OLYMPIC DEBATE CONTINUES

Chamber backs 2026 bid

The Calgary Chamber of Commerce has formally endorsed a bid for the 2026 Winter Olympics, calling the funding agreement reached earlier this week a “good deal” for local businesses.

However, the Chamber stopped short of urging its members to vote Yes in the Nov. 13 plebiscite, saying business owners will make their own decisions and, in many cases, still need to be convinced.

“There is still work to do to connect the heads and hearts for many Calgary business leaders,” Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Sandip Lalli told reporters Thursday.

The Chamber, which has remained neutral on the Olympic file until now, has declared itself in the Yes camp as a result of the funding proposal made public late Tuesday. That deal would see the City of Calgary’s share of the cost of hosting the Games pegged at $390 million, while the federal government would commit $1.45 billion and the province would pay $700 million.

The funding arrangement is fiscally responsible, Lalli said, and hosting the Games brings opportunities to increase deal flow, enhance the reputation of Calgary on an international scale and stimulate investment. However, she added many Calgary businesses are already concerned about rising property taxes and the effect of layered regulatory costs.

On Wednesday, Mayor Naheed Nenshi called the funding arrangement “an incredibly good deal,” emphasizing that Calgary’s $390-million payout will result in approximately $4.4 billion in public and private investment flowing back into the city.

But some economists are skeptical of that interpretation. Trevor Tombe, associate professor of economics at the University of Calgary, pointed out some of the funds included in that $4.4 billion are earmarked for things such as security — which, while important to the Games, don’t provide any lasting effect for Calgarians. He said the dollar figure also includes tickets, merchandise and corporate sponsorship — which, in many cases, will be money spent by Calgarians themselves and simply shifted from other activities.

“We shouldn’t view the Games in a dollars and cents way,” Tombe said. “We shouldn’t think of it as some kind of investment that yields a 10-to-1 return.”

Olympic proponents like to view leveraged funds for the Games as the kind of “something out of nothing that we attribute to God,” said Moshe Lander, a lecturer in the Faculty of Economics at Montreal’s Concordia University. In reality, he said, money from the province and federal government is just more taxpayer dollars, shifted around.

“If this was such a good deal, you would think there would be 100 cities around the world fighting each other tooth and nail to have the Games,” he said. “But you don’t see that. Everyone is dropping out.”

However, Cindy Ady, CEO of Tourism Calgary, said there is no other opportunity that would give Calgary the same level of return on investment when it comes to international exposure and brand awareness as the Olympics.