[Senator Clay Davis]

The bid corporation tried various approaches to keep its project viable for a bit longer. It argues that the city taxpayers’ investment of $390 million yields the city more than $4.4 billion—or every dollar being spent on a Winter Games, as though all the money that compensates Belgian snowboard judges and overtime pay for visiting Saskatchewan police lands directly back in Calgary coffers. Board chairman Scott Hutcheson tried the how-dare-you approach to council, passionately warning them they’d “undermine the process” if it ended that day. And then, to counter common arguments that Calgary 2026 is a shameless play on nostalgia for 1988, the bid group ended its pitch to council with a three-minute video of ’88 hokum and more recent Olympic glory—a preview of what will be a heavy emotional appeal to the voting public. Adding to that bit of arm-twisting, former Olympians and other bid supporters and employees filled council chambers wearing red shirts saying “Calgary: it’s your decision.”


And here’s a highlight reel of the arithmetic flips and triple lutzes that Calgary BidCo performed to make all the numbers work, for the federal government to sign off as 50-per-cent contributors and not a dime more:

—Chopping off the to-build list 1,000 on-campus student housing units; but at least the planned affordable housing stays on the books, bid leaders reasoned.

—Slicing more than $150 million from the initial security budget of $610 million, which bid leaders say came after they applied scrutiny to the numbers the RCMP and other agencies compiled. History makes it abundantly hard to believe Calgary’s Olympics can reverse the trajectory of nearly every Olympics and major-events security costs; Vancouver Games’ costs ballooned from $175 million to $900 million. Securing Sochi cost more than $2 billion. And if with a few hard questions the bid group seriously managed to lop off one-quarter of the police and screening costs, every politician in Canada should take a long hard look at what police chiefs and RCMP superintendents have been asking for all this time.

—The City of Calgary declared it will spend $20 million on a $200-million insurance policy to cover any unanticipated cost overruns, as part of the $1.1-billion contingency budget already baked into the Olympic figures. One ironic hitch: city executives conceded they’re not sure if they can actually get that much insurance for the price they believe they can get, and would have to trim the Olympic budget further to prevent any additional overruns

—Scrapping plans to demolish an old inner-city bus barn by the river, the keystone site for a long-planned revitalization project

—There’s a sudden appearance of $150 million in money in the bid book for road improvements that were already planned and never tied to the bid. This was done simply to make it look like the city was putting up a bigger share of cash than it actually is, so that Ottawa can say it will put up its share to match what the municipality is. (Announcer: and the judges… seem to like it!!)

Therein lies the brutal paradox for an Olympics bid: one must keep a relatively tight budget so that politicians will sign on—$5 billion is still a puny number for the ever-expanding Olympics—but that limits the long-term benefits and projects a Winter Games can bestow upon a community. Calgary was going to refurbish old venues instead of building anew, and the slimmer budget bestows an even slimmer legacy.

Some councillors newly added their names to the list of Calgarians fed up with the brinkmanship and connect-the-moving-dots financial picture, while others still believe in the Olympic magic and potential uplift for an economically frustrated city. One optimist even suggested that Calgarians skip advance voting and wait until the Nov. 13 plebiscite day, in case more details emerge or shift before then.

Public open houses ahead of the vote have largely been packed with financially reluctant or simply firmly unwilling residents—the latest batch of numbers probably won’t impress them much. But maybe BidCo can just play that movie of Gaetan Boucher, Liz Manley and Sidney Crosby on repeat, because wouldn’t it all be so cool?

https://www.macleans.ca/olympics/cal...-bid-lives-on/