City’s online engagement on Olympic bid beset by bots

The city’s effort to solicit online feedback on a possible bid for the 2026 Olympic Winter Games was partly spoiled by internet bots, according to consultants hired to carry out public engagement on the bid.

Vancouver-based consulting firm Context revealed the difficulties at council’s Olympic committee, which met for a final time Tuesday ahead of the Nov. 13 plebiscite.

While Calgarians were lined up at advance polls around the city, committee members heard that data collected during weeks of public engagement sessions suggest residents are starkly divided on the possibility of hosting the Olympics.

The city collected more than 7,770 responses through its online engagement platform over a fourweek period in October. The largest response group, around 42 per cent, said they “strongly disagree” with the city submitting a bid to host the Games.

Overall, about 49 per cent either “strongly disagree” or “disagree” with a bid, while 34 per cent “strongly agree” or “agree” that the city should submit a bid. A further 16 per cent were undecided.

But committee members also learned that 6,000 responses to the online portal had to be deleted due to concerns that they originated from automated bots rather than actual Calgarians.

The bot activity amounted to about 46 per cent of total responses, consultants said.

The worst of the bot activity was in the last few days before the engagement portal closed, peaking on Oct. 26, with the majority of the deleted responses leaning to the Yes side.

Besides the online platform, feedback was collected at pop-up events and open houses across the city.

There were a number of recurring themes in the responses gleaned: from excitement about the possibility that the bid could spur economic growth, diversification and job creation, to worries about high costs and questionable cost projections.

Around 800 pages of verbatim comments from Calgarians were generated to help city council make a final decision on whether or not to proceed with a bid.

Coun. Evan Woolley, chair of the Olympic committee, said after some initial apprehension that there would be “angry masses” turning up at open houses, he was pleasantly surprised by the response.

“People on both sides really just wanted the information,” Woolley said. “They were there to give really, really good feedback.”

Tuesday ’s meeting also saw committee members presented with a cost-benefit analysis of the bid by financial firm Ernst & Young.

The report suggests that hosting the Games could be a net positive for Calgary, with residents standing to gain benefits estimated to value between $230 million and $570 million, according to Ernst & Young.

The benefits would primarily come from the pride and community spirit generated by hosting, as well as the enjoyment derived from the new and renewed sport venues, a notable departure from previous reports cited by the bid corporation that focused on economic multipliers created by hosting the Games.

The Ernst & Young report also estimated costs to the host government of between $65 million and $575 million.

But Mayor Naheed Nenshi said Tuesday that he believes the cost to Calgary would be on the lower end since the high-end cost estimate assumes that the province would be willing to provide the city $700 million even without an Olympics.

“I believe the province would not give us $700 million anyway,” Nenshi said. “So we’re looking at a net cost, which is actually quite small and quite a bit less than the actual outlay.

“By and large, this report says the benefits under most scenarios would far outweigh the costs.”