OLYMPIC BID IS STILL ALIVE

Council vote to kill process fails

Calgary ’s Olympic bid has emerged from a critical vote at city hall badly battered, but still kicking.

Despite not having the support of a majority of council members, the proposed bid for the 2026 Winter Games will be put to Calgarians in a plebiscite on Nov. 13.

A motion to terminate the Olympic project earned majority support at Wednesday’s council meeting, but still failed to pass since a minimum of 10 votes were required for a reconsideration.

Councillors Sean Chu, Peter Demong, Jeromy Farkas, Druh Farrell, Jyoti Gondek, Joe Magliocca, Ward Sutherland and Evan Woolley voted to kill the bid.

Mayor Naheed Nenshi and councillors Gian-Carlo Carra, George Chahal, Diane Colley-Urquhart, Jeff Davison, Ray Jones and Shane Keating voted to keep going at least until the plebiscite.

Councillors voted after nearly eight hours of testy debate, with hundreds of bid supporters looking on from a packed gallery and seated in chairs outside council chambers.

The debate followed the latenight release Tuesday of a draft proposal to fund the 2026 Winter Games signed by the provincial and federal governments.

Mayor Naheed Nenshi called the proposed funding agreement a “good deal” that came out of a “messy” few days of negotiations in the lead-up to Wednesday’s vote.

“Tough stuff requires tough negotiations, and politicians have a terrible habit of pushing this stuff to the last minute,” Nenshi said Wednesday.

“It may have taken a little bit of, shall we say, ‘aggressive’ negotiating tactics on deadlines to make sure we had something, and I’m super happy that we’ve got such a good deal.”

The proposal is based on a scaledback hosting plan and public dollar request of $2.875 billion. Previously, the hosting plan pegged the public sector portion at $3 billion.

Calgary’s share would be about $390 million, or about 13 per cent of the public bill, according to bid corporation Calgary 2026.

But while the mayor and some councillors passionately defended the bid Wednesday, some council members questioned the new numbers.

Coun. Evan Woolley — once one of the biggest proponents of the bid as chair of the Olympic committee — said he could no longer support it after being disappointed by the unwillingness of provincial and federal governments to contribute more.

“I don’t have confidence that the numbers are going to add up,” he said. “I’m uncomfortable with the risks associated with the other orders of government not carrying better guarantees.”

And with just days remaining before advance polls open for the Olympic plebiscite, Woolley said he doesn’t think there’s enough time to explain the deal to Calgarians.

“I don’t think it’s fair or right that we ask Calgarians to make an emotional decision and not a factbased one,” he said.

Calgary 2026 told council that cost savings were achieved by reducing the security budget — on the advice of the RCMP — by about $155 million.

Another $45 million was removed from the housing budget — amounting to a reduction of about 1,000 units — leaving 1,800 housing units remaining in the plan for Calgary.

Calgary 2026 says it will also relocate the athletes’ village to avoid costs associated with removing municipal bus barns in Victoria Park.

Some councillors also questioned the decision to include previously committed infrastructure dollars for Victoria Park and a $200-million insurance policy under the umbrella of public funds coming from the city.

Calgary 2026 vigorously defended its revised budget, arguing it was structured that way to leverage matching cash investments from the federal government.

Nenshi said he’ll be encouraging Calgarians to vote ‘yes’ in the plebiscite.

“This is an incredibly good deal. After all that sausage-making, the sausage that came out of it is amazing,” he said.

Nenshi pointed to the fact that the city must spend approximately $350 million anyway to build a field house and complete upgrades to McMahon Stadium and other facilities. He said Calgary would contribute $390 million and see approximately $4 billion in investment through hosting the Olympics.

“That’s a 10 times return,” Nenshi said. “I’ll take that deal.”