Should Calgary Bid on the 2026 Olympics

[Jacks]

This reminds me of the Calgary Next thing also, it bugged me when people included the land clean up as part of the cost of the arena and stadium. Yes that money needs to come from somewhere, and it is a cost, but we need to clean up that land at some point. It only gets more expensive as every year passes and a time with a huge economic downturn and high unemployment would be the logical time to get something like that done. Take money from the stupid lightbulb program and the other feel good crap that this government flushes down the toilet every day and do something that is actually going to make a difference in our environment.

[Joborule]

Originally Posted by Tyler

Call it a conspiracy theory, but I have a sneaking suspicion the Flames and City are going to come to an agreement for a new arena deal just weeks before the plebiscite to swing the yes vote.

Too much infrastructure dollars on the table for the city NOT to leverage a bid here.

If Calgarians go to the polls knowing that Olympics = New Arena deal, I can't help but see an overwhelming Yes come out of the plebiscite.

If it does happen, the Flames have been very smart and will have outwaited a city that thought they had the upper hand.

That seems very likely that's what gonna happen. CSEC has a lot to gain from this, and if they can play politics again, and get people to think 'Olympics = New Arena = Flames Stay', then a lot of people will swing their vote in favour simply because of that. It's really silly since this is turning something that's +500M to +2.5B(?) from the governments. Although if the city only ends up contributing around 500-700M for the Olympics, and everyone else covers the costs, then that's a pretty sweet deal for the city considering you get more than just the arena built with it, for the same costs as the arena.

Lots of the criticism is the cost overruns, and how much we're on the hook for it. (And if there is already costs accounted for here, let me know) It's a valid concern, but isn't the whole point of this 'recycled' Olympics is to avoid this from going over budget? Comparing this to what has happen in Sochi and Pyeongchang isn't fair, considering they were different in how the facilities were used before the games, and after. Calgary doesn't have to build everything new. That's the appeal here. Build a couple things we need new, and refurbished everything else that we currently use.

[Joborule]

Originally Posted by Jacks

This reminds me of the Calgary Next thing also, it bugged me when people included the land clean up as part of the cost of the arena and stadium. Yes that money needs to come from somewhere, and it is a cost, but we need to clean up that land at some point. It only gets more expensive as every year passes and a time with a huge economic downturn and high unemployment would be the logical time to get something like that done. Take money from the stupid lightbulb program and the other feel good crap that this government flushes down the toilet every day and do something that is actually going to make a difference in our environment.

Since talking about CalgaryNEXT is alive and well again...

The primary issue with that is that there was already a better plan in place for the area, that will benefit the city more in the long term, and the fieldhouse component was worse off in the west village location, than it's intended location in Foothills. It's better there since transportation logistics was more favourable, and the university is next door, and should be a major tenant.

[Jacks]

^^

I get that but that's not what I was talking about, I was merely stating that the remediation costs should not be included in the arena/stadium costs. We have to clean that up eventually regardless.

[Joborule]

Originally Posted by Jacks

^^

I get that but that's not what I was talking about, I was merely stating that the remediation costs should not be included in the arena/stadium costs. We have to clean that up eventually regardless.

I'm finding that difficult to understand considering that would have to be a prerequisite in getting the arena built in the first place. You have to fund, and start the cleanup, before the construction of CalgaryNEXT could begin. How could it not be included in the costs?

[Jacks]

Because we can't just leave the land like that forever, something will be built there at some point. Not even taking into account that we have creosote soaked land right next to our main water source. Whether that land becomes an arena, commercial, residential or whatever we need to deal with it eventually.

[RM14]

Ya the West Village land clean up should be funded by the province (waterway) and federal (still collecting taxes from the company that cause the environmental damage, and the city (because they own some of the land). Such a nice stretch of river in our city and could be so much more than a freeway and unusable land.

[OldDutch]

Originally Posted by sureLoss

Provincial government comes up short

Meghan Potkins @mpotkins
�� BREAKING: The provincial government has offered up $700 million towards cost of Calgary hosting the 2026 Winter Olympic Games — falling short of the $1 billion that was hoped for by the city. �� More to come... #yyccc #ableg #cdnpoli #Calgary2026 #yyc

LOL. The in tough to win Calgary and thus the election NDP had a chance to buy votes in Calgary and boofed. The wasteful NDP that put us 10s of billions in debt has half arse supported Calgary.

Looks like Notley was worried about how this will play in her post election home of Edmonton. Preparing to go back to 4 seats allready.

These guys are just bad at finances and politics in general. I felt bad for Notley but this political blunder removes that.

[Northendzone]

Wow jaborule, you have a lot of faith in the Olympics being.on budget because they are recycling faci!ities.

[zhulander]

Originally Posted by Tyler

Your #'s are incorrect. The IOC committed $900M USD to our bid (~1.2B CDN)

I literally copy and pasted pg 11 from: https://www.calgary2026.ca/s/Bidco-H...nsedSept27.pdf


Where is this $900M USD number coming from?

[zhulander]

Originally Posted by GGG

Well you can go through the first document they produced for the 4.3 billion dollar games and it has dollar values to be spent on each venue and decide if those venues add value. The mystery component in that is housing and how much low income housing does Calgary actually get left with. It’s very unclear in the bid package.

It’s also myopic to look at the federal and provincial portions as free money. Maybe the federal but the provincial money is coming out of future grants to calgaey

[Manhattanboy]

Wonder if Jason Kenny chimes in to leave the door open to a larger funding commitment?

[Senator Clay Davis]

When he intends on cutting spending on services, saying "Oh yeah lets spend more on a party" isn't exactly going to enhance his chances of winning. If anything I could see Kenney reading the leaves and possibly offering no money. He's basically got the Calgary vote on lockdown, so to push into the NDP territory of Edmonton, stiffing Calgary is a pretty good play, especially if he goes with "I'll give Edmonton money for World Cup hosting, but #### the Olympics"

[Sr. Mints]

Got my mail-in ballot yesterday. I was all prepared to show documentation that i'm basically an invalid becasue I heard or read that's what they want when you apply for a mail-in ballot. But I guess not?

Still on the fence

[Fighting Banana Slug]

These advertisements suggesting you should consult your kids before voting is idiotic. WTF do they know? If I consulted my kids, they would want Alberta to secede and join Disneyland.

[DiracSpike]

Originally Posted by Fighting Banana Slug

These advertisements suggesting you should consult your kids before voting is idiotic. WTF do they know? If I consulted my kids, they would want Alberta to secede and join Disneyland.

Yeah I saw that for the first time today too, it was a pretty gross commercial. I'm happy that some girl says she'll be an engineer in 2026 but I don't know what that has to do with shelling out over a billion dollars for a two week party.

[Joborule]

It is a dumb commercial. They really missed the mark in what they're trying to sell.

[GullFoss]

I only want the games to go ahead if it the cost-benefit is positive for each of the country, province and city.

Government on the hook for $3b.

- subtract what city needs to spend on infrastructure anyways (0.5b-1b)
- subtract income tax collection on costs and multipliers (0.7-2b)
-subtract income tax from tourism and ticket sales ($0.1m)

Conclusion: It won't break even. So ioc needs to contribute about more until it looks fair. This is what fair looks like to me based on back of envelope net benefit calculations:

Province: $0.8
City: $0.5
Feds: $1.0
Ioc: $1.8
Tickets: $1.1

What's interesting in my back of envelope math of net benefit to province ($0.8b) is similar to what they offered ($0.7b). So they might have made their offer based on similar calculations.

Part of me hopes the world has no Olympics in 2026 so ioc is embarrassed and forces member countries to do major overhaul of the corrupt ioc and fifa.

[sleepingmoose]

I’m not sure what having no Winter Olympics would do to help weed out corruption in FIFA.

[OMG!WTF!]

I'm struggling to understand the Whistler connection here. I've read several recent articles and Whistler is just as confused. They're like Hey, it's still going to cost us hundreds of millions to get our stuff ready and host this. You oily hicks planning to pay up or what? I've read that the total saving would be 50 million. So for that I'd rather refurbish our stuff and keep those events here. How are they going to sort this out in a month so we know what we're voting for?