2026 Olympics- Calgary votes no- 56%

[dino7c]

Originally Posted by White Out 403

I've never heard of the hockey in Edmonton thing until reading it here.

I have heard it from multiple people

[TheScorpion]

Originally Posted by dino7c

I have heard it from multiple people

Iginla to Boston confirmed???

[TheAlpineOracle]

Originally Posted by TheScorpion

You're worried about divisiveness and yet you want to move to America?

Where the hell do you get anything about divisiveness in my post? I’m concerned that people wanting prosperity and growth are being drug down by an increasing element in Canadian society that would rather bring everyone down to their level rather than pull themselves up.

I wasn’t going to go here, but your snarkyness leaves me no choice. You are exactly type of person I’m talking about. Your mind was made up. Nothing could be brought up or outlined that could change your mind and I highly
Doubt you care much about prosperity or career given you post here 600 times a day.

[browna]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Lets bid on Wrestlemania


At the end of the day, the Olympic "dream" isn't dead if there's a desire to do it. This all came down to a process that created a huge amount of doubt, a dysfunctional bidco and city council.


We can act all argy bargy angry and do some kind of age split. But at the end of the day, this can either be a defeat or it can be a lesson learned and the city can decide if the want to do this again and use the lessons learned in this failed process.

Saddledome wouldnt be big enough, the last major event outside of football at McMahon was Lilltih Fair.

What lesson? The councillors who wanted to vote down having a plebiscite showed their true colors and the mayor, adamant against the benefits of an arena in its own, flips 180 and throws out some hard to believe stays on the financial ROI which means the city should open their wallets wider. In the end, after all the huffing and puffing, they kept status quo, which is the same environment in the city that got them elected and gives them the best personal chance to be elected next time.

Rocking the boat for those guys in council means their neck could be on the line, and the mayor or councillors could be on the wrong end of a late Twitter vote push next time.

Bottom line, the next time the city goes for this in 2034 or whatever, there will be a whole new set of levels of government, a whole differ tn set of stakes and stakeholders, so any lessons learned here by anyone on any side of the debate won't be applicable to that situation.

[TheSutterDynasty]

Originally Posted by Muta

Lots of industries and thousands and thousands of citizens would have benefitted from that infrastructure getting built. Lots. This would have been the shot in the arm that this city needs. Oil and gas isn't the only industry in this city that matters. Not sure where those thousands of jobs will now be found elsewhere.

Jobs aren't created out of nowhere. Money has to be injected into the system for the jobs to be created. The question is (which will never be found out): would the net economic change be positive after all the costs are dealt with, and is this net change better than what would have happened without hosting?

Even post analysis has a lot of question marks. There are net benefits generally, albeit small, but would they be greater than if the city had not hosted? The authors even postulate that just having the resources to bid on the games may indicate the economy trending positively.

So take that thin margin of error for net benefit and look at our bid. The disconnect comes when you look at the lack of planning done by our bid compared to some previous. It was not well done.

[TheSutterDynasty]

Originally Posted by oldschoolcalgary

there's definitely a weird disconnect amongst the yes and no voters...

people talking about how the city lacks vision, etc, etc... and yet, the last time i check only one city hosts every 4 years? Only 2-3 cities globally actually get to the point of being a bid city.

All those other cities that don't bid are depressing ####holes then? As mentioned 2026 had a number of cities drop out. The two cities left don't even have government support for the games, so who knows if they'll even end up bidding at all.

last i checked, Calgary was rated by the Economist this year as the 4th most livable city in the world... https://edition.cnn.com/travel/artic...018/index.html

While i don't necessarily agree with that ranking, there are far worse cities to live in than Calgary.

That's a great point.

If hosting the Olympics is so great, why is no one trying?

[TheScorpion]

Originally Posted by TheAlpineOracle

Where the hell do you get anything about divisiveness in my post? I’m concerned that people wanting prosperity and growth are being drug down by an increasing element in Canadian society that would rather bring everyone down to their level rather than pull themselves up.

I wasn’t going to go here, but your snarkyness leaves me no choice. You are exactly type of person I’m talking about. Your mind was made up. Nothing could be brought up or outlined that could change your mind and I highly
Doubt you care much about prosperity or career given you post here 600 times a day.

I misread your post, I'm sorry. I hold no quarrel with your aspirations for prosperity. Also, yes, I have lots of downtime, this is true.

Also, I'll just say that I voted "yes" in the poll a few days ago. But my mind was changed when I read up on what I perceived to be right for the city.

Spoiler!

[chummer]

Originally Posted by TheScorpion

I misread your post, I'm sorry. I hold no quarrel with your aspirations for prosperity. Also, yes, I have lots of downtime, this is true.

Also, I'll just say that I voted "yes" in the poll a few days ago. But my mind was changed when I read up on what I perceived to be right for the city.

How do you get to vote when you're a citizen in Ottawa?

[TheAlpineOracle]

Originally Posted by TheSutterDynasty

Jobs aren't created out of nowhere. Money has to be injected into the system for the jobs to be created. The question is (which will never be found out): would the net economic change be positive after all the costs are dealt with, and is this net change better than what would have happened without hosting?

Even post analysis has a lot of question marks. There are net benefits generally, albeit small, but would they be greater than if the city had not hosted? The authors even postulate that just having the resources to bid on the games may indicate the economy trending positively.

So take that thin margin of error for net benefit and look at our bid. The disconnect comes when you look at the lack of planning done by our bid compared to some previous. It was not well done.

Yup it was terrible. They didnt even have the funding model in place until
Like a week and a half ago. This debacle is right up there with Ken King and Calgary next.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by TheScorpion

Here's a fun fact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VANOC

"On January 30, 2009, VANOC announced its updated budget for the 2010 games. The operating budget was set at CAN$1.76 billion, with a contingency of $77 million.[5] This reflected an increase of $130 million over the $1.63 billion operating budget announced in May 2007..."

Initial stated budget for Vancouver: $1.76 billion
Final cost for Vancouver: over $7 billion (https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ticle15036916/)
Change: 398%

Initial stated budget for Calgary: $5.11 billion (https://globalnews.ca/news/4649771/c...2026-olympics/)
Applying that change rate, the Calgary Olympics would cost $20.3 billion. That's obviously not and hard-and-fast way of looking at things but it's a damning indicator against a "model Olympics."

$1.7 billion OPERATING budget.

$7 billion is the entire budget, including capital

If you are going to make a point, you might want to make sure the numbers you are using are talking about the same thing.

[TheScorpion]

Originally Posted by chummer

How do you get to vote when you're a citizen in Ottawa?

Students in Ontario can vote for elections both in their temporary municipality and their home city. However, I'm not of age for another week so I could not vote in the plebiscite.

[Kaine]

Originally Posted by chummer

How do you get to vote when you're a citizen in Ottawa?

He voted in the CP poll.

[zamler]

I've been to about 30 U.S. states (I lived in the U.S. for a long time) this so called divisiveness and all that doesn't exist in my experience.

[greyshep]

Originally Posted by White Out 403

I've never heard of the hockey in Edmonton thing until reading it here.

I had 2 coworkers bring it up while discussing it today. They were both firmly on the No side largely because of this falsehood. Embarrassing really. People are too lazy to dig for facts themselves it seems.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by nik-

That's what I find funny about this. Some Yes people here are lashing out now and No voters are all visionless plebs.

Rome, Boston, Stockholm, Munich ... but no Calgary are all just dumb voters, all those other cities choice correctly for other reasons.

Eh, as silly as it is, there have been a lot of disappointments for Calgarians. I think this was just another one for some people in a long line of them, and for a few of those people, they were just looking for something to hold on to and look forward to. “Things are tough, but at least we’ve got something exciting ahead.”

I think the mood will even out over the next couple days as a bit of clarity is gained on what this all means and what’s next.

[TheScorpion]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

$1.7 billion OPERATING budget.

$7 billion is the entire budget, including capital

If you are going to make a point, you might want to make sure the numbers you are using are talking about the same thing.

I'm confused. What is this "capital" that you speak of and how does it differentiate from the operating budget? Also, this seems like a semantic discrepancy to me -- at the end of the day, the cost was $7 billion when it was initially slated to cost $1.7 billion. London saw a similar discrepancy. I'd be curious if you can clarify this, I'm interested in knowing.

[DeluxeMoustache]

Originally Posted by TheScorpion

Here's a fun fact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VANOC

"On January 30, 2009, VANOC announced its updated budget for the 2010 games. The operating budget was set at CAN$1.76 billion, with a contingency of $77 million.[5] This reflected an increase of $130 million over the $1.63 billion operating budget announced in May 2007..."

Initial stated budget for Vancouver: $1.76 billion
Final cost for Vancouver: over $7 billion (https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ticle15036916/)
Change: 398%

Initial stated budget for Calgary: $5.11 billion (https://globalnews.ca/news/4649771/c...2026-olympics/)
Applying that change rate, the Calgary Olympics would cost $20.3 billion. That's obviously not and hard-and-fast way of looking at things but it's a damning indicator against a "model Olympics."

Not hard and fast. It’s damn foolish. Don’t think you get it

[Flames Draft Watcher]

Originally Posted by nik-

It's crazy. Where do people think provincial and federal tax dollars come from? They don't only take it from non-Calgary residents because the city is chipping in already.

Why people see it as "free money" is because its already allocated to sport federally, we're paying it whether we get the Olympics or not. If we get the Olympics then we get some of the money. If we don't get the Olympics then the Feds give the money to other sports projects across the country. We lose the money to taxes either way. We're paying either way. In one scenario our local city benefits and in other scenarios we don't see any of that money back.

Free is obviously a misleading term since the money is spent either way but people are getting at the point that some of our federal taxes would go to improving Calgary infrastructure instead of spending it on sport elsewhere in the country.

Nothing crazy here. Just poorly worded arguments on both sides as you'd expect.

[TheScorpion]

Originally Posted by DeluxeMoustache

Not hard and fast. It’s damn foolish

They're numbers, sir. It's just a replicated trajectory, one that has been seen similarly in other recent Olympics like in London. I don't see how you qualify that as "foolish."

[H2SO4(aq)]

Originally Posted by zamler

I've been to about 30 U.S. states (I lived in the U.S. for a long time) this so called divisiveness and all that doesn't exist in my experience.

Agreed. And I find it disrespectful. And I’m not American.