FIDE urges the Canadian gov to speed up

[John Brown]

Let's stop patting everyone on the back and prove to Fide that Canada can run a high class tournament and get a thumbs up to run more high class events.

[Aris Marghetis]

Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.- John F. Kennedy

https://www.socratic-method.com/quot...t-is-an-orphan

I had never heard that quote before, good one, thanks!

[Vlad Drkulec]

Yep, if the Candidates were 'lost' - guess who would have been blamed?

Some blamed us before they were lost. Oh ye of little faith. I didn't have time to deal with them as I and everyone at the CFC had to concentrate on the things and people that could work to resolve the situation.

Every few years we seem to have an existential crisis at the CFC. This was one of them. These moments are when you reveal who you are. I am pretty happy with who we are. Well aside from the lack of sleep and the fact that I gained ten pounds through this crisis. I did lose six of those pounds now that I am almost back to my normal routine.

[Olga Mushtaler]

Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.- John F. Kennedy

https://www.socratic-method.com/quot...t-is-an-orphan

Yep, if the Candidates were 'lost' - guess who would have been blamed?

[Olga Mushtaler]

Much respect for the leadership shown by all kinds of people during this challenging visa situation. A big THANK YOU to the local organizing committee and everyone who worked hard to save the Candidates! I appreciate the teamwork that occurred between CFC and the Local Organizing Committee during the Candidates.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Well done. Rabbit got out of the hat.

Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.- John F. Kennedy

https://www.socratic-method.com/quot...t-is-an-orphan

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

Now I can start sleeping on a normal schedule again.

Well done. Rabbit got out of the hat.

[Hans Jung]

Wonderful post Aris! Love to hear of all the incredible support, connections and the chess community jumping in to help out!

[Aris Marghetis]

BIG THANK YOU !!!

Hello chess fans, what a superbly wonderful turn of events!!

When FIDE tweeted at Canada late last week, only a couple of the more than forty required visas had been granted. The CFC Executive had been working behind the scenes, with critical connections being made across the country. For example, CFC Secretary Lyle Craver was securing the key support of The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson, MINISTER of Energy and Natural Resources, from VANCOUVER. Just that sentence demonstrates how the WHOLE Canadian community was coming together!

But as Vlad stated, it was high time to "fire all the arrows"!!
My goodness, WHAT A SPECTACULAR VOLLEY THAT WAS!!

SO MANY people selflessly STEPPED UP! Some are names you haven't heard yet. They won't jockey for recognition, but the chess lover in them drove them to critical timely achievements. I just feel it's the right thing to present some of them to you:

On Friday, Local Organizing Committee (LOC) Chair Salim Belcadi led the initiative to build a public escalation announcement. As time was pressed to make the weekend news cycle, it was in the form of an entire article, ready to print by media outlets.

After intense hours of development, Salim and principal LOC member Anna Burtasova aggressively distributed to their vast networks of contacts, and within what seemed like minutes, The Toronto Star was launching themselves into it. This exploded the phenomenal interview tour that Vlad has been on since. Really, Vlad's energy pace has been nothing short of remarkable!

With that initial Toronto Star article, dominoes tumbled! Heidi Gay got us into the office of Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow. Keith Denning got us into the office of Ontario Premier Doug Ford. Dr. Vinny Puri (FM) connected with both a former Minister, The Honourable Navdeep Bains, and crucially, with The Honourable Maninder Sidhu, Member of Parliament for Brampton East.

It's practically impossible (and it doesn't really matter) which arrows hit the target in which order. From Vlad to Patricia to Lyle to Salim to Anna to Heidi to Keith to Vinny (and this list misses lots of other "teammates"), but this is the juncture where we seemed to reach the proverbial critical mass: within another day, literally DOZENS more visa applications had been approved.

It still feels stunning to write that! That feeling we all had when we realized that it had become more likely that we would keep the Candidates vs. losing them, I suggest that's something special that all of us will always remember, and it'll make us smile!

I'm so proud of the Canadian chess community, and our whole Canadian community! Hoping to see many of you in Toronto!!!

[Vlad Drkulec]

Huge congrats!!!!

Thanks Sid.

Keep up the good work on the non-chess forums as the voice of reason.

[Sid Belzberg]

Now I can start sleeping on a normal schedule again.

Huge congrats!!!!

[Vlad Drkulec]

Mission completed.

Now I can start sleeping on a normal schedule again.

[Bob Gillanders]

Mission completed.

That's wonderful. Congratulations everyone.

Well done.

[Victor Plotkin]

Mission completed.

[Vlad Drkulec]

It's looking good now. The only one is missing - Ian Nepomniachtchi, the winner of last 2 candidates. Vlad deserves a great appreciation for his effort.

I am just one of the cogs in the machine that is grinding its way through this issue. The Canadian Chess Nation. Sometimes it does matter who you have as your president and who you have on your board of directors. Even our newest and youngest member Veronica played an important role in bringing this to the attention of our politicians. Patricia is amazing. Olga was mobilizing her people at Chess in the Park. We had lawyers and immigration consultants offering their services and advice and contacts. Victor was his usual steady self. Lyle's MP was instrumental in getting a meeting for FIDE tomorrow. We have a great board of directors for the CFC. I am so impressed with everyone who worked with us to get us to this point. Gary Gladstone was brilliant at connecting us with key people including MP Kevin Vuong for Spadina-Fort York who was very helpful in drawing attention to our cause. Lars Lowther at the Calgary Chess Club got us into the shadow cabinet minister for immigration.

However. no time to slack off. We still need to run the last mile of this marathon. Two more interviews tomorrow and probably one on the weekend hopefully after we complete the marathon.Two more interviews tomorrow and a short seminar. Hopefully there will be more good news.

I did a short online seminar on persuasion from one of the experts on the subject, and author of many of the most respected books on the subject Robert Cialdini today where he went over what you had to do to influence people to do what you wanted them to do in situations similar to the one we are in. We were doing every one of them. Now I have read his books which I have in hard copy and on Kindle but it was funny that we were doing everything right in this situation like we were following his game plan as expounded in his talk. When this is all over, I have to re-read his books as its been years since I read some of them.

On the other side of the organizing committee Anna Burtasova, Sam Belcadi, Aris Marghetis and super sponsor Isai Scheinberg also worked their contacts. I understand that Vinny Puri was active in the background and the Member of Parliament for Brampton who saved a cricket tournament from a similar situation also got involved.