Power plays and Olympic divisions: bilingualism and the politics of Canadian viewing rights at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games

Abstract

There have been innumerable political debates around the world over the distribution of live sporting events in the digital era. Typically, these deliberations involve competing claims and interests associated with sport, commerce, cultural and broadcasting policies, and, at times, language rights. This article examines a recent debate in Canada over unequal access to live French-language coverage of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games that prompted several interventions by public authorities and francophone community organizations. These interventions were required precisely because of the economic structure of the broadcasting market and the historical conditions of Canadian broadcasting policy. Indeed, unlike other nations, the Canadian state has not enacted legislation to protect the ‘viewing rights’ of citizens to have access to live telecasts of sporting events of national significance in both official languages. The debate was significant, then, precisely because it revolved around a central political commitment of the state: the principle of bilingualism. Moreover, the deliberations underscored the historical tensions between the material interests of the sport–media complex and the viewing rights of Canadians to have access to telecasts of sport in both official languages, and, by extension, the constitutional language rights of citizens enshrined in the Official Languages Act (1969).