GAMES UP TO COUNCIL

Determining whether to launch a bid to host the 2026 Winter Olympics is a major decision for the city — and all of Canada, for that matter. Representatives of all three levels of government recently embarked on a fact-finding mission to the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, to help conclude if a bid would be a good fit for Calgary.

There’s some speculation that the fix is in — that Calgary will seek the Games — but we have every reason to believe Mayor Naheed Nenshi when he insists the city is simply doing its due diligence.

“If it were a done deal, the deal would have been done long ago,” Nenshi has said.

“I think that folks try to get a little bit of political advantage by saying, ‘Oh, this is already all cooked up.’

“Frankly, if this was already all cooked up, we would have cooked it up. Why would we go through this process? We’re going through this process because we want to make sure that we are doing what’s right for Calgary.”

The mayor is being prudent. Our city could successfully host the Winter Olympics if it’s determined to be in our best interest, having done so with aplomb in 1988.

Collectively, we can all take pride in living in a city that is always ready for a challenge.

Should Calgary make a pitch to host the 2026 Olympic Games? That is up to city council to decide. There will have to be some hard-nosed talks with the provincial and federal governments. If there isn’t robust financial support for a bid by senior levels of government, then the exercise is dead in its tracks.

There are advantages to hosting the Games, including jobs and tourism. The Olympics also present the opportunity to proceed with needed infrastructure.

Calls for a referendum on the Olympics are ill-advised, however. We elect our 15-person city council to oversee the management of an operating budget that exceeds $3.5 billion a year. We hold a referendum every four years in October, when civic elections are held.

We didn’t hold a referendum to determine whether the $4.65-billion first phase of the Green Line transit project to the underserved southeast should proceed. Neither did we conduct a Calgary-wide public vote on the $295-million airport tunnel.

We elect our city council to lead us. We must put our faith in their judgment and let civic politicians, once they’ve gathered the necessary information and reflected upon it, decide if there’s a compelling case to attempt to bring back the Winter Games to Calgary.