Only one in 14 wards voted in favour of bidding for 2026 Winter Games
The Yes side in Tuesday’s 2026 Olympic Winter Games plebiscite not only lost, it came out ahead in only one of 14 wards throughout the city.
Calgarians voted against pursuing a Games bid lost by a relatively narrow 56.4 per cent to 43.6 per cent count.
The downtown inner-city Ward 8, presided over by Coun. Evan Woolley — ultimately, one of the most prominent opponents of pursuing the Games — was the only one to embrace the bid, with 55 per cent in support.
The most lopsided loss for the Yes side was delivered in the deeper southwest Ward 13. There, 62 per cent cast ballots for the No side, with advance polling going about three to one against a bid.
It was only in Ward 7, which covers much of the northwest inner city, that a race resembling a photo finish occurred, with the No side inching to victory with 50.52 per cent of the vote.
In fact, eight out of 10 of the ward’s polling stations on Nov. 13 plebiscite day were won by the Yes side, with the advance balloting results that went two-to-one in favour of the No camp tipping the scales.
Ward 6 was also close, with the No side taking the decision by a two per cent margin.
A breakdown of the voting results shows a ring around a large part of the city’s outer fringes turned out the heaviest for the Yes side, along with a similar concentration in the inner city.
For the most part, the more welloff parts of the city leaned to the Yes side, said Coun. Druh Farrell, whose Ward 7 was almost a saw-off.
“It was in the less-affluent areas with more diversity that showed more concern about money, it didn’t capture the imagination,” said Farrell.
“There was talk about being inclusive but we didn’t see evidence of that.”
Ward 5 in the city’s northeast had by far the smallest turnout — 7,192 ballots cast compared with other areas that had voter participation in the 10,000s and 20,000s — though it did have slightly fewer voting stations than other wards.
The No camp won the advance polls on Nov. 6 and 7 in all 14 city wards, capturing 69 per cent of those votes.
Farrell said that’s likely due to those days coinciding with heightened uncertainty over Games funding and the chair of the city’s Olympic committee, Woolley, expressing his opposition to pursuing the bid.
“And the Yes side hadn’t begun their advertising campaign yet,” she said.