MOSCOW -- Canada's prime minister apologized Friday for
racially insensitive remarks by Toronto's mayor that cast a shadow
over the city's bid for the 2008 Olympics.
"Canada is the land which hosts 300,000 new immigrants every
year and we receive them from all corners of the earth. Toronto is
the most multicultural city throughout the world," Prime Minister
Jean Chretien told the IOC session as it prepared to decide the
Olympic host.
"The mayor made a mistake, he didn't express himself well and
he apologized most deeply," Chretien said in response to a
question from IOC member Ibrahim Diallo of Guinea about the
"infringement to the Olympic movement's universal values of man."
Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman last month remarked to a journalist
that he feared attending a meeting in Kenya because of visions of
"myself in a pot of boiling water with all these natives dancing
around me."
Lastman has repeatedly apologized. But his remarks may have hurt
Toronto's hopes of overtaking front-runner Beijing for the right to
the games.
Canadian officials sought comfort in the words of Keba Mbaye,
the most senior African member on the IOC. He met Lastman earlier
this week and received a written apology Friday.
"Personally I accepted the regrets and apologies outright on
the spot," Mbaye told the assembly. "I spoke with the African
members of IOC by saying to them in our continent it is a custom to
forgive and forget when the person at fault makes an apology."
"The incident is now closed, it's over with, concluded," he
said.
Lastman was notably missing from the high-profile lineup
presenting Toronto's bid to IOC delegates, although he was featured
in a video clip extolling his city. Toronto officials cited IOC
limits on the number of people on stage and said Lastman was in the
hall.
"It was a great bid, a great presentation, the best one," the
mayor said, shrugging off questions about whether he had brought
shame on Canada and should resign.
"I think you should resign," he snapped to one Canadian
journalist before going into a car.
Star sprinter Donovan Bailey and other black Canadian athletes
insisted Lastman wasn't racist.
"I really don't think that Mel could be mayor of Toronto and
think that way," said Bailey, the 100-meter champion from 1996
Olympics. "We are by far the biggest melting pot in the world. He
is part of a minority himself."
Diallo's question injected a bitter note into Toronto's powerful
IOC presentation, which began with drum-beating native Indians
dancing through the lofty chamber.
"For hundreds of years, we the aboriginal people have lived and
survived on the great land of Canada," declared Strong Eagle, the
grand chief of the Iroquois Allied Indians. "I am affirming our
support for the Toronto bid."
"Expect the world," a song by young Vanessa Morgan brought
normally staid IOC delegates to their feet, swaying and clapping.
The feel-good factor left by the lyrics faded rapidly with the
questions, when Diallo said he felt something was "missing" from
the emphasis on human values and humanity -- notably an apology.
"There's always a need for dignity, responsibility, respect of
all the essential principles of the Olympic movement," Diallo
said.
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