Quote:
Originally Posted by Locke
My point was that in building a new arena the City was 100% on its own for a building to house a private enterprise.
With the Olympics the Feds and Province kick in part of the money and we're left assets that are for public use and benefit.
You want to go skiing at COP? Olympic money.
You want to skate at the Oval? Olympic money.
U of C residences? Olympic money.
And on and on it goes.
So comparing the City paying for a new arena for the Flames versus being a one-third partner in an Olympic bid just shows a gross misunderstanding of the actual context of the two items.
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I agree with you that the benefits of the Olympics outweigh the benefits of an arena. But you have to look at the other side of coin ie costs, which is where a lot of people are taking issue with the Olympics. The costs for the Olympics as a whole dwarf the city money toward an arena, and even once you split that among the various levels of governments you'll probably see a substantial difference in costs on the city's ledger over their arena contribution. How much more? No one knows, I doubt we'll get a straight answer before hosting this thing and we probably won't know until after, but any rainbow spinning on the neat infrastructure we may or may not get needs to be tempered by the hefty price tag.