- I don’t want my property taxes going up.
Yet at the cbc townhall they said they would go up 1.5% which is $25/year and that’s only if other sources of funding don’t cover it
- Edmonton’s getting our games.
Ummm no they’re not getting any of our games. Whistler is getting ski jumping and cross country which i’m fine with to reduce our expenses. If there’s a world class site close by let’s use it. It’s 155 athletes out of 5000. Southern Alberta may get curling. I’m fine with that.
- Nenshi and council is corrupt and so is the IOC.
Ok maybe they are but i’m not going to let an economic driver pass us by because of it. Our city could use an economic boost since it isn’t coming from oil anytime soon. The IOC is trying to change their image with community involvement and community sense. They have to start somewhere.
- too much risk of cost over runs. Look at Japan.
We’re not Japan, we don’t do things like Japan and we’re hosting a winter olympics not a summer olympics. Winter olympics are smaller.
We also have 85% of the venues already built. Not as much risk to cost overruns when it’s already built.
Let’s see...
- if you think property taxes are set to rise $25 I have a bridge to sell you. Come on man...Jesus Christ
- agree it’s clear Edmonton is not a part of this and that is good!
- I don’t think Nenshi is “corrupt” but I think he’s highly personally motivated. It’s a big risk to take being the first “change of face” host location for the IOC so yeah I think it’s completely fair and rational to be skeptical of that
- the Japanese are actually a whole hell of a lot more conservative than we are culturally from my understanding but notwithstanding that I agree it’s no guarantee we see massive cost overruns but if you don’t think there is significant risk here I would argue you’re viewing this with emotion and not being objective about it
I’m closer to a yes but still an absolute and unequivocal NO vote. I think if Calgary wants to do this we should see how things go for our economy over the next few years and try again in 2034 or 2038 if things turn around at all. But right now with capital programs massively being slashed, capital investment in E&P oil and gas in Canada 2018 being 1.9B vs prior years 2018 19 B or 20B year before kinda thing... the junior sector in oil and gas has been absolutely unfunded and demolished. What you’ll see, is our economy over the next 2-4 years getting murdered as capital flight continues and production reduces. We are in for a very, very bleak economic near term future so to run around hosting a party strikes me as insanely irresponsible.
Calgary is in some serious, serious trouble in the short term. Oil is $18/bbl today. Gas is terrible. NGL’s are in trouble on futures. People can’t justify drilling. Oil and gas is the breadbasket of this city. We are in massive trouble and we are going to host a party?
Last edited by Mr.Coffee; 11-09-2018 at 06:00 PM.
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Calgary is in some serious, serious trouble in the short term. Oil is $18/bbl today. Gas is terrible. NGL’s are in trouble on futures. People can’t justify drilling. Oil and gas is the breadbasket of this city. We are in massive trouble and we are going to host a party?
I have trouble with this narrative of just "a party". Anyone who has spent any time in Calgary knows that the games and its legacy entails far more than the two weeks. The two weeks is great, but being honest, we all know it is a pretty long lasting endeavor.
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I have trouble with this narrative of just "a party". Anyone who has spent any time in Calgary knows that the games and its legacy entails far more than the two weeks. The two weeks is great, but being honest, we all know it is a pretty long lasting endeavor.
This. It's not like everything they build for the olympics will just get torn down after, there's a long term benefit of just the infrastructure alone.
Whether than benefit will outweigh the cost someone that's more read up on the matter will have to answer, but the 'why spend all the money for a two week event' argument is silly
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My entire point is that using the powers of logic I can all but guarantee that the cost is going to be substantially over budget because those who made the budget are corrupted and biased and purposefully low-balled the budget for political purposes. And if Calgary is responsible for the entire cost overrun, we're basically getting bent over hard.
I think it's very unfair for so people to call Mary Moran, Mary Conibear and Scott Hutcheson, the 3 faces of the 2026 Bid, "corrupt".
They are working extremely hard, have put in countless hours and respond to every question with dignity and respect. They have also done so much research and put a lot of effort into creating this bid.
Oppose the bid on it's own for whatever reason, but don't question their character; especially with the work they've done in the past. Was Moran corrupt when she helped created the Amazon Fight A Bear campaign with the CED? Was Conibear corrupt when she was managing operations during Vancouver 2010, was Hutcheson corrupt when he chairs non-profit organizations?
Please check these insults at the door. They are Sean Chu "Calgary 2026 made me think of Enron" levels of ridiculousness.
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I'm a big fan of the Olympics, and seem to especially get caught up in the Winter Olympics. When a Calgary 2026 games was being floated around initially, I was intrigued. We could reuse some facilities, and maybe pull off an economical Olympics. I thought "Maybe if we can get a bunch of concessions from the IOC, it could make sense financially."
The danger was that if Calgary is really the first city to do a low-budget games, it might reflect poorly on us. I would rather some European city do a budget games that reuses old facilities first, so at least Calgary isn't forever seen as the el-cheapo turning point for the games.
But the city has went ahead pursuing a 2026 games. In the proposed bid we get a new field house (that supposedly would get built anyways), a community arena that no one would have proposed if it weren't for the Olympics, and $500 million of new paint on some old facilities. The return on the investment is measured in "legacy". And hey, if everything goes according to the budget, maybe it's all a wash.
But I wanted to see more pressure on the IOC to help make hosting their games more economical. Even if it doesn't matter a whole lot to the bottom line, it would help the optics for the locals. Things like not giving the IOC members free tickets to scalp. Likewise not reserving large swaths of tickets for sponsors and athlete entourages only for them not to show up.
And since the risk of cost overruns seems to be a big concern for 'No' voters, maybe pressure the IOC to commit to helping in this respect. I'm sure I don't understand the scope and complexity around all that is involved with preparing and running these games, but it seems no one does, especially with the public talk about getting overrun insurance and if that even exists. So there are lots of different types of overruns (like scope change or unexpected costs), but assuming the IOC and its subsidiary organizations have some involvement with planning the games, they should have something to lose when budgets start ballooning. It's great NBC gave them all those billions of dollars, but they should stand to lose some of it if their organization can't help keep the hosting budget on track. Why should the host city bear all the risk of overruns? Especially when a bunch of the IOC's $1.2 billion is "contributions of services". Can't some of their highly paid experts be held responsible for keeping things on track? Again, I'm just asking for some help with the optics. Something like "IOC agrees to pay 20% of cost overruns that meet this narrow definition of overrun".
So basically, I'm still open to the idea of the Olympics, but only if there is a whole lot of "#### the IOC" as part the proposal. So I'm a 'No' for 2026, but if the IOC gets a little more desperate, maybe a future bid could work.
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- if you think property taxes are set to rise $25 I have a bridge to sell you. Come on man...Jesus Christ
- agree it’s clear Edmonton is not a part of this and that is good!
- I don’t think Nenshi is “corrupt” but I think he’s highly personally motivated. It’s a big risk to take being the first “change of face” host location for the IOC so yeah I think it’s completely fair and rational to be skeptical of that
- the Japanese are actually a whole hell of a lot more conservative than we are culturally from my understanding but notwithstanding that I agree it’s no guarantee we see massive cost overruns but if you don’t think there is significant risk here I would argue you’re viewing this with emotion and not being objective about it
I’m closer to a yes but still an absolute and unequivocal NO vote. I think if Calgary wants to do this we should see how things go for our economy over the next few years and try again in 2034 or 2038 if things turn around at all. But right now with capital programs massively being slashed, capital investment in E&P oil and gas in Canada 2018 being 1.9B vs prior years 2018 19 B or 20B year before kinda thing... the junior sector in oil and gas has been absolutely unfunded and demolished. What you’ll see, is our economy over the next 2-4 years getting murdered as capital flight continues and production reduces. We are in for a very, very bleak economic near term future so to run around hosting a party strikes me as insanely irresponsible.
Calgary is in some serious, serious trouble in the short term. Oil is $18/bbl today. Gas is terrible. NGL’s are in trouble on futures. People can’t justify drilling. Oil and gas is the breadbasket of this city. We are in massive trouble and we are going to host a party?
This narritve of Calgary’s a ####hole and in trouble is tiring from both sides. The sustaining production of current oil sites will continue to support jobs in Calgary even at $20 WCS. $20 WCS is temporary. These layoffs from lack of foreign investment and capital flight have already occurred. We are at what sustained low oil prices look like. Now if I am wrong and instead we are in serious trouble then spending on the Olympics won’t matter as we are in serious trouble. The money spent on the Olympics wil just come out of other Capital projects. It means less overpasses if budgets are blown. That is completely irrelevant to how Oil and Gas are doing.
The city can do nothing to affect the macroeconomic conditions so using that as an argument for or against doesn’t make sense.
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Interesting info from Coun. Gondek today. While she believes that it’s not the best deal for Calgary, she stops short of encouraging a No vote and
Quote:
Gondek said city council has agreed to abide by the results of the plebiscite, whatever the result, and in many ways the decision will be made for them
Assuming it’s true, looks like any Yes vote will mean the bid moves forward regardless - unless the current deal changes for the worse.
This. It's not like everything they build for the olympics will just get torn down after, there's a long term benefit of just the infrastructure alone.
Whether than benefit will outweigh the cost someone that's more read up on the matter will have to answer, but the 'why spend all the money for a two week event' argument is silly
Can you provide actual examples of what will be built that will benefit Calgarians long after? In 1988 I think COP would be a good example. This time around I can't really think of anything off the top of my head but I also haven't looked into it.
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- if you think property taxes are set to rise $25 I have a bridge to sell you. Come on man...Jesus Christ
- agree it’s clear Edmonton is not a part of this and that is good!
- I don’t think Nenshi is “corrupt” but I think he’s highly personally motivated. It’s a big risk to take being the first “change of face” host location for the IOC so yeah I think it’s completely fair and rational to be skeptical of that
- the Japanese are actually a whole hell of a lot more conservative than we are culturally from my understanding but notwithstanding that I agree it’s no guarantee we see massive cost overruns but if you don’t think there is significant risk here I would argue you’re viewing this with emotion and not being objective about it
I’m closer to a yes but still an absolute and unequivocal NO vote. I think if Calgary wants to do this we should see how things go for our economy over the next few years and try again in 2034 or 2038 if things turn around at all. But right now with capital programs massively being slashed, capital investment in E&P oil and gas in Canada 2018 being 1.9B vs prior years 2018 19 B or 20B year before kinda thing... the junior sector in oil and gas has been absolutely unfunded and demolished. What you’ll see, is our economy over the next 2-4 years getting murdered as capital flight continues and production reduces. We are in for a very, very bleak economic near term future so to run around hosting a party strikes me as insanely irresponsible.
Calgary is in some serious, serious trouble in the short term. Oil is $18/bbl today. Gas is terrible. NGL’s are in trouble on futures. People can’t justify drilling. Oil and gas is the breadbasket of this city. We are in massive trouble and we are going to host a party?
Welp, Trevor Toombe who’s an economist has figured out that taxes would go up $25 annually. It was repeated at the cbc town hall. If you have different tax projections from credible sources, would you mind sharing your results? If the results are higher i would really like to know beofre i vote on tuesday.
Just reminding you that taxes would go up if the city can’t find other aources of revenue from the games. There’s also a billion dollar contingency built into the budget and our venues are 85% built.
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Correct me if i’m wrong but doesn’t McMahon stadium belong to the university of Calgary? If so, it is publicly funded and us the taxpayer will be paying for all future renovations.
If that’s the case, anyone voting “no” is partially voting for renovations to McMahon to be done out of us, the taxpayers pockets.
The stadium is 60 years old and in desperate need of repair. Big opportunity here to have outside money pay for the renovations.
On a further note, it would be really nice to have private money (csec) privately build a football stadium which would offload the costs of McMahon.
Re-igniting talks with csec might be more beneficial to Calgarians and taxpayers than i thought.
Welp, Trevor Toombe who’s an economist has figured out that taxes would go up $25 annually. It was repeated at the cbc town hall. If you have different tax projections from credible sources, would you mind sharing your results? If the results are higher i would really like to know beofre i vote on tuesday.
Just reminding you that taxes would go up if the city can’t find other aources of revenue from the games. There’s also a billion dollar contingency built into the budget and our venues are 85% built.
And as has been discussed before the taxes will rise much more than that. I have friends that have told me that we should believe Toombe over Ernst and Young. These friends are very smart people and I’m led to believe that we should buy whatever Trevor Toombe says as literal dogma and if he offered to sell us anything we should take it because Trevor Toombe is Trevor Toombe and holy #### never question Trevor Toombe.
Did Trevor Toombe outlay his assumptions or math to arrive at $25? As JBR says, show your work???
If there are 200,000 places that pay property taxes in Calgary at 500,000,000 it’s $2,500/ place. I’m aware it’s not this simple and I’m aware my numbers are dubious but I’m also highly, highly, incredibly highly skeptical it’s $25 on property taxes especially with no context or numbers or backup or anything. And most shocking is that people like you who are so enamoured and borderline cultish and closed minded about how important this is for some bizarre reason cruise on here and lap up Trevor Toombe analysis like it’s religious dogma.
Again get real. $25 in property taxes? You would have to be a complete and utter moron to believe that without context.
This narritve of Calgary’s a ####hole and in trouble is tiring from both sides. The sustaining production of current oil sites will continue to support jobs in Calgary even at $20 WCS. $20 WCS is temporary. These layoffs from lack of foreign investment and capital flight have already occurred. We are at what sustained low oil prices look like. Now if I am wrong and instead we are in serious trouble then spending on the Olympics won’t matter as we are in serious trouble. The money spent on the Olympics wil just come out of other Capital projects. It means less overpasses if budgets are blown. That is completely irrelevant to how Oil and Gas are doing.
The city can do nothing to affect the macroeconomic conditions so using that as an argument for or against doesn’t make sense.
So Calgary is not a ####hole, I never said that.
Moving on, you couldn’t be more wrong. What’s happened on differentials has actually occurred more to the point over the last two weeks in particular. Basically diffs and investment analysis has become a disaster over like the last one month to two weeks. That’s why what were planned for 2019 capital programs in August and Sept are absolutely not the same capital programs people are talking about in Oct and November. Things are changing fast to the downside. Do you follow the stock market?
You people need to understand something. Calgary is in trouble. Like you think things are rebounding when the country can’t get product out and supply is increasing with no way to move it! Do you think Keystone getting shut down in Montana yesterday helps?
Get a grip. The red alert button has been on in industry for the entire year and over the last month panic has actually started to settle in and you can sense it.just because some macroeconomic rube cruises in and says well 2017 Alberta still was the best provincial economy does not make it true looking forward. You think jobs are stable at $20/bbl???
It’s devils advocates like you that do not help the narrative and we all need to be pulling in the same directly at this point.
Industry needs support not questions. Industry needs help not uncertainty. The quality of life for Calgarians is at significant risk. It has never been as bad as it is today in Calgary including the early 1980’s when we were contemplating 1988 Olympics. There wasn’t the environmentalist nonsense. There wasn’t the inability to build a company and there certainly wasn’t the massive capital flight from the investment community.
The alarm bells should be loud and clear and yet we have people like you walking along not understanding how serious it is and others hoping we focus on and host the ####ing Olympics.
It’s absolutely the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen in my life in Calgary.
And no, the 0.000001% of Olympians who use these facilities to train in the future do not make an economy for the thousands of Calgarians who depend on these jobs, hundreds of thousands of Albertans who depend on these jobs and this sector or millions of Canadians who economically benefit from the oil patch today.
Calgary is one of the highest quality of life cities in the entire world now let me ask you. Was that because of oil and gas and business or was that because of the 1988 Olympics?
I’ll tell you what we should do with $500MM since we seem to have it to throw around. We should invite business leaders and politicians to Calgary constantly to drum up a transitional industry(ies) to Calgary to set up shop. We should provide subsidies tax advantages and breaks on utilities to new industry to create businesses in Calgary that will have jobs. Like our Amazon bid. We should not be ####ing around with corruption via the IOC and bolstering Nenshi and city hall and BidCos personally motivated profiles by hosting an expensive PARTY that is not a lasting economic impression on the city of Calgary.
We are in trouble short term. Watch.
Last edited by Mr.Coffee; 11-09-2018 at 09:58 PM.
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The federal government will contribute $1.42 billion, while the province chips in $700 million, and the City of Calgary will contribute $390 million. These are manageable.
What does it mean to you? Well.
The city raises just over half its property taxes from businesses, and just under half from homeowners. Split between the two, the $390-million cost is equivalent to more than $350 per residential property in the city and nearly $15,000 per non-residential property (i.e., business).
We don't know how the city plans to fund this, but let's presume it simply takes out more debt. This means future interest costs and repayments that would require something around a 1.3 per cent increase in annual property taxes, or $25 annually for the median home owner, but significantly more for the typical business. (This is napkin math, but gives a good sense of scale.)
For residential property tax it's only a Peace Bridge per year until 2026.
And what does that mean? Why is this so hard? Why can’t the city or BidCo just say here is scenario X which is on budget games and tax impact and here are over budget games and here’s your impact?
Also it’s indefinite not until 2026.
Also it will be more than $25... much, much more. come on now
And as has been discussed before the taxes will rise much more than that. I have friends that have told me that we should believe Toombe over Ernst and Young. These friends are very smart people and I’m led to believe that we should buy whatever Trevor Toombe says as literal dogma and if he offered to sell us anything we should take it because Trevor Toombe is Trevor Toombe and holy #### never question Trevor Toombe.
Did Trevor Toombe outlay his assumptions or math to arrive at $25? As JBR says, show your work???
If there are 200,000 places that pay property taxes in Calgary at 500,000,000 it’s $2,500/ place. I’m aware it’s not this simple and I’m aware my numbers are dubious but I’m also highly, highly, incredibly highly skeptical it’s $25 on property taxes especially with no context or numbers or backup or anything. And most shocking is that people like you who are so enamoured and borderline cultish and closed minded about how important this is for some bizarre reason cruise on here and lap up Trevor Toombe analysis like it’s religious dogma.
Again get real. $25 in property taxes? You would have to be a complete and utter moron to believe that without context.
Let me help you out.
There were 558,915 dwellings in Calgary in 2016 according to statscan.
The total cost to Calgarians quoted by bidco was $390 million
The length of repayment was 8 years from now till the olympics
Assuming the municipal cost of the olympics is fully covered by residential taxes. Commercial and industrial get a free pass:
$390 million/558,915 dwellings over 8 years = $87 per houshold per year
Or $7 per house
But the dwelling numbers will probably rise in the next 8 years and business taxes in the city are higher than residential.
If you don’t like bidco’s cost to calgarians, let’s use $540 million. Assuming only residential property taxes are paying the cost then the annual rise in property taxes is $120/year or $10/month per household.
But what if the cities cost rises to $2 billion? Well that’s why they have insurance and contingencies built in. With 85% of the venues in place i would think those kind of overages are unlikely.
- $2,057.43/Calgary household… No cost overruns
- $5,810.07/Calgary household… 65 per cent cost overruns (same as Calgary 1988)
- $10,967.96/Calgary household… 142 per cent cost overruns (average for winter Olympics)
Spoiler!
The Calculation
CTF analysis divides the total Olympics tax bill facing Calgarians, $1.057 billion (federal portion + provincial portion + municipal commitment), by the number of Calgary households, 513,878. This results in the best case scenario of $2,057.43 per household. The same calculation is done to get the cost associated with overruns ($5,810.07 = $2.986 billion/513,878 households); ($10,967.96 = $5.636 billion/513,878 households).
The calculation assumes the federal government commits the full amount under its policy for hosting international sporting events. Under the policy, federal commitments will not exceed 35 per cent of total costs or 50 per cent of the taxpayer tab. When there are no overruns, the federal government can provide up to 50 per cent of the taxpayer tab. With 65 per cent cost overruns (overruns during 1988 Calgary Olympics) and 142 per cent overruns (average winter Olympics overruns), the federal government pays 35 per cent of the total event cost (50 per cent of taxpayer tab exceeds 35 per cent of total cost).
The calculation uses the $700 million contribution announced by the Alberta government. As per the Alberta government’s announcement, the calculation does not allow for the province to pay for cost overruns.
The calculation assumes the city of Calgary will pay the remainder of the taxpayer bill.
The calculation uses 513,878 households (total household dwellings in Calgary as of April 2018 – non-residential use dwellings). This number is larger than the total assessed residential properties in 2018 and the number of households identified in the 2016 Canadian census. If the CTF used the smaller household figures, the cost per household would be greater.
The $2,000 figure is a best case scenario as it does not include any cost overruns, interest payments or any further costs not included in Calgary 2026's hosting plan. The figure doesn’t include the price of attending Olympic events.
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Why would it be indefinite? Once they're paid off, they're paid off. Unless you mean in the generic "taxes only ever move in one direction" sense, but that's a silly way to look at it.
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