Volunteer campaign rallies No vote

Calgary’s underfunded anti-Olympic underdogs pulled off an unexpected victory on Tuesday.

No Calgary Olympics used a grassroots campaign and a team of dedicated volunteers to help get out the No vote, pushing their David to defeat Calgary 2026’s Goliath bid corporation.

Even with no public funding, the group rallied most Calgarians to the No side, with preliminary vote results showing more than 56 per cent of Calgarians voting No.

No Calgary Olympics founder Dan Gauld said the lead up to the vote kickstarted Calgarians into paying closer attention to municipal politics and has people asking, “What kind of city do you want to live in?”

“In the end, if we’ve had a positive influence on the process — on the bid book — and people are more closely watching the whole process, then I think that’s a real positive thing,” he said.

Gauld said his group was able to keep momentum by winning small victories at the grassroots level and online, even though the No side was “never going to be able to compete” with the bid corporation’s $30-million budget to pursue the bid.”