Woolley staying on as city’s Olympic bid boss
Councillor still believes there’s too much uncertainty around funding agreement
He called it the most difficult political decision of his career, but city council’s Olympic committee chair said he stands behind his recommendation last week asking council to kill an Olympic bid.
Coun. Evan Woolley said he won’t abandon his post as council’s bid boss despite urging council to shut down all work on a bid for the 2026 Winter Games.
“I have a fiduciary duty to the citizens of this city,” Woolley said in an interview. “I think that role remains critically important, and I don’t plan on stepping down.”
Last week, councillors voted by a slim margin to keep the Olympic bid alive after nearly eight hours of debate with the Calgary 2026 bid corporation.
The vote came one day after a closed-door meeting between the city ’s Olympic committee and Calgary 2026 bid.
Woolley emerged from the Oct. 30 meeting saying time had “run out and I think it’s time that we move on,” presenting a recommendation asking council to halt all work on the Olympic file and cancel the Nov. 13. plebiscite.
Then, at about 10 p.m. that night, Calgary 2026 released details of a cost-sharing proposal that Woolley said has “many missing pieces” and “so much risk of things that haven’t been sorted out yet.”
And while the majority of council followed Woolley’s advice to scrap the bid with a vote of eight to seven, two-thirds of council — or 10 “yes” votes — were required to reverse a previous off-ramp vote in September.
Woolley said the city still has “no commitment on guarantees” for which order of government would be responsible for any potential Olympic cost overruns.
“So never mind that security is the big cost, and the big one that Calgarians worry about the most ... in terms of overruns, but there’s all sorts of other guarantees around ticket sales, all of those other things that we haven’t put in place.
“So when they talk about this deal being on the table, it is a halfbaked deal.”
Calgary 2026 has repeatedly said any security overruns would fall to Ottawa through Public Safety Canada.
But the federal government, through Minister of Sport Kristy Duncan, said on the weekend that it is “not responsible for cost overruns” under the government’s policy for hosting international sporting events.
The province has also said it won’t budge past its $700-million contribution to the Olympic budget, leaving councillors questioning who would be left holding the bag if security costs rise.
Postmedia has made repeated requests for clarification to both the sport ministry and Public Safety Canada.
Neither ministry has answered whether Ottawa would pony up if security costs for the Games went above Calgary 2026’s projected $495-million budget — a number that is less than half of the security costs for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games.
On Saturday, Calgary 2026 spokesman James Millar said advances in security technology have made it easier for security professionals to do the same amount of work with fewer bodies.
Before an eleventh-hour funding proposal from the province and Ottawa was made public, Calgary 2026’s original security budget was $610 million.
Millar said the budget reductions were made on the recommendations of a team of 40 security professionals from multiple law-enforcement agencies.
Without clear guarantees from Ottawa on who would be left holding the bag on potential security overruns, Woolley said the funding proposal is “not a deal to put in front of Calgarians.”
“We know how to build stuff, we know how to do that,” Woolley said of any possible capital project overruns. “But we have no guarantees on the operations side — it’s the operations side that we have no clarity or commitment on.”
Calgarians go to the polls Nov. 13 to vote for or against hosting the 2026 Winter Olympic Games.
For more information on where to vote and what identification you will need to cast a ballot, visit vote2018.calgary.ca.
Voting in advance polls wrapped up on Wednesday, but mail-in ballots can still be requested until noon on Nov. 13, online or by calling 403-476-4100, by faxing 403476-4101, or visiting the Elections and Census Office at 1103 55th Ave. N.E.
We know how to build stuff, we know how to do that. But we have no guarantees on the operations side.