While Ottawa is recommending Canadians travelling to Sochi for the Winter Olympics to register with foreign affairs before they go, a Vancouver councillor says he’s not nervous about what he might encounter.
“I have friends who say ‘you’re so brave,'” said Tim Stevenson as he departed to Sochi from Vancouver International Airport this morning. “I don’t feel like a brave person, I just feel like this has to be done.”
Stevenson, who is gay, is leading Vancouver’s delegation to Sochi for the games. Council voted to pay for Stevenson’s trip after much debate over how the city would respond to Russia’s punitive laws against gay and lesbian citizens.
“I’m not really nervous,” says Stevenson. “But I am going to keep my wits about me, and going to be watching, but if you become so worried about this, you become paralyzed.”
Maureen Douglas, the project manager for the trip, says they hope to convince the IOC to make Pride Houses – which have been banned in Sochi – a requirement for future Olympics.
However, they still haven’t confirmed a meeting with new IOC President Bach.
“If we get a chance to talk to him, that’s probably the most important meeting of all. He’s new, he’s quite progressive, and we hope he’ll see the same reasons we see for changing the Olympic charter.”
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