Should Calgary Bid on the 2026 Olympics

[Senator Clay Davis]

Rio was scrubbed clean by the military, vagrants moved out and strays killed en masse. It probably was the safest city in the world for that period of time (unless you were hanging with Ryan Lochte). That said obviously not what Rio is really like, but governments always clean up for these events. And we'll be no different by the way, expect a relocation of the homeless (Vancouver?) for that stretch. Image is everything after all.

[Flamenspiel]

^^How is Rio in anyway relevant here? Basically a worst case scenario of corruption and mismanagement.

Sydney has also been mentioned, Although a lot of fun! that was another fiasco, basically money was no object and poorly accounted for. I was in Sydney for that one, the main site was in the middle of nowhere and looked like a a bunch of quonset huts despite all the money spent. They had 90 rows of seats in the pool that put you in another time zone. The Aussies goal was to win the most medals possible with no regards for costs at all.

For Calgary, the examples are Calgary 88, Vancouver 2010, and London 2012.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by Frequitude

No they don’t. There isn’t much saying from a Calgary only perspective that this is a bad idea. Are the olympics as a whole poor spending? Yup. But that’s an entirely different debate. Do not confuse the two. We don’t.

Calgary is on the hook for cost overruns. The "insurance" they expect to get seems like a pipe dream, or will carry a $160 million premium. It's been pointed out the financing commitment to the Olympics will prevent the city from basically doing anything else meaningful for years due to debt limits. Acting like this is risk free money is blatantly ignoring the risks. Calgary hosting carries far more risk than you're willing to admit. If this were a sure thing a majority of council wouldn't have voted to kill the plebiscite.

[Frequitude]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Calgary is on the hook for cost overruns. The "insurance" they expect to get seems like a pipe dream, or will carry a $160 million premium. It's been pointed out the financing commitment to the Olympics will prevent the city from basically doing anything else meaningful for years. Acting like this is risk free money is blatantly ignoring the risks. Calgary hosting carries far more risk than you're willing to admit. If this were a sure thing a majority of council wouldn't have voted to kill the plebiscite.

Keeping the train rolling at putting words in the other side’s mouth and then debating them, hey. I don’t think I said anywhere that Calgary’s contribution was risk free? Of course there are risks. To say otherwise would be obtuse.

[bossy22]

Originally Posted by getbak

This is a pet peeve of mine, so let me transgress for a moment and point out that the only reason we can say that Edmonton has 3 field houses while Calgary has none is because the term "field house" is being used to describe certain facilities in Edmonton but not used to describe equivalent facilities in Calgary.

Let's look at the Calgary Multisport Fieldhouse Society's website, where this claim comes from: http://www.calgaryfieldhouse.ca/mission/




If you actually look up the facilities listed, Calgary absolutely has equivalent facilities to all of them. Most are nothing more than glorified Leisure Centres and most don't have any kind of indoor turf field.

None have a full 400m indoor running track.


If we look at just the three buildings listed from Edmonton (the list is out of date because the third fieldhouse has been open for a couple of years now)...

1. University (sic) Pavilion is actually the Universiade Pavilion, which is more-commonly known as the Butterdome. It has a 200m running track and no indoor turf. It has essentially the same facilities as the Jack Simpson Gym at the UofC.
2. Kinsmen Fieldhouse has both swimming pools and dryland facilities. It has a 200m running track and no indoor turf. It has the same facilities as you will find at the Repsol Centre (Lindsay Park).
3. Commonwealth Fieldhouse is the one facility that Calgary doesn't have an equivalent for. It does have an indoor turf field, but it's only a half-size field (64 x 64 m).

One thing that also gets ignored when talking about Calgary's lack of a field house is that the Foothills Soccer Club recently opened its own field house: http://calgaryfoothillssoccer.com/de...fieldhouse&l=1

This facility is quite basic compared to what is planned for the Multisport Fieldhouse, but if we're going to give other cities credit for naming a leisure centre a "Fieldhouse", then we should also count a facility that has a full indoor turf field.

What about Cochrane? Spray Lakes Sawmills has a new swimming center, curling rink (6 sheets), fitness center, 225m indoor track, indoor field that the roughnecks use to practice on (at least they used to), 3 hockey arenas, a climbing center, gymnastics center, and a gymnasium.

[Draug]

Originally Posted by bossy22

What about Cochrane? Spray Lakes Sawmills has a new swimming center, curling rink (6 sheets), fitness center, 225m indoor track, indoor field that the roughnecks use to practice on (at least they used to), 3 hockey arenas, a climbing center, gymnastics center, and a gymnasium.

And we still have Timbits ice time at 6:30 AM due to lack of ice available

[bossy22]

Originally Posted by Draug

And we still have Timbits ice time at 6:30 AM due to lack of ice available

Heh...yeah, it's kind of ridiculous. A town of 25k people has 4 arenas (3 at SLS and the old one) and ice is still hard to come by. What about EDGE and the two rinks in Springbank?


Sorry, I went off topic.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by bossy22

What about Cochrane? Spray Lakes Sawmills has a new swimming center, curling rink (6 sheets), fitness center, 225m indoor track, indoor field that the roughnecks use to practice on (at least they used to), 3 hockey arenas, a climbing center, gymnastics center, and a gymnasium.

I'm not sure what you're asking. What about Cochrane?

[sleepingmoose]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Calgary is on the hook for cost overruns. The "insurance" they expect to get seems like a pipe dream, or will carry a $160 million premium. It's been pointed out the financing commitment to the Olympics will prevent the city from basically doing anything else meaningful for years due to debt limits.

This was only mentioned in the case that Calgary had to take on $5bn of cost overruns alone. The $390 million that the City is down for is not nearly enough to put the City anywhere near debt limits. The fact that any security overruns are covered by the Feds is big, since that’s an area most prone to unexpected increases (due to world events).

[getbak]

Originally Posted by sleepingmoose

This was only mentioned in the case that Calgary had to take on $5bn of cost overruns alone. The $390 million that the City is down for is not nearly enough to put the City anywhere near debt limits. The fact that any security overruns are covered by the Feds is big, since that’s an area most prone to unexpected increases (due to world events).

Is it confirmed that the feds will pay for any security cost overruns?

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by getbak

Is it confirmed that the feds will pay for any security cost overruns?

Moran said so on the radio this morning.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by Frequitude

Keeping the train rolling at putting words in the other side’s mouth and then debating them, hey. I don’t think I said anywhere that Calgary’s contribution was risk free? Of course there are risks. To say otherwise would be obtuse.

Except you already have said passing on this is stupid (which suggests the risk is meaningless because it means passing on free money)

Originally Posted by Frequitude

Anyone who votes down billions of dollars of someone else’s money being spent in our city can move to Edmonton.

Hopefully the no side is just a noisy minority.

And I forgot this before, but you already pretty much admitted it was about the party (I guess slight credit for the sort of qualifier). Also, seeing as we basically did nothing to put the IOC over a barrel, surely you're very disappointed by that yeah?

Originally Posted by Frequitude

I don't get why anyone would say no without knowing the full details of a bid. We've got the IOC by the short and curlies here. Let's bid accordingly.

And I'm conscious about municipal funding and somewhat about provincial funding, but I don't give a hoot about federal money being spent or wasted on this. 'Bout time the transfer of wealth changed directions. Let's have a hell of a party on those sweet sweet Quebec and BC dollars.

I don't know, I think you and I both made up our minds a long time ago. I think if you objectively looked at the numbers and the process, you'd be more concerned than excited. I mean they were literally slapping numbers together less than 12 hours before a critical vote on this thing. Does that sounds like a financial plan you'd vote for if you were investing your own money? Yet your immediate response was "Passing on this means you should live in Edmonton". Doesn't sound to me like you had much consideration for the other side.

But you already said the party on those "sweet sweet Quebec and BC dollars" is crucial to you. I don't know, given the federal budget issues and significant financial issues coming to the fore federally (health care exploding soon, for instance), I'm not too keen on wasting any money if we can avoid it, be it BC money, Quebec money, or Canadian Tire money.

[La Flames Fan]

Originally Posted by getbak

Oh, and to tug on your heartstrings...

...incredible bit of editing there

[Frequitude]

Alright, you win Sen. You can have the last word too. There’s no point debating someone rooted in emotion instead of analysis. Or one who’s stuck on putting words in people’s mouths, framing them up, and arguing against them.

Hope you at least have it in you to speak to your stance that Calgary is on the hook for overruns in the face of contrary facts with respect to security costs.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by La Flames Fan

...incredible bit of editing there

Very well done. As I was watching it, I thought, "this better end with 'IGGY!'", and it did, so I was happy.

I especially liked the slo-mo close-up of Iggy making the pass while falling. That's a view of the goal we don't often see.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by Frequitude

Alright, you win Sen. You can have the last word too. There’s no point debating someone rooted in emotion instead of analysis. Or one who’s stuck on putting words in people’s mouths, framing them up, and arguing against them.

Hope you at least have it in you to speak to your stance that Calgary is on the hook for overruns in the face of contrary facts with respect to security costs.

I've made the analysis: It's a massive financial risk with dubious benefits. Nothing emotional about it. What's emotional is the BidCo saying they're sending out athletes and representatives to schools to pump up the bid. They're sending reps....to non-voters....because they have an analysis based case to make? Yeah I don't think so. Surely, you can admit that is a very poor look for such an "analysis" based case that they aren't going to voters to make the case, but to children. The Yes side came into chambers this week and played a video made up entirely of clips of 1988 and 2010. Does that sound like an analysis based case? Sadly you probably won't answer, but I would seriously love to hear your thoughts on that. Pretty tough to say they're not going to be making their push primarily on emotion. Because the financial case is mediocre, at best.

Of course I can admit Calgary is not on the hook for security overruns, that seems confirmed. And that's good. The other overruns? Yes they certainly are, unless you believe getting that insurance policy will be easy. Can they really get the insurance policy they say? Based off what I read, not really, or it will come with extremely restrictive terms and/or a high premium.

But this is an emotional debate. As I said the financial benefits are in the eye of the beholder, if you love the Olympics you will find ways to make the numbers seem great, and if you hate it you'll find reasons to tear the numbers apart. But the evidence is more on the against side, and surely you know that. And if you don't, then the age old question applies: If it's such a good financial deal, why are cities walking away more than ever?

[craigwd]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

I've made the analysis: It's a massive financial risk with dubious benefits. Nothing emotional about it. What's emotional is the BidCo saying they're sending out athletes and representatives to schools to pump up the bid. They're sending reps....to non-voters....because they have an analysis based case to make? Yeah I don't think so. Surely, you can admit that is a very poor look for such an "analysis" based case that they aren't going to voters to make the case, but to children. The Yes side came into chambers this week and played a video made up entirely of clips of 1988 and 2010. Does that sound like an analysis based case? Sadly you probably won't answer, but I would seriously love to hear your thoughts on that. Pretty tough to say they're not going to be making their push primarily on emotion. Because the financial case is mediocre, at best.

Of course I can admit Calgary is not on the hook for security overruns, that seems confirmed. And that's good. The other overruns? Yes they certainly are, unless you believe getting that insurance policy will be easy. Can they really get the insurance policy they say? Based off what I read, not really, or it will come with extremely restrictive terms and/or a high premium.

But this is an emotional debate. As I said the financial benefits are in the eye of the beholder, if you love the Olympics you will find ways to make the numbers seem great, and if you hate it you'll find reasons to tear the numbers apart. But the evidence is more on the against side, and surely you know that. And if you don't, then the age old question applies: If it's such a good financial deal, why are cities walking away more than ever?

And they also spent 7.5 hours on their feet presenting their case and answerinq questions about the bid in addition to the what, 9 hours on Sept 11 where they did the same thing in a presentation to council. Plus the info sessions they hold plus the bid presentation they gave at Jack Singer where they outlined the SWOT analysis of the bid.

Most people I know are voting yes based on the short term and long term benefits outweighing the costs. They see worth in a big investment in our community as well as an opportunity to showcase arts, sports and culture.

So it's pretty unfair to think that you are the only one that is thinking objectively when your only argument to that point is "your conclusion is different than mine".

[Locke]

Originally Posted by MoneyGuy

Because there are more important things than sports facilities. Such as paying down debt, health care, education and the tens of billions of dollars of crumbling infrastructure across the country. Some will say the government will just pi$$ it away anyway so why not, but I’d prefer those resources be used to get more teachers into classrooms and more hospitals than arenas, if that’s my choice.

Sorry, but our current Government currently already spends over half their money on Health Care and Education, at some point the law of diminishing returns kicks in.

Furthermore, this Provincial and Federal Government has never, ever, ever shown any indication that 'paying down debt' or 'fiscal responsibility in any capacity' has ever been a priority.

So if the people in Office dont know how to do anything but waste our money and have proven themselves World Leaders at it then what better opportunity than the Olympics? Its the World Stage of money wasting and we have just the people for the job! And we're the suckers who elected them!

You die by thine own hand.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by craigwd

And they also spent 7.5 hours on their feet presenting their case and answerinq questions about the bid in addition to the what, 9 hours on Sept 11 where they did the same thing in a presentation to council. Plus the info sessions they hold plus the bid presentation they gave at Jack Singer where they outlined the SWOT analysis of the bid.

Most people I know are voting yes based on the short term and long term benefits outweighing the costs. They see worth in a big investment in our community as well as an opportunity to showcase arts, sports and culture.

So it's pretty unfair to think that you are the only one that is thinking objectively when your only argument to that point is "your conclusion is different than mine".

I don't think I said I was objective, I'm pretty clearly not objective. I said I'm using analysis and not emotion. And yeah they did spend 7.5 hours presenting their case, which resulted in the majority of council voting to cancel the bid. The next 11 days are going to be arguments relating to $10 of benefit for every $1 spent (a lie), making the case at schools (???), and Donovan Bailey and Eddie the Eagle and probably the Jamaican bobsled team at some point. The BidCo isn't running anymore on an analysis argument, it's about "Gee, aren't the Olympics great?".

[DownhillGoat]

Originally Posted by bossy22

What about Cochrane?

We don't get to vote in your plebiscite, you don't get to count our fieldhouse.