Hamilton 100 bid for Commonwealth Games dismissed
Group’s bid is no longer Canada’s ‘preferred candidate’ to host the international event, Commonwealth Sport Canada said in an email to organizers Monday.
https://www.thespec.com/news/hamilto...=&utm_content=
A private Hamilton group’s efforts to host the Commonwealth Games in 2030 has come to a screeching halt.
“Whatever would have been necessary to secure the rights, we ultimately weren’t able to secure, and that responsibility rests with us entirely,” Lou Frapporti, chair of the bid committee, said Tuesday.
Hamilton 100’s bid is no longer Canada’s “preferred candidate” to host the international event, Commonwealth Sport Canada said in an email to organizers Monday.
Commonwealth Sport Canada thanks the group for its “incredible effort to date” and “best efforts” to land municipal and provincial commitments, president Claire Carver-Dias wrote.
But those “unfortunately have not resulted in securing governments’ commitment, including” the Ontario government, which “did not commit to specified requirements” from the association by its deadline.
Frapporti said the province had a Monday deadline to respond to Commonwealth Sport Canada on commitments but didn’t follow through.
“I’ll confess to some bafflement as to the unfolding of all of this,” he added. “We’ve been in meetings with all levels of government for months.”
Frapporti said those talks with government officials suggested there were no issues. “We’re all rather in the dark.”
The Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport couldn’t immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.
Hamilton 100, led by Frapporti, a lawyer with Gowling WLG, and PJ Mercanti, CEO of Carmen’s Group, aimed to host an area Games with events in the city and surrounding communities.
Both assured city politicians that the international event — to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first Games in Hamilton — would rely heavily on private-sector investment and senior government funding.
Organizers presented the Games as a once-in-a-generation chance for economic development that would showcase the city and spur interest in amateur sports.
“We felt and continue to feel very strongly that it would have positively impacted the lives of tens of thousands of people in this region from the very young to the very old,” Frapporti said.
“And as it looks this morning, we don’t see that now likely to happen — and that’s an enormous disappointment.”
Frapporti said Hamilton 100 would withdraw a planned address to council on Wednesday about the Games bid.
Last summer, the previous city council backed a fresh memorandum of understanding with Hamilton 100 to host the 2030 event, which carried an estimated budget of more than $1 billion.
That was to be a forerunner to negotiations with the provincial and federal governments to hash out key details, including financial commitments.
Hamilton 100 initially launched in 2019 with the goal of hosting the Games in 2030, but then shifted to a bid for 2026 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Those plans fell apart, however, in late 2020 when the provincial government said it wouldn’t support a games and World Cup in the same year.
The campaign to host the Games in Hamilton and area generated considerable community and institutional support, but there was also significant pushback from residents and city politicians alike.
The city has “much deeper issues” to tackle, including a housing crisis and infrastructure deficit, Coun. Nrinder Nann said in July.
“I’d much prefer seeing real strategic investment plans to tend to those things,” Nann said, adding international games don’t help solve such “problems in the long haul” but download “private interests onto the public purse.”
More to come ...
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