The Squamish and Lil'wat First Nations are already major beneficiaries of Vancouver's 2010 Winter Olympic bid and will get even more benefits if Vancouver isn't chosen as the host city.

The full extent of the benefits is all in an agreement reached in late November that was released Tuesday as part of the background documents to the bid book.

The agreement provides for transfers of land, money, job training programs and even guaranteed contracts for work on Olympic sites.

Even without the Games, the federal and provincial governments will contribute to the completion of the Squamish and Lil'wat Cultural Centre to be completed by the summer of 2004.

The province has also agreed that between April 1 and April 30, 2005, it will transfer 300 acres of land for economic development in the the Callaghan Valley that can either be contiguous or divided into separate parcels.

A $50,000 feasibility study on use of that land --Êpaid for by the province -- is already under way and will be completed by June 30. Among the possible uses for the land are a public championship golf course, an executive golf course, a Nordic lodge of up to 100 rooms and a campground.

Also included in the package of First Nations' benefits that are not contingent on Vancouver hosting the Olympics is a $2.3-million skills training program that will be paid for by the B.C. government and will run for three years.

There also will be a dual-naming project that will recognize the First Nations' names for sites like the Callaghan Valley and other sites along the Sea-to-Sky Highway.

But the bigger benefits come if Vancouver is the host city.

The two First Nations would become partners in Legacies Society which would own, manage and operate the $102-million Nordic Centre in the Callaghan Valley, the $55-million bob/luge track at Blackcomb and the $13-million athletes' centre in the Callaghan Valley.

The Squamish and Lil'wat would also receive 50 moveable houses from the Whistler athletes' village, $6.5 million for housing in addition to the houses, a share of the province-wide, $3-million aboriginal sports legacy fund and guarantees of contracting opportunities for work on Olympic sites.

Despite the substantial package, the First Nations did not get everything they asked for. Missing from the final document was any mention of the Squamish request to have their treaty negotiations speeded up. Their negotiations have been stalled for more than four years.

There is also no mention of the request from the Lil'wat -- who are not in the treaty process -- that they be given access to forestry, water and other resources on land they claim as traditional territory.

Late last fall, Chris Shaw (one of the leaders of the No Games 2010 Coalition) called the money earmarked for the First Nations a bribe and a payoff for their support of the Games.

Strangely, nobody has used such language to describe the $170 million of federal and provincial money earmarked for sporting venues in Vancouver.

And nobody is more cynical than usual that the business community's support for the bid isn't related to self-interest, whether it's IntraWest (which will get millions of dollars for the rental of its mountains), land developers (who will build the athletes' villages and sports venues), trade unionists (who stand to have more work than usual,) hotel keepers or others involved in tourism.

So why use such inflammatory language for the Indians, who are in much greater need of help than the average Vancouverite?

If anything, bridging the vast gap between the living standards on Indian reserves and the city of Vancouver, providing jobs, training and land for First Nations people could be the only significant and lasting social legacy of the Games.

Not surprisingly, the suggestion that Indians are blackmailing the federal and provincial governments and the bid committee or taking bribes in return for their support makes Squamish Chief Gibby Jacob angry.

"From the outset when the idea was put forward to hold the Olympics, we have said if the Games are held on our traditional territory, we want to go along with those who are co-hosting it and we wanted benefits."

Jacob points out that of the 3,100 members of the Squamish tribe, 65 per cent are under the age of 25.

"What I want and what we want is to be net contributors to the society and net contributors to the social safety net. And it's not like we take our money and invest it in stocks and bonds in China and the United States. We want to invest in our own community and the local economy."

It's worth recalling that Whistler was built on the edge of the traditional Squamish territory and on the traditional land of the Lil'wat people. For all of its wealth and economic spinoffs, scarcely a single cent has flowed to their communities.

While Whistler business owners and Mayor Hugh O'Reilly lament the lack of employee housing and despair of getting enough people to fill minimum-wage jobs, just a 45-minute bus ride away is Mount Currie, a community of 1,400 where more than half are unemployed, half are under the age of 25 and a third are under 19.

It's no wonder the leaders of these First Nations communities see the Olympics as an opportunity for economic development. It's no wonder that they are leveraging the Games into something that will help their people.