The new agreement, already signed by the Premier and the Federal Minister of Science and Sport, would result in $4.4 billion into the local economy, $1 billion in wages for Calgarians, 15,400 jobs against a City of Calgary investment of $390 million. In effect, Calgary gets $10 for every dollar it puts in. It is an excellent agreement, and better than could have been expected in all honesty. Summary here:
https://www.calgary2026.ca/wp-content/up...026-October-30-18-FINAL-CLEAN-2130-1.pdf
There is an extremely well funded no vote push also, led largely by the Flames ownership group, Brett Wilson, Kenney's extreme-right-wing faction, Postmedia ownership, Rick Bell, Farkas, Chu and Magliocca. They were all actually on the sidelines till the bid corp released their scope, which included using the Saddledome, and adding a mid-sized arena and field house at the university (an extremely prudent and ironically fiscally conservative plan). Ken et al. flipped their lid, and started pushing back, saying either that the money would be better spent on a Flames arena subsidy, or pushing the bid back to 2030, when it could include a new arena. Just ridiculous stuff, in all honesty.
Glad an exceptional funding agreement was achieved, and I hope we can land the games. Calgary's position looks extremely strong at this point.
Threaded Mode