Olympic hopes still alive despite skeptical reports

Another $1M OK’d but dream dies unless Ottawa, Alberta back bid

Calgary’s elected officials voted to keep the city’s Olympic dreams alive after bureaucrats were pressured to release two city-commissioned academic reports that significantly challenge the economic benefits of hosting a 2026 edition of the Winter Games.

A total of $5 million has already been dedicated to exploring an Olympic bid and in a 9-4 vote Monday, council approved putting more money, from the rainy day fund, into the efforts.

City politicians voted in favour of dedicating another $1 million to a bid exploration by the end of the year, with an additional $1 million contingent on if the federal and provincial governments quickly come on board — a slight amendment from administration’s initial request for $2 million more for bid exploration.

“This is going to be a mutual decision between the three orders of government on whether or not to move forward,” said Mayor Naheed Nenshi after the vote, noting the provincial and federal governments will have to decide whether they support a bid by the end of the year.

“It’s not our intent to be bullying about this whole thing, but the timelines are the timelines,” the mayor said.

The deciding vote came after hours of questions and debate — much of it focused on two initially confidential reports commissioned by the city and penned by academics that are critical of what hosting the Olympics could do to Canada’s economy.

“They’re damning reports. They eviscerate the other economic reports that talk about growing economic benefits,” said Ward 7 Coun. Druh Farrell.

While Nenshi said he read the reports “ages ago,” other councillors said they didn’t know the work existed until Friday, when their existence was publicized in a media article.

“After the two economic reports, I have to say you’ve lost my trust,” Farrell told city administration in council chambers. “It appears that we’re cherry-picking information and providing only the rosy picture to council.”

City manager Jeff Fielding acknowledged the reports cast a shadow on Monday’s meeting.

“The elephant in the room today was what happened to those two reports and was there an intent to deceive, mislead, were you hiding information?” Fielding said.

“The answer is no. Was there a pre-determined outcome that we were trying to work towards? I can tell you the answer is no.”

The 14-page and six-page reports were released Monday afternoon after several councillors quizzed bureaucrats on why they were hidden from the public and why some elected officials weren’t aware they existed.

Penned in June by University of Calgary professor Trevor Tombe and West Virginia University professor Brad Humphreys, the two reports evaluate economic impact reports from Deloitte and the Conference Board of Canada that were commissioned by the Calgary Bid Exploration Committee.

The Deloitte and Conference Board reports indicated hosting the Games could provide a wide range of economic benefits to the city, and both Humphreys’ and Tombe’s reports poke holes in the thinking that a repeat Calgary Olympics would better the economy.

“The forecasts in both reports predict that hosting the Games will be a great economic benefit to Calgary, Alberta, and Canada. Both predict billions of dollars of ‘economic impacts’ and ‘expenditure,’” stated Humphreys.

“But the experiences of past host cities is decided ly mixed. The evidence from peer reviewed academic research (as opposed to the skewed review in these reports) does not contain strong evidence supporting the forecasts in these reports, or those in other similar reports produced for past bids. These reports project false certainty about the economic outcome of hosting the Games not borne out by actual past experience.”

In his 14-page report, Tombe said there will be economic costs of hosting the Games.

“But, to claim that GDP and employment will increase — at all, but especially by the magnitudes suggested in the 3rd-party reports — is to go far beyond what the evidence suggests,” he wrote.

Ward 11 Coun. Jeromy Farkas said he was at a loss for words when he found out about the reports Friday.

“The fact that the risks were really well-defined and they were significant. Then, that fact was being kept hidden from council is completely unacceptable,” he said.

Farkas and Farrell questioned if there are other Olympic-related reports council has yet to see. Administration said they’re looking into it.

Farrell, Farkas, Peter Demong and Sean Chu voted against pouring more money into a bid exploration.

Evan Woolley, Gian-Carlo Carra, Ward Sutherland, Jyoti Gondek, George Chahal, Jeff Davison, Ray Jones, Shane Keating and the mayor were in favour.

Joe Magliocca and Diane ColleyUrquhart were absent.