Region loses 2021 Canada Games
TORONTO — Waterloo Region has lost the 2021 Canada Summer Games to Niagara Region.
“That’s a bummer,” said Teddy Katz, a spokesperson for the defeated Waterloo Region bid to host those games, a few minutes after the announcement was made at Hart House at the University of Toronto on Thursday afternoon.
The land of vineyards and waterfalls took out the tech hub of Waterloo Region, along with fellow finalists Sudbury and Ottawa.
That stings a little. Tech was to be the trump card of the Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge bid, with the promise of Waterloo Region lug--
ging the games into a bold, innovative future.
Instead, we got aced by timeless natural beauty. “Certainly, there is the tourism aspect of the games, which the winning bid really tried to highlight,” said Waterloo Mayor Dave Jaworsky, searching for a palatable explanation for the bid committee’s final decision. “Maybe that feeds into it as well.” So while the Niagara contingent hooted and high-fived, the Waterloo team looked like they’d just been flung over the Horseshoe Falls in a 10-seat barrel.
Those 4,500 coaches and athletes won’t be coming to Waterloo Region in four years. Neither will the much-touted $100million in estimated economic activity they might bring with them. All that federal and provincial coin — about $6-million worth — won’t be poured into updating our beach volleyball and tennis courts, after all.
Nearly two years worth of work, maybe more, was wiped out in an instant by a giant porcupine mascot delivering an envelope with Niagara’s name written inside.
Ontario’s Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport, Eleanor McMahon, opened it and read Niagara’s name aloud. There was no Moonlight moment of redemption for Waterloo Region’s fallen bid. The winner was correct.
Bid chair Sherry Doiron, her cheeks moistened, appeared shaken.
“Tough loss,” said Marty Deacon, a member of the bid committee.
“As Ontarians, we are so happy for Niagara.”
And Niagara was plenty happy. But the chair of Niagara Region, Alan Caslin, paused in his victory address to appreciate the three defeated bids, who sat in separate rows of chairs arranged before him.
“I know this is not a happy moment for you,” said Caslin in a Captain Obvious moment.
“But quite frankly, I want to recognize you for all the success you’ve had in putting in your bid, pulling your communities together …”
So maybe this was all worthwhile. Perhaps the $60,000 each city council in Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge chipped in to the bid was money well spent.
Weaknesses in the region’s inventory of big-event facilities were revealed. We had to look outside the region and book the University of Guelph for track events and Brantford’s big pools for swimming, just to push the bid to the final stages.
But strengths were revealed as well. The three cities and region worked for a common cause under the same we-want-the-games banner.
“We’ve seen a spirit of collaboration that we haven’t seen before,” said Kitchener Mayor Berry Vrbanovic, standing shoulder to shoulder with Jaworsky, Cambridge Coun. Mike Mann and Regional Chair Ken Seiling.
Maybe there will be more joint bids on big events, sports or otherwise, in the near future. It turns out the cities and townships of the region can work well together, after all.
“It is a springboard for bigger and better things that will come,” Mann said.
Wayne Carew, chair of the Canada Summer Games bid evaluation committee, said the Waterloo Region bid had some exciting elements. Tech was one of them. Another was a plan to bring immigrants into the sports system.
But Niagara’s bid, like any good vintage, boasted clarity.
“They basically made sure that we knew that they were all-in,” Carew said.
And so, Waterloo Region is all-out for 2021 and a Canada Summer Games that only visits Ontario every 20 years. But that’s OK.
“I wouldn’t trade our successes with anybody,” Seiling said.
“We continue to be winners on the broader scale.”