Victoria’s confused Commonwealth Games aspirations
Back in June, the Times Colonist ran a report on a bid to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games. David Black, a local newspaper magnate, suggested that hosting the games would accomplish a variety of happy things, including building social housing and improving sports facilities.
It would do all of this on a “practical and modest budget.” What’s not to like here? Well, maybe there’s a lot not to like.
First, there is the absence of an actual budget that the public can see. Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps and council have not yet seen the business plan and budget, saying that they will not approve going forward with the bid until they do. Black’s comment that he cannot disclose the budget “lest the competition get wind of it” is not the sort of thing that builds confidence, except in the most ardent boosters.
As of this writing, the budget has still not been released. It should be a given that budgets for projects that require massive taxpayer support must be available to those same taxpayers.
Is there a business plan? Maybe not; at least the city hasn’t seen one to date. Thus, we don’t know what it will cost or how much will be public money. Of the latter, how much is to be given by the city and Capital Regional District versus the contributions of the province or the federal government?
How much will Victoria and the capital-region municipalities make in profit? Black, who brought Victoria the 1994 Commonwealth Games, estimates something like $70 million, but how has this number been generated? It is worth noting that past mega sporting events, from the Olympics to the most recent Commonwealth Games, almost never turned a profit for the host city.
The tally is this: an unknown cost, no transparent business plan and a “profit” that seems to exist without substantiation from any independent body.
Other key questions must be asked: What about the impact on the poor or social housing or affordable rental housing at the end of the Games? Or, how big a security footprint will there be in our age of worldwide terrorist threats? And what will be the impact on civil liberties?
Who stands to profit from the construction that a successful bid would entail? We don’t know, but we should in the interests of full transparency. My skeptical speculation, based on observations of the Vancouver Olympics, is this: Perhaps developers looking for newer real-estate pastures to exploit have set their sights on Victoria.
Black recently named some board members to the bid, but what do most of them really add to the needed transparency and governance apart from their names? John Furlong is there and did run the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.
In essence, boosters are asking the rest of us to blindly sign a blank cheque on the vaguest of assumptions about what benefits the Games might bring. All of this looks like a recipe for a financial train wreck, with local taxpayers paying the price.
We live in a democratic society where such a bid should not go forward without some minimum adherence to good governance and public approval. For this to occur, Victoria and the other capital-region municipalities must provide a legally binding referendum on a clear question with equal funding for both sides.
Additionally, we need a series of public debates where all the issues, pro and con, can be evaluated, including the budget and business plan. Government and bid organizers should commit to complete transparency at all stages of the bid process and, if the bid is accepted, both before and after the Games.
The bid has the potential to drastically change our city. Let’s not let this happen without the public being fully informed and involved.