designed to act as a catalyst to propel the city into the 21st century. For example, Hiller (1990, p. 133) suggested that the

Olympics symbolized the urban transformation in both population growth and downtown expansion that recently had occurred in the city, and the Olympic Games became the vehicle to make a statement about this transformation to the world.

The 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics

The bid for the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics was initiated by the Calgary Olympic Development Association (CODA). CODA was formed in 1960 to prepare a bid for the 1964 Winter Olympics. Although unsuccessful, the organization remained in existence (with brief periods of hiatus) and put in bids for both the 1968 and 1972 Olympics, although they too were awarded to other cities. Preparatory work for the bid for the 1988 Winter Olympics began in 1978, with Frank King, chair of CODA (who later became chair of the Olympic organizing organization, Olympiques Calgary Olympics [OCO]) acting as catalyst. The bid was a collaborative effort, with CODA coordinating the bid and with support (financial and otherwise) coming from the Calgary Booster Club, the Canadian Olympic Association, the City of Calgary, the Province of Alberta, the Government of Canada, the University of Calgary, and a large number of interested organizations and individuals (Hiller 1990). The main players constituted a cross section of Calgary's business and government elite, and they had very strong links to the ruling provincial political party, the Progressive Conservatives. The bid cost about $2 million to prepare.

The bid was designed to leverage funding for legacies from the provincial and federal governments, as well as from OCO. Strong financial commitment on the part of senior levels of government also helped sell the bid to the International Olympic Committee (IOC). For example, the federal government committed up to $200 million in 1979 toward the Winter Olympics (this figure represented about 50% of the total Winter Olympics' budget at the time of the bid). The final budget for the Winter Olympics was about $1 billion.

On 30 September 1981, the Winter Olympics were awarded to Calgary. OCO was enlisted to turn the plans from the bid book into a reality. As with most bid books, though, new ideas and realism meshed to create a somewhat different result. The budget doubled, as did revenue projections. The organizers pushed for the creation of even more new facilities in order to leave Calgary with as many legacies as possible. In the end, more than $350 million was spent on athletic facilities on sites both in and throughout the Calgary region (OWGOC 1988).

The many permanent legacies of the Winter Olympics were funded by various contributions from the federal, provincial, and municipal governments, as well as OCO. Legacies include the $98 million Olympic Saddledome Stadium, the $72 million Canada Olympic Park (bobsled, luge, ski-jumping, and skiing facilities), a $28 million addition to University of Calgary buildings, and the $5.9 million Broadcast Hill Media Village (27 three-story walk-up apartment blocks with 266 residential suites). This housing reverted to private ownership on conclusion of the Winter Olympics. It was built by the owner earlier than it might otherwise have been in return for the above-noted financial contributions. Another of these legacies was the $5 million Lincoln Park Media Village, with 2 500 beds in 550 Atco Trailers. Most of these units were presold to the federal and provincial governments, moved, following the Winter Olympics, to rural Alberta, and converted into low-cost housing. Some were relocated at the nearby Mount Royal College, as well, and are now used as student housing (Reasons 1984; Hiller 1987; COC 1988; OWGOC 1988; King 1991; P. Fraser, personal communication). The Games also created a variety of economic impacts. The official report of the XV Olympic Winter Games Organizing Committee suggested that there were $1.4 billion in economic benefits created, with $506 million coming from capital projects and improvements; $310 million, from operations and planning; $150 million, from visitor expenditures; and $424 million, from induced economic effects (OWGOC 1988). Rooney (see Hall 1992) suggested that $449 million worth of economic impact occurred in Calgary and that $650 million worth of impacts occurred in the rest of Canada. An estimated $30 million in profit was made from these Winter Olympics (OWGOC 1988; see in Hall 1992).

Evictions, displacement, and community action in Calgary

The 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics caused or contributed to the four main types of housing impact, and each generated a specific form of community action. Before these impacts are discussed, however, it is important to briefly outline the institutional context (that is, the laws affecting housing, landlord and tenant relations, and political jurisdiction).

HOUSING RIGHTS AND THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK IN CALGARY, ALBERTA — The laws governing landlord and tenant relations (as of 1988) played a key role in facilitating the evictions associated with the Calgary Winter Olympics. As is the Expo '86 case, in Calgary, Alberta, the province has the jurisdiction to create laws affecting security of tenure and rent levels.

Although a tenant is afforded various rights and obligations in Alberta — such as the right of not being disturbed by a landlord (for example, surprise inspections), of having a safe and clean premise, and of receiving his or her damage deposit with interest when moving out — two major aspects of legislation undermine security of tenure.

First, tenants can be evicted without cause, providing the landlord gives the tenant 90 days notice. In 1988, Albertan landlords could evict a tenant for whatever reason, from disliking the colour of their hair (or skin), to wanting the suite vacant to rent it to tourists. Second, a landlord was legally permitted to raise rents by any amount, provided 90 days notice had been given. The tenant had no recourse if rents were increased by, for example, 1 000%. The consequences of these two aspects of the Alberta Landlord and Tenant Act were that landlords could evict and displace tenants at any time and that the tenants would have no option but to move if they received an eviction notice or if the rent was raised beyond their financial means.

It is also important to note that in 1988, students living in nonself-contained residences (for example, a room without a kitchen or washroom within its space) were not covered by the Landlord and Tenant Act. Rather, they were considered licencees (a condition offering even less security of tenure), whereas residents of residential hotels and rooming houses were covered by the Inn Keepers Act (P. Fraser, personal communication). This Act was less protective of the rights of tenants, and they could be evicted at a moment's notice or have their rents raised by any amount at any time.

VICTORIA PARK AND THE SADDLEDOME IMPACTS — The social impacts of the Calgary Winter Olympics go back to 1980 and the preparation of the city's bid for the Olympics. As noted above, one of the main aims of hosting the Winter Olympics was to leave Calgary with a range of legacies in the form of modern, world-class athletic facilities. Calgarians had long desired a large covered stadium, which could be used for ice hockey, as well as other sporting, musical, cultural, and convention events. This goal developed into a commitment that enabled Calgary to obtain a National Hockey League franchise and the right to sponsor the Winter Olympics. With the Olympic bid as a backdrop, the Calgary Flames, a professional ice-hockey team in the National Hockey League, began playing in 1980 (Hiller 1989). The franchise for the Flames was awarded in expectation that a new ice-hockey arena would be built.

Several options for locating the building were under consideration in 1980. The Calgary Exhibition and Stampede property in the inner city was the option favoured by CODA and the Stampede Board, the latter an elite Calgary group who ran this nonprofit organization as a joint-stock corporation (Campbell 1984; Gray 1985). The Calgary Exhibition and Stampede leased Stampede Park from the city and sponsored the famous Calgary Stampede, at which a host of events are held every summer. Unfortunately, the inner-city grounds were located next to Victoria Park, one of Calgary's oldest and poorest neighbourhoods. This neighbourhood had a long and colourful history and was made up of wood-frame single-family houses. From the early 1960s on, it had provided some of Calgary's most affordable housing, primarily in older single-family houses, many of which had been converted into rooming houses (COC 1980). The proximity of Victoria Park to the Stampede grounds provided for a long series of conflicts, primarily because of repeated Stampede expansion plans (COC 1980; Reid 1991/92; SOS 1992). For example, in 1968, City Council permitted the Stampede to expropriate eight city blocks of Victoria Park for expansion purposes.

In this context, and given that many of the promoters of the Winter Olympics were also on or linked to the Stampede Board, it was not surprising to hear expressions of support for situating the stadium next to Victoria Park, in the northern end of the Stampede grounds. Both CODA and the Stampede Board favoured this location. Debate raged in late 1980 and early 1981 over where to site the stadium. At the same time, the Olympic bid was being finalized with City Council. CODA, citizens' groups, Victoria Park residents, and Stampede representatives all lobbied over the issue. During the course of debate, a split developed in the community. The Victoria Park Community Association categorically opposed siting the Saddledome on the Stampede grounds, whereas the Victoria Park Property Owners Association supported siting the Saddledome on the grounds, provided efforts were made by OCO to tie the Winter Olympics to a community-revitalization strategy (M. Giammarco, personal communication). At this time, the City Planning Department quickly produced a preliminary impact study, which acknowledged the difficulty in involving the community in the decision-making process, given the time frame. In 1981, as the date neared for submission of the Olympic bid, the siting issue was being considered by the city's Development Appeal Board (DAB). The Victoria Park Community Association had gained access to the DAB via a Court of Queen's Bench injunction (a court order). However, City Council convinced the provincial government to pass an order-in-council suspending city planning regulations and canceling the court order. This enabled the city to authorize siting the stadium next to Victoria Park. The mayor of Calgary suggested that there was a need to "demonstrate to the World Olympic Committee that Calgary was capable of hosting the Winter Olympics" (Campbell 1984, p. 118). The city, CODA, and the Stampede Board put an expedient end to the public deliberations, at the expense of local-community desires and participatory democracy.

Construction of the stadium proceeded at a fast pace in 1982 and was completed by the fall of 1983. The stadium cost $98 million (a 13% cost overrun) (OWGOC 1988) and is topped with a distinctive saddle-like roof, with arguable aesthetic and symbolic qualities. It seats about 20 000 people and is permanent home to the Calgary Flames ice-hockey team.

In 1984, an Area Redevelopment Plan (ARP) was developed and adopted by City Council for Victoria Park. This plan was an attempt to spur new private-sector residential development, in contrast to previous attempts at rehabilitation of existing dwellings (Reid 1991/92). The plan "detailed a vision of a neighbourhood with a significant commercial component and enough high density residential development to significantly further the City's inner-city housing objectives" (SOS 1992).

Between 1984 and 1988, the plan had little impact on quality of life for Victoria Park residents (SOS 1992; M. Giammarco, personal communication). Indeed, people continued to move out of the community. Reasons (1984) noted that Victoria Park was hit hard by the siting of the stadium, with 1 013 residents moving out in 1983, but he failed to detail the impacts. It is clear, though, that the population declined in the area. The population of Victoria Park East, where the main impacts of the Stampede were felt, was 2 300 in 1976, 1 482 in 1980, and only 1 000 in 1990 — clear signs of out migration and negative change (COC 1977; Reid 1991/92). It should also be noted that the 1984 ARP was passed at the start of a 3-year worldwide recession, when little residential development took place anywhere in Canada.

Interestingly, a small sum of city capital ($22 000) was spent on "beautification" in the area before the Winter Olympics (COC 1988, p. 95). Houses on the main road through "the near slum district" of Victoria Park were painted to "spruce up" the area for tourists and athletes on their way to "our magnificent hockey arena" (King 1991). Houses off the main road were not painted. The revitalization initiative desired by the Victoria Park Property Owners Association in exchange for support of the Saddledome siting was not carried out (M. Giammarco, personal communication). Instead, the community was left with "mementos" symbolizing the encroachment of the Winter Olympics, broken promises, and the age of spectacle.

The many forces acting on Victoria Park have created unstable conditions that give potential residential investors cause to worry. Why rehabilitate or move into a community seemingly on a gradual slide to nonexistence? In 1980, during the battle over the siting of the Saddledome, area residents stated (COC 1980, p. 51) the following:

For those who argue that the area is run-down and, therefore, has no future, we offer a simple fact: the community has never had the security of permanence long enough to allow proper development to occur. As long as the threat of expansion northward by the Calgary Exhibition and Stampede persists, Victoria Park has no chance to be rejuvenated.

Twelve years later, in response to a current Stampede Board Plan to demolish the entire Victoria Park community, Spirit of Stampede (1992, appendix A, p. 5) echoed the same concerns: "While it is true that a lack of new development has led to Victoria Park East becoming run-down, many believe that the underlying cause has been the ever-present threat of Stampede expansion."

The community was exhausted by this continual struggle. It had been extremely difficult to resist the entire weight of the establishment and the strength of its political forces. Indeed, it had been impossible to appeal to the provincial government for assistance because of the interlinkage of local and provincial economic and political elites. As one area resident put it, powerful actors were behaving more in the manner of "secretive Eastern Bloc countries," which have since fallen in their attempt to "destroy community" (M. Giammarco, personal communication) to satisfy their goals for the Stampede.

EVICTIONS FROM RENTAL APARTMENTS — As in other cities that have hosted hallmark events, tenants in Calgary were evicted from rental apartment units because landlords attempted to use the units for short-term economic gain. Moreover, the eviction process was specifically structured by the legal context. In Alberta, landlord and tenant laws strongly favoured the landlord. This bias effectively enabled and encouraged landlords to evict tenants when opportunity was perceived in the Winter Olympics.

In Calgary, most of the evictions appear to have occurred in two large apartment complexes: the Riverside Towers and the Point McKay Complex — a luxury apartment complex of two towers and one townhouse-style building near Canada Olympic Park. Units were temporarily rented to Winter Olympics visitors, and tenants were encouraged to move, although they had little option to do otherwise, given Alberta's Landlord and Tenant Act. The owner of the towers devised a scheme to spend $1 million upgrading the towers to "provide entertainment and services for the upscale clientele of corporate and sports executives" (Martin 1987c, p. B1). The president of Riverside Towers, Bart Messier, estimated that "Olympic month" would generate total revenue of about $9 million. To encourage tenants to move, an employee dressed as Santa Claus ran around handing out $1 000 cheques ("vacation bonuses") to some of the tenants and promised to rent the units to them once the Winter Olympics were over (Martin 1987c, p. B1; M. Grey, personal communication).

In all, residents from 270 units were displaced from the towers, as were people living in 100 townhouse units. Given that on average at least two people live in a dwelling unit in Canada, it can be concluded that about 740 people were displaced because of event-related housing impacts. Some of the resident owners of the townhouses would have willingly moved given the financial incentives, as would some of the tenants. However, all of the tenants had no choice but to relocate. The owners of the complex had the power and the desire to cater to Winter Olympics visitors, who would be willing to pay large sums of money for temporary housing. Moreover, as Riverside Towers president Bart Messier stated, "this opportunity is not going to come again people have to realize how important it is to the city that we look after our guests" (Martin 1987c, B1). The social pressure to contribute to the cause of the Winter Olympics, in tandem with a perceived financial opportunity, and the weak nature of the tenancy laws enabled the evictions to occur. As far as it can be ascertained, there was little resistance to the evictions. One tenant expressed moral indignation in the local newspaper over receiving a rent increase during this time (from $600 to $805), presumably to force the tenant to vacate the unit for the Winter Olympics guests, although she noted that it was "not illegal" (Martin 1987c, B1).

Rocky Mountain Court is another example. In June 1987, residents living in 120 rental apartment units in Rocky Mountain Court received notice to vacate their units by November 1987, for 5 months. About 51 of the units where tenants received notice of eviction were subsidized by the Alberta Mortgage and Housing Corporation for lower income tenants (Martin 1987a). The Corporation agreed to let the owner of the building relocate tenants to other units in the building (Mitchell 1987; FMTA 1990). Most of the units were on the side of the building that faced Olympic Plaza, a public square used for daily Olympic medal ceremonies, fireworks, and other celebratory events.

The leasing of the units was arranged by OCO for eventual use by the Coca Cola Corporation and other Winter Olympics visitors (R. Ford, personal communication). The eviction letter sent to the tenants offered a variety of compensatory incentives, such as relocation, 1 month's free rent, and moving costs. It was estimated that the owner of the building would be generating $5 000 per unit (or $1 million) for the period of the Winter Olympics, as opposed to rents in the range of several hundred dollars per unit. The landlord stated that about $500 000 was being spent on renovating and upgrading the building "for future tenants" (Martin 1987a).

Although offset by incentives, the requirement to move was a problem for many of the tenants. Comments by tenants included the following (Martin 1987b, p. B1):

• "It seems like the same old thing that goes on with the Olympic sponsors. They get the first choice. They're taking my home away from me. The same thing happened in Vancouver with Expo."
• "We weren't given a choice."
• "I put $250 down on some drapes already. I don't know if I get that money back."
• "I just moved in I didn't want to move." 

Angry tenants met several days later in June to discuss their options. At this meeting, one of the tenants stated, "Everybody here is very upset. We've been looking forward to the Olympics because of our convenient location; we've bought tickets and now they're kicking us out." Another resident stated, "The Olympics should be brotherly love through world-wide competition and somehow this is not mentioned" (Svoboda 1987).

In contrast to the Riverside Towers case, the eviction notices at Rocky Mountain Court and the York Hotel (described below) generated a considerable amount of local-press coverage (the press was notified of the evictions by disgruntled tenants), as well as some consternation of local and provincial politicians and OCO officials. Initially, the mayor, Ralph Klein, attempted to use his status to create some pressure to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. Behind-the-scenes pressure was also put on the landlord by senior OCO and City of Calgary officials to resolve the issue as quickly as possible, even though OCO had no policy on the issue (B. Holmes, personal communication).

In the Rocky Mountain Court case, Klein expressed his unhappiness with the potential "black eye" the evictions might cause Calgary. He suggested that "if people are being forced out, it's not the kind of thing we want to see happening. It's bad for the city but if it is an equitable deal and by consent, then it's OK by me" (Martin 1987b, p. B1). The following day, the board of directors of OCO asked the provincial appointee to OCO to see what could be done to address the issue. Several days later, Elaine McCoy, ministry of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, announced the formation of a Ministerial Committee ("special investigation team") to look at all Olympics-related housing complaints (Board 1987; J. Clouse, personal communication). The main aims of the committee were to act as an advisory and investigative body and to suggest ways to resolve any potential conflict in an "unbiased" manner (D. Luft, personal communication). The committee received 18 complaints in all from July to December 1987, and it "determined" that "only four" were related to the Winter Olympics (Cattaneo 1988). The committee disbanded in January 1988, stating that there were few problems to deal with.

In the end, after intervention in the matter by the Ministerial Committee and OCO officials, about 88 tenants moved from their suites in Rocky Mountain Court to satisfy the financial aims of the landlord. Of this total, 63 were relocated to other units in the building, and 25 moved out. The vice president of the apartment management company (Martin 1987a, p. B1) "conceded many of the tenants [were] unhappy with the move, but said all but one accepted perks of free rent, moving allowances and packing assistance to pave the way for a corporate tenant occupancy during the Olympics." The incentives helped the landlords "stay friends with our tenants," he went on to state, adding "if we had them all mad at us and wanting to move out, we would have problems renting after the Olympics."

EVICTIONS FROM A RESIDENTIAL HOTEL — Although in Calgary the scale of residential-hotel evictions was far less than in Vancouver, there were some. The York Hotel first tried to evict 75 tenants from 38 suites on three floors in November 1987. The mainly elderly and handicapped low-income tenants received a one-page "Dear Guest" letter notifying them that they would have to vacate their units by 31 December 1987. The owners of the hotel had made some arrangements with OCO a year earlier, in July 1986, to rent out 270 beds in the 38 units to the "Olympic family" (Donville and Haynes 1987; R. Sandrin-Litt, personal communication).

As in the case of Rocky Mountain Court, the press was contacted by disgruntled tenants, and the following day the story hit the front pages of Calgary's major newspaper, the Calgary Herald. A number of initial tenant reactions to the eviction notice were covered in the paper (Donville and Haynes 1987, p. A1):

"I tell you it's no fun moving, man, when you're old. No fun at all. They're pulling the same stunt they pulled in B.C. Someone must have offered them big money. OCO should be blamed too they should have let us know when they pulled off the contract."

The manager of the hotel, James Lo, defended his decision to evict tenants on such notice, stating that all the tenants rented on a monthly basis, as at Rocky Mountain Court, and he was legally permitted to ask his tenants to move out (Donville and Haynes 1987).

The public nature of the controversy caused quick action on the part of OCO, particularly as the rooms were to be used by Winter Olympics guests. The following day, Ron Sandrin-Litt, OCO's accommodation-service manager, publicly stated that the evictions were unnecessary and that he would rather see the rooms empty than have long-term tenants forcibly evicted. He went on to add (Lamb 1987, p. A2),

There's no need to push it to the limit, and take up all of that building. It's not a top priority. It seems to me that there's plenty of room for compromise: we're flexible and Lo should know that.

It is interesting to note that there was a floor occupied by female strippers working in the hotel, but they were not served eviction notices with the rest of the tenants, presumably because they generated income beyond rent for the hotel owners.

Apart from Sandrin-Litt's public comments, OCO directors, local politicians, and the Ministerial Committee moved quickly to halt the controversy, ever wary of the Vancouver experience. They put behind-the-scenes pressure on the landlord through phone calls and a meeting to give the tenants the option of staying or leaving (B. Holmes, personal communication). Incentives were offered to tenants to move, much as in the Rocky Mountain case, and they were also told they would be relocated within the building to vacant suites, as some would be required to move (Warwick 1987, p. B1). The promise was made not to force anyone out in the middle of a cold Alberta winter. Two days after the tenants received their notices, the issue was seemingly resolved, and the editorial pages of the Calgary Herald publicly praised the "diplomacy at the York" (Calgary Herald 1987, p. A4). In the end, various Calgary contacts suggested that only a handful (several dozen) of York Hotel tenants moved out or relocated within the York Hotel, with most taking advantage of the incentives offered to move.

EVICTIONS FROM STUDENT RESIDENCES — About 1450 students were displaced from their residences for about 2 months in 1988 because arrangements had been made to lease residence space at several Calgary educational institutions to the Olympic family.

The support of the University of Calgary was a critical component of the bid for the 1988 Winter Olympics, and indeed, it is unlikely that Calgary would have been chosen as host of the Games without the university's commitment (Reasons 1984; P. Fraser, personal communication). Housing was the key component of the university's contribution to the Winter Olympics. Having all of the athletes in one locale facilitates effective planning for security and transportation. Although university planners knew alternative arrangements would have to be made for the displaced students who were living in the housing and attending classes, they felt that the university (and the students) would gain in the long term (P. Fraser, personal communication).

The commitment was made to use student residences in 1978, and students had been receiving notice in their residence application forms of the impending plans since 1984. But not until 1986, with the Winter Olympics approaching fast, did the displacement become a political issue (during the course of a local election). This concern came out during a press conference, on 10 October 1986, when student leaders charged the mayor, Ralph Klein, with "passing the buck to OCO officials who don't seem interested in protecting the thousands of student renters who will lose their homes to athletes and tourists" (Calgary Herald, 1986, p. B2). Concerns were raised about the stress of moving at mid-term in their educational programs.

Various officials made public commitments to deal with the students' concerns, although university officials noted they were addressing such issues from the start of the Winter Olympics planning phase. A reversal of the student-housing commitment was never considered. Instead, the university developed initiatives such as the Adopt a Student Program and moving assistance, to be "fair" to the students (P. Fraser, personal communication).

At the University of Calgary, 1 000 students were displaced, and about 87% of these returned on completion of the Winter Olympics, 2 months later in March (P. Fraser, personal communication). University housing authorities felt that these students were assisted "as much as possible" (P. Fraser, personal communication) during this period and that they would benefit in the long term because of the many university legacies, including sporting facilities, as well as the construction of 300 new housing units, which were effectively paid off because of the Olympic contribution. The eviction of the University of Calgary students was clearly a disruption to the class of 1988. Several expressed unhappiness with the temporary move (Mate 1988). They paid the costs for the significant long-term university gain and for the financial gain of subsequent students, even though they were not financially compensated.

As in the University of Calgary case, students at one other Calgary educational institution were temporarily evicted to make way for people associated with the Winter Olympics. The Southern Alberta Institute of Technology leased its entire student residence for the period of 1 January 1988 to 3 March 1988. This 22-story building had 491 beds (for students) in 204 apartments. In the end, a legacy fund of $1 million was left because of this arrangement, and the interest it generates is used for housing improvements. Once the decision was made to lease the building, the students' association was involved in negotiations over what would be done to lesson the disruptive effects of the displacement. Students also discussed the issue with University of Calgary student-residence organizations. Some assistance was made to locate alternative accommodation, and the students were permitted to move back into their suites once the Winter Olympics were over (Cattaneo 1988; N. Collin, personal communication). 

Community action and impact: the critical factors

As noted above, in describing the housing impacts of the Calgary Winter Olympics, community resistance to such impacts had little effect. The most significant resistance was expressed in Victoria Park. This resistance, as noted above and as noted by Reid (1991, 1991/92), evolved, fractured, ebbed, and flowed over many years of struggle after the 1965 decision to maintain the Stampede site next to Victoria Park, instead of moving it to a suburban location. The event-related impacts of the Winter Olympics marked the beginning of the end for Victoria Park. Although resident action took many forms and extracted some compromises, such as the scaling down of initial plans to widen the gateway street to the Saddledome and Stampede grounds, they were unsuccessful in halting the construction of the Saddledome — the guarantor of future encroachment and possible destruction of the neighbourhood. Why?

A variety of factors prevented community action from achieving its aims. The factors were interrelated, and they reflected the nature of power, government, and economy in Calgary. The Stampede, as noted above, and as noted by Campbell (1984), was perceived by many to be a very important component of Calgary's tourism industry. Moreover, the Stampede had important cultural significance to the citizens and elites of Calgary, although Reid (1991/92) and Spirit of Stampede (1992) both noted how the cultural significance of the Stampede had been distorted by the Stampede Board. Regardless, the Stampede was partnered with the Winter Olympics, an event of international significance. The perceived benefits of these events for Calgary created enough impetus that their organizers (mainly the same people at senior levels) rammed through with their plans regardless of community resistance from the Victoria Park Community Association. Simply put, the goals of a relatively powerless, low-income residential community had little hope of being achieved in opposition to one of the perceived engines of economic and cultural significance in Calgary, in conjunction with a spectacle of international scale. Contributing factors to the powerlessness of Victoria Park included historical uncertainty over its future, as outlined above, and a split within the community between the property owners and the community association about whether the Winter Olympics could be used for the benefit of the community.

In the two cases of people being evicted from rental apartments and a residential hotel, tenants expressed some individual unhappiness with the moves to evict them, but this did not lead to any significant individual or collective action. There appear to be five main reasons for the acquiescence. First, as noted above, landlords in Alberta were legally permitted to evict tenants, and people living in residential hotels had virtually no rights to protection from eviction or rent increases. The legal sanction of such actions legitimized eviction and displacement. Protests against evictions had no effective basis. Indeed, it was quite likely that the only reason even these minor expressions of unhappiness received public attention was that they could be linked to the Winter Olympics. The state sanctioned the abuse of the human right to housing in Alberta.

Second, landlords offered tenants a variety of incentives to move — financial and otherwise. Given tenants had no legal protection, these incentives were perceived to be a bonus. Apart from the tenants' organization representative, numerous people in Calgary interviewed for this study felt that the offer of incentives to ease the stresses of relocation ameliorated the problem. The general impression was that tenants did not have anything to complain about if given financial and other incentives. Although some people expressed genuine concern about the welfare of the tenants, the majority of people rejected the tenants' fundamental right to housing. The tenants were effectively treated as cattle.

Third, social pressure to contribute to the Winter Olympics was, in both positive and negative ways, common in Calgary in 1987 and 1988. Spectacles of this type are designed to create a euphoria that draws people along, enabling them to feel that they are part of the venture. Thousands of volunteers contributed to the Calgary Winter Olympics, hosting visitors, directing people, cleaning sites, etc. (King 1991; Holmes 1992). In a strange way, many people perceived the evictees as also "doing their part" for the Winter Olympics.

Fourth, vacancy rates were relatively high in Calgary in 1987 and 1988. Evicted tenants perceived alternative options when they were forced to move. Had vacancy rates been low, it is safe to speculate that more resistance would have been expressed.

Fifth, tenants in Calgary (and throughout Alberta) rarely organize in a collective manner, and organization is important when dealing with such political issues.

Toronto — the bid for the 1996 Summer Olympics

Although Toronto was not awarded the 1996 Summer Olympics, housing issues (including the possibility of forced evictions) were key community concerns in public deliberations over the bid. As such, the case is worth briefly examining, as it provides insights for other communities seeking to address such matters.

The Toronto context

With more than 3.5 million people, Toronto is Canada's largest city. It has a long history of being on the leading edge of economic and cultural transformations in the Canadian context. The city is Canada's main destination point for immigrants from around the world, the centre of economic power, and home to many of the country's cultural and media intelligentsia.

For much of the 20th century, until the late 1970s, Toronto was Canada's manufacturing powerhouse. Most of the wage labour force worked in factories, steel mills, and garment-production sweatshops. However, the city has been hit by two major recessions and suffered the loss of much of its manufacturing base (Lemon 1991). The quaternary sector (including producer services, such as accounting and banking) had been growing at an incredible rate but not enough to offset the blue-collar job losses (COT 1991). Concurrent growth in the low-paying service sector effectively transformed Toronto into a city of extremes of wealth, lifestyle, and housing choice. Housing costs in Toronto came to be among the highest in Canada, and in 1992 the number of homeless had grown to more than 25 000, with 80 000 people depending on food banks and 200 000 living in substandard housing (Borowy 1992). Large tracts of former industrial and waterfront land became available for redevelopment, and pressures existed to transform these inner-city sites into new commercial and residential communities to satisfy demand for office and residential space, although there was considerable debate about the composition of these projects (Beazley 1991). The Olympic bid included plans to use many of these sites for various facilities.

The Toronto bid for the 1996 Summer Olympics

In 1984, Los Angeles hosted the Summer Olympics. In April 1985, the president of the Los Angeles organizing committee, Peter Ueberroth, came to Toronto and gave a speech about the benefits of hosting such an event. Paul Henderson, self-made millionaire (plumbing) and former Olympic athlete (sailing) was present at that speech, and it renewed a dream he had had since the 1960s of bringing such an international spectacle to Canada's largest city (Palomba 1990). Henderson collaborated with several corporate colleagues in the marketing and communications industries, and they quickly formed the Toronto–Ontario Olympic Council (TOOC) (Dale 1987). In 1985, the City of Toronto appointed TOOC to prepare a bid for the 1996 Summer Olympics. TOOC received financial and in-kind support from the private sector to prepare the bid.

In August 1986, TOOC released Toronto as Host to the 100th Anniversary Olympics: A Feasibility Study (TOOC 1986). This feasibility study formed the basis for subsequent documents preparatory to the final bid document, which was approved by City Council in April 1990. In the feasibility study, and in all subsequent TOOC documents, the main selling points for hosting the Summer Olympics included

• The opportunity to improve existing sports facilities;
• The opportunity to develop legacies in the form of new sports facilities and an ongoing legacy fund;
• The potential economic benefits (direct and induced);
• The international profile the city would gain;
• The opportunity to use the games to spur development in former industrial and waterfront areas of the city;
• The construction jobs that would be generated;
• The opportunity to attract funding from the federal government; and
• The spectacle of the games itself. 

In the end, the bid for the 1996 Summer Olympics cost about $17 million, with $5.5 million coming from the provincial and federal governments and the rest coming from the private sector. The actual budget for the Summer Olympics was estimated by TOOC at $1.053 billion for expenditures and $1.063 billion for revenues, although City of Toronto officials noted that direct and indirect expenditures and revenues would be about $2.52 billion and $2.43 billion, leaving a deficit of $90 million (Coutts and Polanyi 1990). The Toronto bid depended on receiving $125 million from the provincial government and at least $60 million from the federal government (Coutts and Polanyi 1990).
 

The final bid presented to the IOC had the events staged at a number of facilities throughout the metropolitan region, although many of the high-profile facilities were to be in the City of Toronto itself. The recently constructed Skydome, a domed stadium in the inner city, was to be the site of the opening ceremonies and many of the track and field competitions. The story behind the Skydome is a lengthy one, but it is worth noting that it was originally projected to cost about $130 million and ended up costing more than $580 million, leaving the provincial taxpayers responsible for some $440 million. Such debacles are increasingly common in North America as cities become infatuated with monumentality, "world classism," and intercity competitiveness.
 

The central waterfront and railway lands were also to be used. The Athletes Village was to be constructed directly west of the Skydome, and more than 3 200 new units were to be built. Afterward, the Toronto Olympic Commitment directed these units to be 100% "affordable" and 60% social housing, using the provincial definition of affordable housing (COT 1989b). The Media Village of 2 500 new units was to be constructed in the Ataratiri area of the city. Ataratiri units were also to be used as affordable housing, following the games. It is important to note, however, that the Ataratiri redevelopment plans were shelved in 1992 because of excessive clean-up costs, owing to the toxicity of the soils of this former industrial area (McInnes 1992).

The nonhousing legacies of the Summer Olympics were to include a $125 million Olympic stadium, $60 million aquatic centre, $20 million rowing course, $8 million velodrome, $145 million upgrading to various facilities, and $257 million worth of other sports facilities, scattered throughout the Greater Toronto Area (Coutts and Polanyi 1990).

Before continuing, it is important to note one more background detail. Be-tween August 1986 and April 1990, when the final bid document was approved by the City of Toronto for presentation to the IOC, some significant changes took place in the composition of Toronto City Council. Following city elections in November 1988, a larger number of "moderate reformers" and New Democratic Party members (social democrats) were elected, rather than "conservatives." These changes affected how housing issues were handled, with more emphasis placed on attempting to leverage affordable housing out of the Olympic bid, facilitate public-participation processes, and address potential social impacts, such as evictions.

Housing rights and the legal framework in Toronto

As in the previous two cases, regulations affecting the rights and obligations of tenants and landlords in Toronto fell under provincial jurisdiction. There is no need to go into the intricacies of Ontario's complex landlord and tenant law, but it is important to note that Ontario had Canada's most tenant-protective housing laws in Canada. Relations between landlord and tenant were affected by three Acts: the Landlord and Tenant Act, the Rental Housing Protection Act, and the Residential Rent Regulation Act. In June 1998, this legislation was reformed under the single Tenant Protection Act. In very general terms, tenants are protected by law from discrimination (for example, race), exorbitant rent increases, and arbitrary eviction. Rooming-house tenants, boarders, and lodgers are theoretically protected as well. Moreover, local government had traditionally been more proactive in Ontario in the creation of some laws that augment or contribute to provincial housing law. However, it should also be noted that key provincial and municipal laws had many gaps and inadequacies (FMTA 1990). Protection also depended on the forcefulness with which the government implemented its laws, as well as the degree of knowledge each tenant had of his or her rights under the law.

The incorporation of housing and eviction concerns into the bid process

As briefly noted, housing issues were key components of the Toronto bid for the 1996 Summer Olympics. The bid was designed to leave some permanent housing legacies, although it should also be noted that the final plans fell far short of community demands. This section describes and analyzes how housing issues (the potential for evictions in particular) were incorporated into the bid process.

The potential for evictions related to the Summer Olympics in Toronto was a topic of focus from the start of the bid process, although sharp differences emerged about the potential for actual impacts. In its 1986 feasibility study, TOOC (1986, p. V-11) suggested that "residential displacement is not a likelihood in Toronto" because of the "increased awareness" of the issue after the Expo '86 eviction crisis and because

Toronto has a highly-developed and growing accommodation base, and the short term influx of tourists to participate in the Olympic festivities would not provide a sufficient profit potential to encourage displacement. Public awareness of this potential problem should result in the articulation of a public policy on this issue.

It was not until late 1988–early 1989 that the issue of forced evictions received a surge of attention. The explanation for this is threefold. First, during the time of bid preparations, Toronto was experiencing its worst affordable-housing crisis in its history. Moreover, this crisis peaked at about the same time (1989­90) that key bid components were being decided on. Local citizens and most politicians of a variety of political perspectives began to worry about the potential of the Summer Olympics to exacerbate these trends. Housing, tenants', and legal-aid organizations, such as the FMTA, Metro Tenants' Legal Services, and community organizations such as the Parkdale Tenants Association, became very worried about the potential for negative social impacts, such as evictions. Second, local community groups and some civic politicians were becoming impatient with the perceived closed-shop mentality of TOOC organizers. Ironically, this frustration spurred these groups to action. Third, the Bread Not Circuses Coalition (BNCC) was formed in February 1989. A diverse variety of organizations in the antipoverty, women's, labour, arts, and social-services movements came together to oppose mega-project mania in Toronto (BNCC 1990). BNCC's main point was that "we believe that the first priority should be on the real needs of people — affordable housing, a decent income, good jobs, child care, an accessible city, clean and safe neighborhoods, affordable recreation and popular culture." This organization became very active in a high-profile manner and forced TOOC and various levels of government to address a wide array of issues, including housing and eviction issues, which in turn consumed "unexpected resources" (P. Henderson, personal communication).

Between the summer of 1989 and April 1990, a frantic flurry of lobbying, research, coalition-building, protest, and media coverage occurred as community groups, local government, and politicians all became involved in deliberations about the issue. In very general terms, the most important activities in this period are noted below.

THE CITY OF TORONTO — The City of Toronto set up a Committee of Department Heads Olympic Task Force because City Council had felt excluded from much of the bid-preparation process, and it wanted to ensure that city goals were incorporated into the final bid document. The head of the Task Force was appointed to TOOC, as well, in order to facilitate greater city involvement. The Task Force was to address a wide range of issues, including finance, environmental impacts, public-involvement processes, and housing impacts.

The Task Force, in conjunction with civic politicians, drafted the Toronto Olympic Commitment. This document, approved in September 1989, was a set of principles

that embodies the spirit of the Olympic movement. The Toronto Olympic Commitment was adopted by Toronto City Council to ensure that if Toronto were awarded the Games, we would plan and stage an equitable, affordable Olympics that would leave a lasting legacy for all Canadians.

There were five main categories of commitment: social equity, environment, financial guarantees, a healthy Olympics, and jobs and the Olympics. Housing concerns fell under the social-equity category, and a commitment was made to ensure that existing residents were not displaced because of visitors to the games. The Toronto Olympic Commitment was developed after pressure was exerted on City Council by some local political and community leaders, who recognized the potential for significant negative impacts. In contrast, TOOC, and Paul Henderson in particular, felt that this commitment was one more needless "political," "unnecessary and troublesome" interjection into the efficient preparation of the Olympic bid (P. Henderson, personal communication; P. Berck, personal communication). It should also be noted that the Toronto Olympic Commitment was a policy document; as with most policy documents, implementation of each policy was or would be carried out with varying degrees of success.

Following on from the Toronto Olympic Commitment, a wide variety of city activities occurred in this period:

• The City of Toronto Housing and Properties Department hired a consultant to conduct research on the housing impacts of hallmark events in other cities. The consultant reported back with findings and recommendations for the city Task Force. These recommendations were used to develop a tenant protection and tourist accommodation strategy. The tenant-protection component of the plan dealt with rooming and boarding houses; private rental accommodation; low-income residents in hotels; and emergency housing. The consultant shared information with the person conducting a similar study for the Federation of Metro Tenants' Association (FMTA) (see below). After both studies came out in January 1990, the city's plans were improved with the input of the FMTA study and the comments of various interested parties. An affordable housing group of bureaucrats from various city departments was formed as well. In March 1990, work on the City's tenant-protection and tourist-accommodation plan was put on hold until September, when the final decision of the IOC was made. 
• A consultant was hired to design a public-involvement process so that a wide range of issues could be addressed. Public meetings were held on housing issues, and community representatives discussed the potential for evictions.
• 
  A consultant prepared a preliminary social-impact assessment report, which included a section on potential housing impacts. 
• The city approved the provision of $110 000 of intervenor funding to allow groups to (COT 1989a) "participate more meaningfully in the discussion and evaluation of the Bid, and that the Committee of Heads Olympic Task Force report on the implementation of this commitment." A wide variety of nonprofit organizations applied for funding from the city to finance a short-term research project on various areas of concern (for example, the environment, multicultural issues, housing). Twenty groups applied for funding, and 8 had their applications approved, including 2 housing organizations — FMTA and the Supportive Housing Coalition (SHC). A third group (Women Plan Toronto [WPT]) addressed housing, as well as one component of a multicomponent report written from the perspective of women. Ironically, it was active community lobbying, most notably from the BNCC, which led to city support for intervenor funding. However, BNCC's proposal was not funded, as the city decided the money should only be allocated to groups that were committed to improving the bid, not halting it. 
• Various city politicians (including the mayor) and senior government officials worked to ensure that the housing units constructed for the Athletes Village and the Media Village would be used to provide affordable housing after the games. This was designed to meet housing needs while convincing or pressuring people with power to support the Olympic bid — basically "what is your social price to support the Games?" (M. Melling, personal communication; T. Greer, personal communication). In the end, the final housing component was reached after hundreds of hours of negotiation, lobbying, and last-minute ultimatums between politicians and officials from all levels of government, TOOC officials, crown corporations, housing advocates, and others. The final bid was supposed to result in 1 000 additional provincial housing units (at a $150 million cost), creating in all 5 700 units in 6 years (2 500 units on the Ataratiri lands and 3 200 units on the Railway lands). This plan was to act as a catalyst, or "fast-tracking" mechanism, which would enable housing units to be built earlier than they might be otherwise. However, the plan was riddled with weaknesses, including the fact that the Railway lands were owned by a Crown corporation (Canadian National Rail Co.) and negotiations were not finalized. It was also unclear where all the funds would come from to construct these units and buy the land, and a plan to clean up the environmental contaminants on the Ataratiri lands was not in place. 

Also in this period, the community engaged in activities in response to the Toronto Olympic Commitment:

• A variety of housing, tenant and neighbourhood organizations became involved in an array of activities related to housing issues, including research, lobbying, decision-making, and consultation, with other community organizations and groups like BNCC. Throughout this period, the groups mulled over and fluctuated in terms of what their response should be to the Olympic bid. Some thought the Summer Olympics could be leveraged to extract long-term positive benefits in terms of affordable housing. Others thought the games' costs outweighed potential benefits. For example, the FMTA met frequently to debate the bid and their stance on it, eventually supporting the bid, provided a range of protective actions for tenants were carried out. Opposition to the bid was consistently expressed in Parkdale, a lower income inner-city community (much like Vancouver's Downtown Eastside), with a high proportion of tenants and people living in rooming houses. The Parkdale Tenants' Association and Parkdale Community Legal Services felt the games would only exacerbate already inadequate housing conditions.
• Some of the community groups applied for and were awarded the intervenor funding noted above to conduct research on the potential impacts of the games. FMTA produced a detailed 46-page report (The 1996 Olympic Bid Proposal and Tenant Protection [FMTA 1990]) outlining every possible negative impact the games might have on tenants. The author, Jeff Clark, examined the experiences of other cities with hallmark events (including Calgary, Seoul, and Vancouver). He developed 26 recommendations for various levels of government regarding issues, including enforcement, public education, political leadership, landlord and tenant law, resources, and relocation. He also addressed the potential long-term impacts of the games on housing and neighbourhoods, in terms of the increased potential for gentrification, the need for long-term solutions to the affordable-housing problem, etc. The SHC, comprising eight nonprofit housing organizations, conducted a detailed study, as did WPT. Following release of the "intervenor reports," as they came to be known, other groups such as FMTA met with City of Toronto housing planners to clarify the groups' concerns about the potential impacts of the games and to outline solutions to these concerns. FMTA, SHC, and WPT also lobbied civic politicians to act on the findings of their reports.
• BNCC developed a multipronged approach — set the agenda, stop the corporate mega-projects, and force TOOC, various levels of government, and the general public to consider the negative consequences of sponsoring the games. BNCC sought to transform the public discourse over the hallmark-event bid to make it include a serious focus on social issues, rather than the narrowly defined corporate agenda. A community strategy and a political strategy were developed to act at a variety of levels (Shapcott 1991). Activities varied over time, and included in-depth research and documentation of various aspects of the bid process; the impacts of hallmark events in other cities; the bid document; the perceived narrow and antidemocratic attitude of TOOC organizers; lobbying efforts directed at politicians, government officials, TOOC officials, the media, and IOC members; coalition-building with community groups in other bidding cities (for example, Melbourne) and within Toronto; and public protests. 

BNCC's budget was less than $20 000 (as opposed to about $17 million for TOOC), and it was forced to rely on volunteer time and resources. Women played a significant role in the formulation and implementation of BNCC's strategy.

THE DECISION — After the climax of a period of frenzied lobbying, on 12 April 1990 Toronto City Council voted 12 to 4 in favour of the bid to the IOC (M. Melling, personal communication). The period between April and September was relatively uneventful, as most interested parties awaited the IOC's decision. TOOC, of course, was lobbying IOC voting members during this period. BNCC was active as well, and it devoted its attention and resources to lobbying IOC members to turn the Toronto bid down.

In September 1990, IOC Board members met in Tokyo to make the decision about which city to select to host the 1996 Summer Olympics. TOOC and senior City of Toronto officials and politicians were in Tokyo, as were two members of BNCC. The BNCC members conducted some last-minute lobbying and protests to highlight their opposition to the games coming to Toronto. In the end, the IOC chose Atlanta to host the games. Subsequent press coverage in Toronto was fairly critical of the BNCC action, and this organization, along with several local politicians became scapegoats for the loss of the games. Indeed, Paul Henderson, president and chief executive officer of TOOC, stated that BNCC's opposition was one of the major factors in the loss, and he has maintained such criticism of the group to this day. Henderson feels that the group is a "vociferous minority" that created the illusion of public antagonism to the idea of a Toronto-hosted games (P. Henderson, personal communication). However, subsequent analysis of the bid conducted by the Ontario Ministry of Tourism and Recreation (OMTR 1991) suggested that there were dozens of weaknesses in the Toronto bid process and in the efforts of the people representing TOOC. In particular, the report suggested that TOOC did not involve the community in meaningful discourse and it noted that "it was virtually unanimous that it is critical to involve the community at large in honest discussion on the bid as early in the process as possible" (OMTR 1991, p. 10).

Community action and impact: the critical factors

Community action on potential for event-related evictions was critical to the significant attention devoted to the subject in Toronto (particularly compared with the Calgary and Vancouver cases). A diverse range of community-based groups ensured that the subject was addressed by City of Toronto officials and politicians and TOOC officials through the wide range of activities described above. This strategic, energetic, and continuous pressure, combined with important support from certain empathetic political and bureaucratic actors at the local and provincial levels, led to relatively enlightened policies on the issue. At a deeper contextual level, key forces that led to this situation included the context of an affordable-housing crisis, with public awareness of housing issues, a history of (again, on a relative basis) general support for tenants' rights and the human right to housing, and a history of tenant activism to secure these rights. Simply put, the capacity existed within the community to force the issue of housing concerns (including forced evictions) onto the bid agenda from a community perspective.

Although many differing viewpoints were offered on the ultimate impacts of community action regarding the Olympic bid (and the potential for evictions in particular), it is clear that groups such as BNCC, FMTA, and the Parkdale Tenants Association forced the city and TOOC to address social concerns in a more concerted manner than they would have done otherwise. By raising legitimate concerns over social issues, such as housing, the community probably caused or significantly contributed to

• Significant public discourse about the social costs of staging hallmark events in Toronto;
• The creation and adoption of the Toronto Olympic Commitment;
• Greater awareness of weaknesses within existing landlord and tenant legislation; and
• Future awareness of the importance of honestly involving the community in deliberations about the major plans for Toronto that affect people. 

Conclusions

Housing rights in the face of the hallmark event?

In these three cases, and as recognized in a growing literature (for example, Hall 1992), the hallmark event acts as a spotlight, signifying the nature of politics and economics in contemporary urban (re)development processes. Currently in vogue, the hallmark event is being used as a mechanism to restructure the city, creating, among other things, a strong potential for massive numbers of forced evictions. These negative social impacts negate the principle of the right to housing. Housing rights are really one component of a much larger right: the right to the city. These events make the right to the city even less accessible than in regular development circumstances, owing to a variety of features.

The following features, outlined below, must be addressed by community groups in their struggles:

1. Hallmark events can lever major quantities of senior government and private capital that might not otherwise come to a city or region. The promise of substantial legacies in the form of stadiums, roadways, new recreational facilities and new housing are difficult to evaluate, given the time compression of a hallmark-event bid process. This is a similar factor affecting the debate about sports franchises and stadium construction.
2. Because the hallmark event has a component of national and international imagery, local citizens, politicians, and business leaders feel that their names and reputations are on the line. Consequently, they are willing to accommodate heavy demands and to initiate their own actions, which they would not do in a nonhallmark context. For example, debt will be accumulated via the fast-tracking of major projects, "unsightly scenes" (according to the aesthetic standards of international travelers and business people), such as slums, will be eliminated or hidden from view, and previous disagreements about approaches or policies will be resolved or delayed until the event has finished. However, community groups and tenant activists can use this concern with a city's international image to put issues before the public eye via the media. In this manner, they may force the city to resolve the issue quickly to quell fears of a negative image or "black eye."
3. The sport or exhibition nature of a hallmark event can pull together disparate interests and present the illusion of consensus. It is common to see parties with diverse ideological interests collaborate because it is simply required when a major event must be planned, developed, and operated in a compressed time frame. The organizers of the event (usually corporate and political elites) recognize this quality and use it to propel their goals for urban-development planning in a context in which it is difficult to openly evaluate these plans, owing to time constraints. Diversity and disagreement cannot help but be masked in such circumstances, and it takes extraordinary skill, planning, and power to resist or seek fundamental post-bid changes in the planned event.
4. The sites chosen for hallmark events are often in the inner city, owing to the long-term redevelopment goals for the area of the event sponsors. Because sponsors perceive these areas as needing "revitalization" because of "poor" housing conditions, low land values, and low numbers of resident middle-class people residing in the area, such plans often create negative social impacts for existing residents. These residents suffer these impacts because of their generally weak political power.
5. The large-scale and multiyear nature of the hallmark event requires the long-term involvement of hundreds of governmental agencies, businesses, and nonprofit organizations and the expenditure of hundreds of millions to billions of dollars. Moreover, the impacts of hallmark events may vary in nature and scale and occur over several years, beginning with the bid process. Consequently, it becomes extremely difficult for community groups to address issues of concern, such as potential housing impacts and evictions. These three case studies suggest that community groups must be extremely well organized and expend considerable resources to have any significant impact. When resources are limited (for example, BNCC had a limited budget of only $20 000), strategic planning, coalition-building, and task-sharing are requisite to any success. It is very important to act as quickly as possible when the bid-preparation phase is under way. If a bid is approved, time effectively collapses, and the pace of event planning quickens, consuming resources at a rapid pace. 

Housing impacts, including forced evictions, should be viewed as an expected result of this form of restructuring, as it is not centred around "people-in-place" development (Boothroyd and Knight 1990); rather, the dominant state and private-sector goals are to bring new people, new facilities, and new money to cities at a rapid pace, and this goal is rarely evaluated in an open, democratic manner. Such development plans need to be critically examined in a time frame that permits all potentially affected groups to participate on an equitable basis.

Interpretation

That mass, forced evictions occur in a wealthy and democratic country such as Canada may be a surprise to some readers in countries facing more severe housing problems. Some may also feel that, on a relative basis, the problems faced in the Canadian cases were insignificant. However, it should be noted that hundreds to thousands of evictions occur across Canada every day, that these primarily take place in individual cases, and tenants usually have no feasible option but to accept the action and deal with the negative consequences. Indirect economic eviction occurs as well, as rental housing becomes too expensive to rent, and people are forced to move. The Canadian cases are interesting in that they highlight the fact that the act of eviction is connected to underlying economic, political, and social structures and mechanisms. Forced evictions can occur in any country, regardless of national wealth, degree of political democracy, or the amount of housing-rights rhetoric, if the deeper structures and mechanisms force people to live under precarious conditions.

In Canada, the only secure way to achieve the right to housing is to buy it, providing you have access to the capital! Yet, all Canadians are supposed to enjoy the human right to housing. Canada adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with its specific reference to housing rights, and the concept is part of our 1973 National Housing Act. Moreover, Canada has signed other international declarations, covenants and conventions, recognizing housing rights (Hulchanski 1989a). However, as noted in all of the case studies, there can be a critical gap between the mere proclamation of the right to housing and the actual attempt to implement it.

On a final, optimistic note, the Toronto case suggested that this gap can be narrowed in some circumstances. The critical prerequisite for any action on housing rights issues is the presence of an organized, strategic, and resourceful coalition of community-based groups with the capacity to analyze complex situations, act forcefully at a variety of levels, and use diverse strategies to take advantage of key opportunities to achieve their goals. This is particularly true when dealing with issues surrounding the planning of the hallmark event, a spectacle that compounds and amplifies existing conditions for better and for worse.

Acknowledgments

This study would not have been possible without the generous assistance of many people. I would particularly like to thank Michael Beazley, Peter Boothroyd, Jan Borowy, Calvin Brook, Jim Green, Paul Henderson, David Hulchanski, Aprodocio Laquian, Michael Leaf, David Ley, Michael Melling, Colin Michael Hall, Michael Shapcott, John Shayler, Laura Stannard, and Mary-Kate Tews. Thanks also go to Enrique Ortiz of HIC and Denise Deby and Patricia McCarney of the International Development Research Centre.

¹ A version of this chapter has been published in Current Issues in Tourism, 1(1), 2–46. This chapter is published here with the kind permission of the journal. [BACK]

² The research presented in this chapter was conducted while the author was affiliated with the Centre for Human Settlements, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada. [BACK]

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