Olympics 2026 Potential Bid Thread

[patm]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

I think Peter was more aiming for creating the right conditions for home-grown business and such, but maybe your U of C comment is actually the path for that. I'm curious if there's any major field where Canada does not have a world-class school?

The thing is Calgary doesn't have anything going for it that would make it a good place to start a business that could develop into a powerhouse outside of local services.

We're landlocked, our university is mediocre, we only have one real industry with an ecosystem here and generally people don't want to live here over the cities we're competing for business with.

We are really just hoping for a miracle at this point.

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

I find the: lets do other things comments disingenuous as they over estimate what the investment was going to be from Calgary - it wasn't big enough in the all eggs in one basket way. It was 1.5 airport tunnels. Especially from certain councillors who in the same thought talk about things which were explicitly part of the Olympic Bid, that they now think we should focus on outside of the Olympics.

But what can we do now about that? Nothing. We will just have to see if the anti-spenders now pivot to oppose just about every investment proposed in One City, and whether the investor faction on council can keep getting things through the process.

It was quite a success for the Brett Wilson, Ken King, Jay Westman slate (Chu, Mags, Gondek Farkas and so on) and kudos to them for bring Druh into their fold on this one also. Well done!

[jawagord]

Originally Posted by suburbia

Even if you just count $390M for $1B in salaries for Calgarians it is an exceptional deal.



I actually don't mind that opinion, because I think with the no vote, we should halt on any tax funds towards sports facilities. That being said, I included it because people like Corndogger have been pushin' up the need for a fieldhouse rather regularly (which I'm surprised you don't see or respond to).

Calgary's GDP is about 120 billion dollars per year. Add 4-5 billion dollars of Olympic spending spread out over 4-5 years and we are talking nothing significant to Calgary. We could have a new field house now but our Mayor and City council decided a new Library was more important. We could have a lower office vacancy but our Mayor and City council decided to keep approving shiny new office tower construction.

Oil and Gas in Western Canada will bounce back at some point (natural gas futures are having a price surge in the US this week) and Calgary will boom again, it's happened before, it just never seems to be on the time table our spendthrift politicians expect.

https://www.calgaryeconomicdevelopme...dmsdocument/87

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by suburbia

It was quite a success for the Brett Wilson, Ken King, Jay Westman slate (Chu, Mags, Gondek Farkas and so on) and kudos to them for bring Druh into their fold on this one also. Well done!

Suburbia sure likes fake news. That's about as absurd a conspiracy theory as you can get, Ken King and Jay Westman were in cahoots with Druh Farrell and Jyoti Gondek. You got any evidence for that?

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Suburbia sure likes fake news. That's about as absurd a conspiracy theory as you can get, Ken King and Jay Westman were in cahoots with Druh Farrell and Jyoti Gondek. You got any evidence for that?

Druh was the outlier, undoubtedly, but regarding the rest, absolutely. And frankly, to claim that Mags, Chu and Gondek weren't in cahoots with Westman, when Westman advocated for them in an e-mail to all his staff and enriched their campaigns through his network, is a little rich (no pun intended).

At the end of the day, Calgarians have spoken, and they clearly do not want tax dollars going towards sporting facilities, so we all have to live with that.

Anyway, congratulations on getting off the Montreal tunnels. LOL!

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by jawagord

Calgary's GDP is about 120 billion dollars per year. Add 4-5 billion dollars of Olympic spending spread out over 4-5 years and we are talking nothing significant to Calgary.

Oh absolutely. And that's why a mere $390M over the period between now and the Olympics was absolutely minuscule. Something less than $2 per month per household. Of course, GDP injection into the Calgary economy from the Olympics would be more than the operational and capital spend, because it would include tourist spend at hotels, restaurants, tourist venues, travel, etcetera - all of which are not part of the operational and capital numbers.

Originally Posted by jawagord

We could have a new field house now but our Mayor and City council decided a new Library was more important. We could have a lower office vacancy but our Mayor and City council decided to keep approving shiny new office tower construction.

Okay so there we go with the hate on the public library infrastructure. And placing construction applications at the feet of the mayor's office is just absolutely laughable. Almost as much as when people suggest Murray Edwards pays Alberta taxes. Indeed a new fieldhouse could be fully on the table now, but Calgarians voted to not use tax dollars for sports or sports infrastructure. We should listen to them.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by suburbia

Druh was the outlier, undoubtedly, but regarding the rest, absolutely. And frankly, to claim that Mags, Chu and Gondek weren't in cahoots with Westman, when Westman advocated for them in an e-mail to all his staff and enriched their campaigns through his network, is a little rich (no pun intended).

At the end of the day, Calgarians have spoken, and they clearly do not want tax dollars going towards sporting facilities, so we all have to live with that.

Anyway, congratulations on getting off the Montreal tunnels. LOL!

That was all you. No evidence for this claim either though, I see. You can blame whoever you want, but at the end of the day the yes side and Olympic bid corporation did an incredibly poor job of creating an olympic bid people could get behind, they deserved defeat.

I voted yes, for the record and do think it would have been a good deal. But I can totally see why people voted no. When even the majority of the councillors have no faith in the bid what does that say? People are cynical and sick of being lied to - I know I am, and was particularly annoyed when the solution to the funding agreement was to simply cross out the price and write a lower one in.

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by milomilo

I voted yes, for the record

I'm sure you did. But at the end of the day, the people of this city have spoken, and they do not want any tax dollars going to sports or sports facilities. We need to respect that.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by suburbia

I'm sure you did. But at the end of the day, the people of this city have spoken, and they do not want any tax dollars going to sports or sports facilities. We need to respect that.

You're creating a false narrative. They voted no to the Olympics.

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by milomilo

You're creating a false narrative. They voted no to the Olympics.

They voted no because it required spending tax money on sporting facilities for the Olympics and for 30 years of use by Calgarians. To suggest that facilities for the Olympics are not for Calgarians and Canadians to enjoy sports in is a farce of epic proportions. The Olympic Oval is an exceptional example. Still considered among the fastest, if not thee fastest, ice on the planet.

I think it is similar to the frankly much greater resistance to subsidizing the proposed Flames facility proposal to the tune of $1B dollars (almost three times more than the total municipal spend on the Olympics). Of course, the much stronger no sentiment for that one was because it would not actually contribute to our GDP (because it brought no money into the province) and because it would further enrich a very small number of Flames billionaire owners, some of whom who do not even pay taxes in this jurisdiction, and whose foundation has been under great scrutiny for mismanagement.

[milomilo]

Where are you getting this $1B figure from? I'm absolutely against subsidizing the arena, but I'd rather stick to the facts. The City's stated contribution was $185m.

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Where are you getting this $1B figure from? I'm absolutely against subsidizing the arena, but I'd rather stick to the facts. The City's stated contribution was $185m.

The flames proposed facility was not arena. Further, the Flames had proposed some "creative" accounting that could extract a total cost for their Next proposal of a cool $1.2B-$1.4B from the City of Calgary out of a total cost of $1.8B, IE us. Go back and look at the appropriate thread for the details, or see this link:
http://bfy.tw/KrvG

Going forward, please move your subsidy advocacy for Flames billionaires discussion to the new arena thread.

[milomilo]

Oh leave out the attempts to moderate, you're not fooling anyone with your thread derailments. It's you that keeps mentioning the Flames arena.

And sorry, are you incapable of reading? My exact words were 'I'm absolutely against subsidizing the arena', so I'm not sure how you could interpret that 'subsidy advocacy for Flames billionaires'.

And you're using the old Calgary Next proposal which was rightly laughed out of City Hall. The only serious proposal so far has been the Vic Park option, where the subsidy was nowhere near $1B.

[Corndogger]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Oh leave out the attempts to moderate, you're not fooling anyone with your thread derailments. It's you that keeps mentioning the Flames arena.

And sorry, are you incapable of reading? My exact words were 'I'm absolutely against subsidizing the arena', so I'm not sure how you could interpret that 'subsidy advocacy for Flames billionaires'.

And you're using the old Calgary Next proposal which was rightly laughed out of City Hall. The only serious proposal so far has been the Vic Park option, where the subsidy was nowhere near $1B.

CalgaryNEXT is what this city needs. I'm not saying that the initial proposal was perfect but it was on the right track. The city should help fund the field house and area infrastructure upgrades while the Flames should pay for the arena and stadium in exchange for a major say in the development of the area. Done right this could be a major economic catalyst for the city which will provide us with longer-term substantial benefits than the Olympics would ever provide.

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by Corndogger

CalgaryNEXT is what this city needs. I'm not saying that the initial proposal was perfect but it was on the right track. The city should help fund the field house and area infrastructure upgrades while the Flames should pay for the arena and stadium in exchange for a major say in the development of the area. Done right this could be a major economic catalyst for the city which will provide us with longer-term substantial benefits than the Olympics would ever provide.

Okay - so a subsidy of $1.4B is about 3.5X the municipal contribution as was required for the Olympics (which brought in $5B external funds). The no side estimated the Olympics would result in a $2000 per person tax hike, so this would be a hike of only $7000 per person. Bend over to get corndoggered, as the saying goes.

[Corndogger]

Originally Posted by suburbia

Okay - so a subsidy of $1.4B is about 3.5X the municipal contribution as was required for the Olympics (which brought in $5B external funds). The no side estimated the Olympics would result in a $2000 per person tax hike, so this would be a hike of only $7000 per person.

If you're going to misread what we're writing on purpose there's not much sense in interacting with you.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Corndogger

CalgaryNEXT is what this city needs. I'm not saying that the initial proposal was perfect but it was on the right track. The city should help fund the field house and area infrastructure upgrades while the Flames should pay for the arena and stadium in exchange for a major say in the development of the area. Done right this could be a major economic catalyst for the city which will provide us with longer-term substantial benefits than the Olympics would ever provide.

I sympathise with this position and I think many moderate folks would be much more OK with the city funding infrastructure to service an arena rather than direct contributions to the arena itself. CalgaryNEXT, however, was a non starter as the Flames expected the city to pay for the cleanup, a cost which in itself has been another subsidy to a different corporation.

Originally Posted by Corndogger

If you're going to misread what we're writing on purpose there's not much sense in interacting with you.

Yeah that.

[SpongeG]

seems no one wants the games lol

Why Calgary passed on the 2026 Olympics — and what's next for the Games nobody seems to want


Out of 8 host bids, just 2 remain — with a possible dark horse waiting in the wings

Jamie Strashin · CBC Sports

Calgary voters have sent politicians a clear message: They want no part of the city's beleaguered bid for the 2026 Winter Olympics.

The vote is not binding, but should leave those on Calgary city council no doubt. Leading up to this plebiscite, bid organizers had hoped for a Yes vote somewhere in the mid-50s, closer to 60 per cent support if things went well.

They didn't come close. The results were decisive: 132,832 for Calgary hosting (43.6 per cent) and 171,750 against (56.4 per cent). The official result will be made available at 3 p.m. MT on Friday, with results by riding posted Thursday at noon.

After asking voters for guidance, Calgary's council will likely formally halt the city's bidding process at a meeting on Monday.

When Calgary initially announced plans to pursue the 2026 Winter Olympics, it all seemed so perfect. Calgary would recapture the Olympic spirit and excitement that enveloped and boosted the city when it hosted the 1988 Winter Games.

But for many, this bid never felt like 1988. Whatever the magical feeling was 30 years ago, it never captured voters. And now, Calgary's nascent Olympic bid has finally lurched to an unceremonious end.

So, what happened?

Those behind Calgary 2026 did a lot of things right. They engaged and mobilized a cross-section of supportive voices. They attempted to showcase the Games as opportunity to revitalize and refurbish the physical legacy of 1988. Organizers also pointed to a successful bid as a needed economic lifeline for a city whose economy has been crippled by falling oil prices.

...

https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/c...reXhwQZqXveEus

When this process began, there were eight hopeful cities. Only two remain: Stockholm, and a joint Italian bid. And both of those bids face significant internal political hurdles.

Livingstone thinks there could be another host lurking in the background.

"I really think that the IOC is hoping that Stockholm and Italy just go away and then they can work with Salt Lake City."

[rotten42]

Also a good article.

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

[topdog]

Originally Posted by Corndogger

CalgaryNEXT is what this city needs. I'm not saying that the initial proposal was perfect but it was on the right track. The city should help fund the field house and area infrastructure upgrades while the Flames should pay for the arena and stadium in exchange for a major say in the development of the area. Done right this could be a major economic catalyst for the city which will provide us with longer-term substantial benefits than the Olympics would ever provide.

Agree 100% and I don't buy this bullshit argument 'if you didn't vote yes for the Olympics you don't get to have an arena' The two subjects aren't the same. I feel like telling those people to fuck off.