This is what I feel many of the NO voters don't get, or choose to ignore.
The facilities being built or renovated need to be built or renovated anyways.
So Voting No doesn't mean we don't spend that money, it just removes the funding and probably changes the timing for those investments.
Doing it now as part of olympics means:
1. We get some help with costs from Feds, Province, IOC
2. We get it cheaper than during a boom (full employment pushed up rates and greatly reduced productivity between 2003 and 2016)
3. Helps put Calgarians to work who are unemployed. The Olympics will create good jobs for people impacted by O&G slowdown. Specifically there are lots of jobs for PM's, Procurement, DC, Project Controls, construction. I'm sure there will be some more Mech and C/S engineering jobs as well, but not in the same numbers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Travis Munroe
- a new 5000 person hockey rink?
High chance that this turns into a full NHL arena with little to no extra money from tax payers.... I can't see a scenario where CSSC says no to taking the money for the 5,000 person hockey rink and doesn't build the new arena that they want.
- renovation to the oval?
Don't know enough about what the future plans would be so I won't touch on it.
- renovation to McMahon?
Is going to be done one way or another at some point in the near future. With the games, we see provincial, federal and IOC money contribute. Without the games, local tax payers fund the renovation.
- a field house?
This is being built regardless of the games. Again, let the federal, provincial and IOC accounts help build it and save us from having to build it.
Whether one is a no or a yes vote, we cannot compare what has happened with unemployment rates, budgets, etc to any other games. When you host the games in a low unemployment environment, chances are people are not looking for work. Calgary has a boatload of people looking for work that would welcome a new job. Unfortunately, it seems people I talk to who are looking for work are more concerned about the slight tax increase vs the job they could have for several years (temporary).
We also can't compare games that go way over budget building 90% new + adding in state of the art weather stations, alternative energy programs, etc which are really not a part of the games. We have 80%+ of the structures in place. Am I blind the to fact we could go over budget? not at all but I am also not buying that we could go over budget to the level of what some people want to think it could be.
Isn't the SW portion of the ring road coming in hundreds of millions under budget due to the current economic times? Tokyo has a 2.4 unemployment rate while Calgary has a 8% unemployment rate. If the games can temporarily reduce the unemployment rate until we get pipelines built, does the reduced unemployment not significantly help our city from multiple different angles including financial?
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