OLYMPICS Poll

[Al Czervic]

I suppose another factor is home-games advantage? Canadians are expected to win a lot of medals this year.

Well, lets just see come Feb 28. Go Canada Go

At an expected cost of $259 million per medal, let's hope so.



* there's tax money well spent

Can you show me where you get that information from ? Does that include infrastructure costs for things like the Canada Line and Sea to Sky Hwy Upgrades as well?

[Al Czervic]

I suppose another factor is home-games advantage? Canadians are expected to win a lot of medals this year.

Well, lets just see come Feb 28. Go Canada Go

At an expected cost of $259 million per medal, let's hope so.



* there's tax money well spent

Here is an interesting article on this.....

NDP deserves credit for bagging Olympic Games

With just one day left to the opening of the 2010 Olympic Games, it's a bit late to call it off.
However, in the interest of useless questions, will the Vancouver Olympics prove to be just one more NDP-inspired disaster, like the fast ferries, or a brilliant marketing move putting our province in the international spotlight for years to come?

I'm betting on success and the long-term international spotlight. I'll also say credit has to go to former NDP premier Glen Clark for having the guts and determination to make the games application in the first place.

As an aside, it was no doubt those two qualities that led B.C. billionaire Jimmy Pattison to hire Clark, which in itself was a gutsy move.

But back to the games: first to the naysayers, and believe me there are lots of them.
They're raising every issue from costs, to homelessness, to holding the games on aboriginal lands. On an ever-tightening schedule, the critics are hitting the streets and the airwaves with heightened hissy-fits of self-righteous indignation. Any issue - real or imagined - is fodder for their cause.

Costs are always an easy target. The projected estimate for all Olympic-related expenditures is $6 billion, most of it for much-needed infrastructure such as the Sea-to-Sky highway and the Canada Line. If you're in the what's-in-it-for-me mode, the improvements to Highway 99 - Cache Creek to North Vancouver - will make for a great Prince George road trip to Whistler, Horseshoe Bay and North Van. If you fly, it's $3.50 and 23 minutes on the new Canada Line from YVR to downtown Vancouver. Contrast this to a $30 one-way taxi fare with a surly, uncommunicative cabbie.

The Olympic Games operating budget is estimated at $1.75 billion. If it comes in at that it will be balanced. If it doesn't, International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge has committed an unprecedented top-up contribution of up to $22 million. All cost predictions as of this past week, including those of the IOC, say the Vancouver Olympic Committee budget will be balanced. Projected Olympic Game revenues are estimated at $10 billion.

Reducing the plight of the homeless is always an easy anti-establishment argument, especially for those whose interests are more focused on protesting than providing a remedy. For the record, in the past few years, the provincial Liberals and the City of Vancouver have done more to provide shelter than any other previous governments. But as long as Vancouver enjoys a temperate climate and some of the highest land costs in North America, homelessness will be an issue.

The aboriginal land complaint shows how many of the protesters are solidly in the ranks of the truly uninformed. Even the torch parade in Prince George featured a few of the wildly indignant not-on-native-land Olympic opponents. I don't know if these folks are seeing imaginary smoke signals or just smoking imagination-enhancing stuff, but the First Nations hosts of the Olympics are solidly in support of the 2010 games.

Speaking to this support at the opening of the Olympic Aboriginal Pavilion in Vancouver, Four Host First Nations CEO, Tewanee Joseph said, "We are here, all people of humanity standing together."
It's always easy to play the armchair quarterback prior to the game and make predictions. What the carping critics miss is the sheer size of the Olympics, which -pardon the pun - is of truly Olympian proportions.

As you read this, 500,000 people are planning on attending the games. That's seven times the population of Prince George. They're in British Columbia to see 5,500 of the best athletes in the world compete. Those 5,500 athletes are from 80 countries. Accompanying those athletes and reporting back to the folks at home in those 80 countries are 10,000 accredited journalists.
Get the picture? If you don't, you will. The Olympic Games and the following Paralympic Games are a huge event with intensity and coverage like no other. Millions of people around the world will be focused on the Province of British Columbia from now until March 21.

The world-wide publicity value of the Games for Vancouver, Whistler and British Columbia will be enormous. And as we found following Expo 86, an international event with extensive publicity develops a tourist attraction factor that lasts for years.

Let the games begin, and don't forget, on this one at least, Glen Clark got it right.

[Advocate]

The only way i can afford to see the games is to pay my cable bill.
Provides a much better vantage point too.

[steven lloyd]

I suppose another factor is home-games advantage? Canadians are expected to win a lot of medals this year.

Well, lets just see come Feb 28. Go Canada Go

At an expected cost of $259 million per medal, let's hope so.
* there's tax money well spent

Can you show me where you get that information from ? Does that include infrastructure costs for things like the Canada Line and Sea to Sky Hwy Upgrades as well?

Sorry Al. I got that from a comment that followed an article you provided the link to. I recognize that we can’t confirm the number anywhere but I’m pretty sure the writer wasn’t referring to any included infrastructure costs but only “athletic development”.

If anyone would like a good read on this former NDP Premier Mike Harcourt takes a good perspective…
http://thetyee.ca/News/2010/02/05/OlympicsWellWorthIt/

A couple of comments on this article.

First, after Expo 86 the world already now knows Vancouver is here. We didn’t need to spend another ten billion to tell them.

As far as the wonderful permanent infrastructure Vancouver gets to enjoy , great –let them pay for it. Rural BC has been getting shafted by this government for ten years (closed hospitals, schools, courthouses, etc., and more recently, carbon tax requirements with no transportation alternatives).

Some of the comments following the article are worth reading as well:

Canada may win 27 medals and we have spent $7 billion that is known, that means each Canadian medal won will cost $259 million each. Sorry I can't get that out of my mind.

Athens 2004 deficit $12 billion
Turin 2006 threatened bankruptcy 2 months before their Games and have still not tallied their total losses
Beijing 2008 a $40 billion+ farce
Vancouver 2010 into overruns for $6 billion+
London 2012 already into overruns for $22 billion+
Not one of these cities has reported a proportionate return respective of tourism or foreign capital investment even close to the tax money sunk into an event that for at least the last ten years has used a broken business model

ideas about what "citizens can enjoy". I should be on the hook for 2.8 billion bucks for a subway and convention centre I may use several times a year, if that? I could have put 2.8 billion bucks into a hell of a lot of other things with more direct and lasting positive impact. We ain't all rich here in Vancouver Mikey, ...

[steven lloyd]

With just one day left to the opening of the 2010 Olympic Games, it's a bit late to call it off.

True enough, and I personally hope all goes well. I expect and look forward to some protest but I would hope for some decorum of behaviour (although I don’t hold my breath on that either from the protestors or the police). I would hope the weather would cooperate but that is looking more unlikely every day. I hope we don’t end up with too much egg on our face.

I can’t even remember if I supported this bid when it was first made, but like many people I have really come to realize what a waste this is – for any country. With all the problems this world is facing and governments are avoiding, the spending of ten to twenty to forty billion dollars at a pop to host elitist parties is not only a farce, it’s obscene.


Reducing the plight of the homeless is always an easy anti-establishment argument, especially for those whose interests are more focused on protesting than providing a remedy. For the record, in the past few years, the provincial Liberals and the City of Vancouver have done more to provide shelter than any other previous governments. But as long as Vancouver enjoys a temperate climate and some of the highest land costs in North America, homelessness will be an issue.

Not to mention one of the greatest, if not greatest gap in income and lowest minimum wage. That being said, I will give Campbell and the City of Vancouver its due in acknowledging this issue. Although, given the fact Campbell’s regressive policies that were introduced when he first came into power were largely responsible for the drastic exacerbation of these issues the accolades sent hurling in his direction will be somewhat tempered.


It's always easy to play the armchair quarterback prior to the game and make predictions. What the carping critics miss is the sheer size of the Olympics, which -pardon the pun - is of truly Olympian proportions.

What’s so difficult to predict? The taxpayer debt will be huge, and given the fact little measurable “economic spin-off” has been seen by any other recent Olympic event (other than Calgary’s claim), there is really no reason to believe these clowns are going to create some miracle. The best thing Campbell has done is take credit for economic conditions that were outside his control. I’m so impressed.

The world-wide publicity value of the Games for Vancouver, Whistler and British Columbia will be enormous. And as we found following Expo 86, an international event with extensive publicity develops a tourist attraction factor that lasts for years.

That's good. Because you know in twenty years everyone forgot where Vancouver BC is and it was really important we spent 10 billion to remind them. Hip hip hooray.

Anyways, I really hope the games are a success (how ever they plan to measure that) and I hope Captain enjoys his Olympic hockey game experience.

[guicho]

What? That's the worst idea ever.

You want Canada to pay money for an event that we won't be able to benefit from. Someone else will be getting billions of dollars in revenue, created jobs, infrastructure, increased sports participation, tourism, and so on? All on our bill? Sorry, it makes LESS sense than actually hosting Olympics and benefiting from it. Why not just give money to random people in other countries?

Of course you are assuming there are benefits. As the games progress, it is becoming glaringly obvious that there are no real benefits for normal working people. The only beneficiaries are corporations, politicians and VANOC officials. Word on the street is that a lot of visitors are not that impressed with Vancouver and their inability to organize the games so that spectators can get to the events they paid for on time. Aside from a few awesome venues that will be left when it's all over, we will all be left with a big debt and Vancouver with a black eye. Hardly worth 6 billion dollars.