The Final Report on the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games has just been published and Canada’s official languages commissioner, Graham Fraser, said that the lack of French during the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver Olympics missed a “golden opportunity” to showcase Canada’s bilingualism to the world.
The report included a few chapter headings such as “Preparatory phase plagued by problems” and “Games’ success stories eclipsed by failures”. The findings stated that the Games’ organizers didn’t understand their official language responsibilities and that overshadowed their successes. The perceived lack of French during the internationally televised opening ceremonies prompted protests from politicians, athletes and the public, and Fraser’s office apparently received 38 formal complaints.
The report did not turn out to be all negative however, and it was noted that organizers did a good job of including French in many areas during both the Olympics and Paralympics.
The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) website in particular was lauded. The website was one of the main ways to communicate with the public. Press releases were posted there, along with a lot of other information, such as Games’ competition schedules and results. Everything was published simultaneously in both official languages. Apparently, early on there were some errors in the French press releases, but the issue was rapidly resolved.
The report’s praise for the VANOC website noted that VANOC showed that it was possible to update a website by simultaneously posting English and French versions of web pages. Initiatives by other websites operated by BC and the two host cities of Vancouver and Whistler were also praised. The Tourism BC and Tourism Vancouver websites were translated, and some sections of the Vancouver and Whistler city websites were available in French. Both Vancouver and Whistler received funding from Canadian Heritage to help them provide services in French.
While not every Vancouver business has to worry about translating the content on their website, this should at least be considered during the website design phase. Vancouver 2010 will be remembered for lots of things, primarily all the gold medals won by Canada; I for one however will not be reading about it in French.
The Final Report on the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games can be read here:
http://www.ocol-clo.gc.ca/html/stu_etu_122010_e.php
