[Senator Clay Davis]

Pretty good write-up.

The boosters — the mayor, the business community — they all pointed to the spectacle of hosting the 2026 Winter Games and the billions in unleashed funding as not only an economic boost, but a spiritual one as well.

Both the bid corporation and the lobby group Yes Calgary 2026 spent lavishly to drive the message home. Ads peppered the airwaves, stars from the '88 Games, including Eddie the Eagle, soared into town, there were even last-minute robocalls featuring Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi.

But it wasn't enough.

Calgarians wanted to focus on local priorities, particularly with an austerity municipal budget scheduled for debate the next day.

Some might have been cranky with stalled pipelines, the NDP government, Nenshi or the federal Liberals.

Unemployment runs high and over 25 per cent of the office space in Calgary's downtown towers sit empty.

"It looks to me like Calgarians put their head before their hearts on this decision," is how Matti Siemiatycki from the Munk School of Business in Toronto put it.

If the vision for Calgary's bid could be summed up in one word, it would be: frugal.

It's not the kind of thing you hang from banners or use to fire up emotions. Calgary's bid had the feel of a cocktail party at the local Value Village that had to be wrapped up by 10 p.m.

But it would still cost $3 billion in public funds.

There would be improvements to existing facilities like McMahon Stadium and the Saddledome and a couple of new ones — a fieldhouse and mid-sized arena — but sometimes you need a new gown.

There was hype when it came to the economic benefits of hosting, but the bid corporation, Calgary 2026, couldn't present a clear vision of its accounting.

City councillors tripped over the numbers and economist Trevor Tombe called some of the claims "demonstrably" wrong.

There were more doubts than facts, more confusion than clarity. A last-minute funding deal provided no comfort — not even for Coun. Evan Woolley, who chaired the Olympic Assessment Committee and then decided to flee from the sinking ship. The good deal, he said, wasn't there.

The lack of a vision for what the Games would be and what they would mean for Calgary long-term was a fatal flaw, according to Brent Toderian.

And in an effort to sell the Games, and sell them quickly to a city facing an austerity budget, Calgary 2026 chose to not include any of the long-lasting city infrastructure that could come with the Olympics.

It didn't build upon existing visions and dreams.

It chose cheap — what it would call responsible — while still racking up a $3 billion public tab.

There was also no unity, no coming together of the different levels of government to celebrate a promising mega-event for not just Calgary, but Alberta and Canada as well.

When Alberta Finance Minister Joe Ceci announced the province would provide $700 million for the Games, not a penny more, he had the look of someone who had lost a beloved pet. The city's contribution was leaked on a Saturday. Ottawa's initial offer was revealed the same way.

In the wake of Tuesday's vote, some of its biggest supporters were angry. George Brookman, a bonafide civic booster and flag-waving Yes man, called the No side "losers" and wondered where their vision for the future was.

It was a common refrain on social media. A suggestion that if you're opposed to the Olympics, provide another vision for the city or get out of the way.

But there was also a sense that the debate — albeit too polarized, too often — is the start of a bigger discussion about this place and where we're going. It focused minds and set priorities in thousands of disparate brains in all corners of the city.

Even in the course of it, there were ideas about where else to spend and why. The arts, transit, tax relief.

Kate Jacobson is with Better Spent 2026, a group that wanted to talk about exactly that — where and why we should spend Olympic-size budgets elsewhere.

"Our take on it was really that it's great when the government spends money, but only when it spends money on public programs and services that actually improve the lives of Calgarians," she said.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...ysis-1.4906001