EXPO 86 - Forty Years On
May 2 marked the fortieth anniversary of the start of EXPO86, an event that changed Vancouver forever. Like most Vancouverites, I have vivid memories of the fair and its impact on the character of our city. At the time I was working as a real estate consultant and developer on several projects, most notably The Lagoons, on the South Shore of False Creek, directly across from the World Fair Site. I was also a consultant to BC Place, helping to get the first new projects underway. In this role, I also attended some of the EXPO planning sessions led by Jimmy Pattison. I remember this well since he was very obsessed with punctuality, and I got into a car accident trying to get to an early morning meeting on time.
At one of the meetings it was noted that during site preparation, a train locomotive had been discovered buried under the site. Mr. Pattison was most concerned that we keep this a secret to avoid people fearing that the site was contaminated and EXPO visitors might claim to have got cancer from visiting the fair. As we now all know, the site was very contaminated, but as the city's Health Officer John Blatherwick later told me, you would have to eat a lot of contaminated soil before you would get sick!
Yesterday there were numerous radio programs and newspaper articles setting out people's recollections of the fair and how it changed Vancouver and the Region. Fortunately, few, if any, will see the interview I did with Radio Canada journalist Dominique Levesque, since at her urging, I tried to do some of the interview in French. While there was a time I was quite comfortable speaking French, those days are long gone.
That said, I tried to tell Dominique that we were told to invite the world to EXPO, and they came. Not only to the Fair, but also to the region. Prior to EXPO, Metro's population increased about 1.5% to 1.7% annually. Immediately following the fair, it doubled to over 3.0%.
The other major consequence was the decision by the provincial government to sell the site to Li Ka-Shing, rather than a consortium led by Jack Poole. This dramatically increased international interest in the city, especially from Asia, and the rest is history.
EXPO 86 also ignited my interest in World Fairs. Since then I have attended many, in Portugal, China, Korea, Kazakhstan, and most recently Dubai and Japan. World Fairs offer a glimpse into the future. And there's no doubt EXPO86 changed our future. While some think it was for the worse, I think it was most definitely for the better.