When it comes to delivering the 2010 Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Games, it seems as if UBC has engaged in one long, continuous battle to balance student interests and concerns against commercial or institutional interests and responsibilities.

During a recent Ubyssey investigation into the VANOC-UBC Venue Use Agreement detailing the use of UBC’s Olympic venue to host part of the Games, it was found that sections of the public version of the VANOC-UBC contract have been blacked out, questioning both institutions’ intent regarding transparency.

The venue agreement is a contract between UBC and VANOC that sets the terms of VANOC’s use of the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Winter Sports Centre as well as the rest of the campus during the Olympics. This includes conditions such as exclusive use of the centre during the Games, financial and security arrangements and post-Games use. VANOC contributed $38.5 million towards building the sports centre, while UBC contributed the remaining $10 million in the form of a gift by alumni Doug and Lois Mitchell.

The agreement was signed in November 2006 and was released to the AMS only after the student government filed a freedom of information request. However, several sections throughout the 53-page document are redacted, or blacked out, to keep those particular pieces of information confidential.

According to Christina Ulveteg, access and privacy manager at the Office of the University Counsel, UBC’s legal department, decisions to conceal information are held to a strict set of criteria. This includes the three-part test under Section 21 of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA or FOIP), a piece of legislation that applies to all public institutions in BC.

FIPPA’s website describes Section 21 as “a mandatory exception to the public’s right of access to information [that] protects information which, if disclosed, would harm a third party’s business interests.”

The three criteria are as follows: the withheld information would reveal third party trade secrets, the

information was understood to be confidential, and releasing the information could result in “specified harms.”

Lizette Parsons-Bell, spokesperson for VANOC, confirmed this. “The information contained within these sections is VANOC’s commercial and financial information, which is negotiated on a case-by-case basis for all of VANOC’s contracts. The release of these sections of the UBC Venue Use Agreement would negatively affect VANOC’s ability to complete other contractual negotiations,” she said.

UBC holds similar sentiments. “When we receive a request for information that contains third-party information, we have an obligation under the act to notify the third party [VANOC] and see if they have any objection to releasing some or all of the information, and that’s what happened,” said Mark Crosbie, associate University Counsel for UBC. Therefore, UBC is not making these redactions, it is VANOC.

Part of the issue is that VANOC is subject to a different piece of legislation than UBC. As a private, not public, body, VANOC adheres to not FIPPA, but to the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA). PIPA demands less accountability than FIPPA does, due to the respective nature of the institutions ruled by each. 

However, if a contract involves both a private and public body, such as the VANOC-UBC Venue Agreement, and certain information may or should be released under FIPPA, but may or should be kept confidential under PIPA, the latter is the overriding policy. VANOC retains the right to keep its information concealed, in spite of what could potentially be seen as the public body’s duty to release requested information under FIPPA.

But David Eby, executive director of the BC Civil Liberties Association, said that the government and UBC are averting accountability.

“It is definitely a form of censorship, but more importantly, it’s our government attempting to avoid accountability legislation that they’ve put in place,” he said. “They appointed everyone on the board, and the organization is spending tax dollars, but saying they’re not the government.”

“UBC has an obligation to be critical of a third party suggestion that their business interests are affected,” he added. “Hopefully UBC was critical of VANOC’s suggestion, and it might be their business interests actually are affected, but it’s hard to know why our government, acting as VANOC, believes it has business interests and is preventing tax payers from knowing how their dollars are being spent.”

While redacting parts of the venue agreement may have been outside of UBC’s control, it does add to a general disgruntled sentiment where the flow of Games information between UBC and students is perceived to be somewhat halting.

“I understand the frustration; I appreciate it,” said Michelle Aucoin, UBC’s 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Secretariat, who is partly responsible for communications strategies on campus. “There’s a lot of information that is available. It may not be the information that students wanted, and in part we are doing our best in this office to release the information that we’re legally permitted to release, as soon as we can….So there’s no deliberate effort to withhold information.”

At the same time, Aucoin made it clear that between UBC’s responsibilities as a partner to VANOC, security concerns, and the logistics necessary to host something such as the Olympics, there is a limit to information sharing, and always has been.

“I want to be very specific about addressing this question [of] ‘consultation,’” she said. “There’s been a lot of use of that word, about specifically the transportation, parking and security requirements that we have been negotiating for the last two years. The nature of those discussions is operational. Everyone involved is responsible for delivering the Games; they are not stakeholders. Those discussions [are] related specifically to the needs to deliver the Games.”

“It wasn’t a consultation, and I know that that for many members in the student community, they’re not satisfied with that answer; but at no point did we call this a consultation process, to make sure that we didn’t misrepresent what it was.”

Owen encouraged students to look at the issues but simultaneously take on a more constructive attitude towards the Games. “You don’t have to be 100 per cent for or against it—it’s going to happen. How can we as a public and academic institution work within society to learn as much as we can about this, and see as much benefit as possible?” he asked.

While there is little doubt that UBC could probably do a better job communicating with students about the impact of the Olympics on their campus, there may also be something to the notion that the university’s hands are simply tied by its obligations to VANOC.

Recently The Tyee revealed that VANOC is “delaying the release” of an Olympic impact report produced by UBC researchers, for ambiguous reasons.

“I think it’s embarrassing for VANOC that they’re interfering with the release of an academic study,” said Eby, “and preventing the public from knowing how well they’re doing in keeping the promises they made. But again, this is entirely consistent with an organization that has done things like refuse to keep minutes, for fear that those minutes might be exposed to freedom of information laws.”

VANOC told The Ubyssey that they are currently reviewing the Olympic impact report, and will release it later this fall after the IOC has examined it as well. VANOC also provided a list of initiatives meant to promote their transparency, such as releasing financial and business plans, hosting meetings and open houses, and posting agreements, protocols, and reports on their official website.

“We have been working with the UBC 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Secretariat to share information with the university community and identify potential impacts that may result from the operation of the UBC Thunderbird Arena…during the Games,” said a VANOC spokesperson.

“Under the tight constraints of delivering the Games ‘on time and on budget,’ VANOC is under enormous pressure to stage the 2010 Winter Games in a responsible manner.”

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