It's official. International ski jump champions will not be permitted to compete in the Vancouver Olympics. Because they're women.
Them's the International Olympic Committee rules, and the Vancouver Organizing Committee spent $100,000 to enforce them. They were successful: apparently, according to our courts, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms doesn't apply--despite the heavy infusion of federal money and involvement in the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games. Extraterritoriality is now the law. Presumably, if the IOC were to declare the games whites-only, Canadian Black or Asian or aboriginal athletes would be excluded, and the courts would decline to intervene.
Sounds like Harper's new citizenship booklet needs a footnote.
The President of VANOC, John Furlong, summed up the underlying problem spendidly, if inadvertently, in comments after the court decision: "It's an unhappy day for these girls."
Not girls, Mr. Furlong. Women.
