The city of Calgary is holding a municipal plebiscite on whether or not to bid to host the 2026 Olympic Games. Will the city be willing to spend billions of dollars to host an Olympic Games, and how much will it actually cost? We talk to SaveCalgary's William MacBeth to find out.
00:00:00.000How much are you willing to spend to woo and curry favor with one of the world's most corrupt and sleazy organizations, the IOC?
00:00:09.020Calgary's mayor hopes that number is over $5 billion.
00:00:13.560I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Gunn Show.
00:00:30.000The city of Calgary's hopes to host the 2026 Olympic Games are getting closer to reality, and I'm getting worried.
00:00:43.400There's a municipal plebiscite slated for November 13th that will finally give city taxpayers an opportunity to have their say in how their tax dollars are being spent.
00:00:53.840Are taxpayers willing to spend billions and billions of dollars to have a two-week-long legacy party for Mayor Nenshi and Premier Rachel Notley?
00:01:03.000The yes side of the plebiscite debate sure hopes so.
00:01:05.840The yes side hopes that taxpayers will be able to overlook their money being spent on courting and pleasing corrupt International Olympic Committee officials
00:01:16.720to support what lowest estimates say will be a $5.2 billion event.
00:01:23.840Or do taxpayers think their money is better spent on, I don't know, garbage collection, pothole fixing, and municipal maintenance,
00:01:31.100especially in the wake of the cancellation of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion,
00:03:00.020And we should probably start by saying we have some numbers.
00:03:03.200From those of us who have looked at them, we're not really that confident that these numbers are in any way reflective of reality or real life.
00:03:16.220We have a document with some numbers on it, which is a place to start the conversation, I guess.
00:03:21.220So Bidco released the proposed bid saying that the Olympics would cost roughly $5.2 to $5.3 billion with $3 billion of that coming from other orders of government.
00:03:36.440So the federal, provincial and the city of Calgary when it happens.
00:03:41.500And they are trying to reuse as many of the previous venues as possible.
00:03:48.080They're only planning to do upgrades for the most part with limited construction.
00:03:53.740And they seem to think that hosting an Olympics is all about affordable housing.
00:04:00.580That's a huge part of their document focuses on the fact that holding an Olympics means we will build affordable housing units here in Calgary.
00:04:28.080Well, first of all, on the affordable housing standpoint, I guess what they think is they have to build an athlete's village and multiple athlete's villages because, of course, they're predicting the Olympics will take place across a whole series of venues.
00:04:40.420And that affordable housing will then, or that Olympic village will then become affordable housing.
00:04:47.400Now, for anybody paying attention to Vancouver, that was the same plan that Vancouver had.
00:04:54.280Of course, the problem is, like almost every other Olympics, they came in over budget.
00:04:58.820And so the affordable housing promised through the athlete's village turned into million-dollar condos in order to balance the books and come out at a break-even cost in Vancouver.
00:05:10.240So it looks like, yeah, sure, affordable housing is great from a laudable goal, but it's usually the first thing that goes when the Olympics run over budget.
00:06:08.320They're treating this like aristocracy when they're just a bunch of, well, I guess.
00:06:14.120I mean, it is a government unto itself, and we're supposed to treat them like dignitaries instead of the corruptocrats that I think they are.
00:06:22.420Well, it's certainly true that the IOC does not like to travel basic economy when they go on an Olympic trip.
00:06:31.200Your comment about aristocracy is very true.
00:06:33.520A lot of members of the IOC actually are aristocrats.
00:06:37.320There are crown princes and dukes and barons and sheiks.
00:06:42.320And this is not a group of people who understand the struggle of paying your taxes and trying to make ends meet, who worry about how they're going to scrape together their property tax at the end of the year, mostly because they own whole countries and don't have to pay property tax on their palaces.
00:06:59.520So, you know, you make some points about the outrageous IOC demands, and it's one of the reasons why so many cities have dropped out of bidding for not just this Olympics, but every Olympics.
00:07:14.320Oslo pulled out, Oslo, Norway, because of the ridiculous IOC demands that got made of them.
00:07:21.220Sapporo, Japan, just dropped out of bidding from the 2026 Olympics precisely because of the overinflated economic benefits promised by Olympic proponents and the outrageous costs that come within Olympics, including staying in five-star hotels.
00:07:40.320Now, in the case of the IOC, they've gone slumming and said they're prepared to stay in a four-star hotel, but I think that's only if there's no five-star hotel available.
00:07:51.560I don't think they're willingly accepting that if there's a five-star hotel down the street.
00:07:56.580They want a drink for free for the entire games.
00:07:59.860They want a well-stocked minibar in their hotel room.
00:08:04.180They want a lounge on site that is stocked with beer and wine.
00:08:08.740And at Norway, one of the demands I love is they demanded to meet the king upon their arrival, and that the king would then host a free cocktail reception for them.
00:08:20.160So this is not a group of people who really understand the hardworking, everyday people who actually have to pay the bills when it comes to these Olympics.
00:08:30.940I mean, when you can't get your garbage picked up, but then you're paying for a private lounge for a literal aristocrat to get drunk in for, you know, 10 days or two weeks.
00:09:09.800Yes, the Olympics that no one wants could end up in Calgary if every other bid city drops out because of the incredible cost of hosting, you know, cost and extravagance of hosting these Olympics.
00:09:19.000The IOC, in their response to, you know, every bid city dropping out, offers this condescending, well, it's so sad for you, host city, host country, that you'll be missing out on these great things.
00:09:34.420And it's a shame that your athletes won't be able to win gold in their home country.
00:09:39.320And it comes across as, like, if you don't get the Olympics, somehow life just can't go on for you and your city and your country.
00:09:47.440Now, the reality is the IOC themselves are quite worried about this.
00:09:50.440They've actually asked Salt Lake City to stand by for an alternate venue in 2026 if they can't get a host city for this Olympics.
00:10:01.740So, I mean, obviously, some city is going to take the Olympics when, if and when a bid happens.
00:10:07.400It could be one of the bid cities for 2026, but the IOC is going to make sure it goes on.
00:10:12.700Certainly, they're not prepared to give up their two-year, you know, every two-year luxury vacation on our tax dollars.
00:10:20.040So, they're already talking to Salt Lake City to see if they can take up the slack if nobody actually ends up bidding for the 2026 Olympics.
00:10:27.500Poor Salt Lake City drawing the short straw on the Olympics.
00:10:32.360I was reading today, and I didn't realize this, and I suppose I should have because government is sneaky.
00:11:02.460Now, I think what the good news on the plebiscite is the province has made it very clear that, remember, the city didn't want to hold a plebiscite.
00:11:10.340The city was perfectly happy to just go ahead with these Olympics without ever asking Calgarians if they, you know, actually wanted to host them or not.
00:11:17.740It was only because the provincial government, you know, and I don't say nice things about our NDP provincial government very often,
00:11:25.800but I will give them credit for the fact that the province said we're not putting in our share of the money,
00:11:32.020which could be a billion dollars if there is no plebiscite happening in Calgary.
00:11:37.240So, even if the city doesn't keep it as binding, I think the province has said that they're not putting in their huge chunk of money if there isn't a vote and the wishes of the voters aren't respected.
00:11:50.400So, at least we have, I'm not saying, you know, city council won't still try and go ahead with it anyway,
00:11:54.740but at least we have a piece of common sense coming from our NDP government, a sentence I never thought I'd say.
00:12:02.620You know, it's rare. We should highlight it when they do it.
00:12:05.820And actually, you and I should take the day off next year to celebrate. We'll just make it a holiday.
00:12:10.880That's right. We'll mark the date and time.
00:13:10.080Every Olympics that has been held recently has had an analysis done post-Olympics to see what the actual benefits were.
00:13:17.000And in a lot of cases, the benefits that did happen were very temporary, only in the period immediately around the Games.
00:13:24.820It displaces other economic activity, of course, because if someone's working on the Olympics, that means they're not working in the private sector, creating wealth and prosperity.
00:13:34.700And ultimately, a lot of cities end up a lot worse for having hosted the Olympics.
00:13:40.380My favorite one, Lillehammer, cost them so much money they had to dissolve the town for a period because they couldn't pay the bills.
00:13:49.480And Norway itself just had to step in and fund the rest of the debt themselves.
00:13:54.680So, to me, they're really overstating the economic benefits while understating the true costs of these Olympic Games.
00:14:04.440Now, you had mentioned earlier that this could actually be spread out across a few venues.
00:14:10.060Do you know which ones they're considering right now?
00:14:12.840They're looking primarily at Canmore and Whistler.
00:14:17.880Whistler, of course, one of the venues for the 2010 Winter Olympics and Canmore as well.
00:14:24.040They haven't identified a venue for curling yet, and I think that's something they're looking at Edmonton for, possibly, to take on.
00:14:35.880I think what's interesting is they've only pegged security costs at $600 million, which every person I've spoken to who has some idea about planning security for these sorts of things says is an incredibly low number for what we're seeing.
00:14:53.440Especially if we're going to be hosting the Olympics across four or five different Olympic venues.
00:15:00.020And Vancouver, for example, came in at just under a billion dollars.
00:15:06.520And I think we'll all agree the world has only gotten more dangerous since 2010.
00:15:11.780Since then, we've had terrorist attacks tragically on our own soil.
00:15:15.900We've been listed as a country that ISIS and other terrorist groups are targeting.
00:15:22.720So why are we now suggesting that we can cut the security budget by 40 percent over what we spent in 2010?
00:15:31.540To me, this is just a way of trying to show a break-even Olympics when the reality is we're going to go deeply, deeply into debt when all of the bills come in and all of the revenue figures are counted.
00:15:44.120You know, William, you probably haven't heard, but the more we say diversity is our strength, the more the terrorists leave us alone.
00:16:04.980No, I mean, I suspect what we would have to do is assume all of the costs associated with renting and constructing venues in other locations.
00:16:16.780So if one of the, you know, say one of the Alpine venues said it didn't want to participate, we could probably still host those Olympic Games there.
00:16:27.440But it would be at a hugely added cost for Calgary because we would have virtually no local on-the-ground support.
00:16:35.080We have to bring everyone out from Calgary to do the work, to do the construction, to do the venue management.
00:16:46.780We may have to build pieces of infrastructure to support, you know, huge traffic flows and pedestrian flows and things like that in those other locations.
00:16:55.180So I don't necessarily know if it would be a complete deal breaker, but what it would do is start to add a lot more zeros onto the ends of the bills that we're already paying.
00:17:05.860Now, we've actually seen some pretty prominent people, people who've been involved in municipal government in Calgary, come out on the no side, including a former alderman.
00:17:18.600Do you think that's going to have any bearing on sort of the momentum that the no side is picking up?
00:17:30.140I can say that so far, I mean, look, the yes side is filled with people who have been political allies and supporters of Mayor Nangchi.
00:17:40.580They're hosting they're hosting pretty glitzy events with lots of audiovisual and fancy venues to show off the thing.
00:17:51.440And, you know, Calgary 2026, the big corporation, has already said they're going to be promoting their plan for the 2026 Olympics, which, in other words, means they're going to be campaigning for a yes vote in this plebiscite.
00:18:06.700Something, by the way, the city said it would not do, which was put taxpayer dollars into campaigning for either side.
00:18:13.240Well, there's now a full time big corporation campaigning for a yes in these Olympic Games.
00:18:18.560So to me, I think it's people are starting to wonder how much is this really going to cost everybody?
00:18:28.260Some people put that figure closer to five billion.
00:18:31.220People have looked at how Olympic cost overruns go.
00:18:33.980And if, you know, Canada puts in half and the city puts in a quarter and the province puts in a quarter, whatever the financial breakdown is, we're still talking about billions and billions of dollars.
00:18:47.320And as we joked about earlier on, we can't even get our garbage picked up correctly.
00:18:53.040We can't even get potholes filled in in a timely manner.
00:18:57.580And yet, somehow, we think we have the kind of money to invest in something which could leave us deeply in debt when it's done.
00:19:06.280The mayor himself, for whom possibly the only reason we're even having this Olympic discussion is because of our mayor,
00:19:13.020has said that money is so tight at City Hall that we're either going to have to raise taxes or cut the mediocre services we're already getting.
00:20:26.660It just seems like there should be other things that will generate real economic growth that everybody along the way should be focusing on instead of, you know, a two-week party and a legacy project for Nenshi and, quite frankly, Rachel Notley.
00:20:43.780And I think that it's, we were talking off camera about how this is starting to gobble up the agenda down at City Hall.
00:20:53.440There was supposed to be a debate on lowering the municipal speed limit down to 30 kilometers per hour.
00:21:02.400And, you know, there's a lot of controversy swirling around that.
00:21:05.100Some people think it'll reduce traffic fatalities.
00:21:08.540And some people, maybe people like me, think it's a bit of a money grab.
00:21:12.120But that is sort of being put over because the Olympics are sucking all the air out of the room.
00:21:19.620I mean, I doubt that until this plebiscite happens, we're going to talk about a lot of issues other than the Olympics.
00:21:28.860And certainly, I think that if you talk about there only being one taxpayer, you're absolutely right.
00:21:34.180We saw a major energy project, the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion, put on ice for goodness knows how long while we wait for the federal government, you know, Mr. Trudeau playing the role of Hamlet, dithering to decide what to do.
00:21:55.800You've got NAFTA, you know, a major trade agreement upon which a lot of Canada's economic prosperity is based in jeopardy.
00:22:04.860You've seen our federal government mismanage the negotiations with the Americans on the NAFTA file.
00:22:11.080And now it doesn't look like certainly a deal is likely and possibly a deal won't happen at all.
00:22:16.840And if so, what's the economic impact on Calgary, on Alberta and on Canada?
00:22:21.440Certainly, we're going to have a lot of things we need to focus on to spend money on, to invest in.
00:22:26.900And this Olympics, it's just not the right time to host a, you know, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten billion dollar party because the mayor decided he wanted a legacy.
00:22:37.700I don't think there's ever a right time, but that's just me.
00:22:43.660William, I think that's a great spot to leave the interview.
00:22:46.800How do people find out what's on the radar of Save Calgary and what's, you know, happening down at City Hall that taxpayers need to be concerned about?
00:23:13.540Well, certainly, we put one out, you know, every week where we talk about sort of what's happening at City Hall, the latest things we've uncovered.
00:23:21.720When we speak to councillors and to municipal stakeholders, we try and get at, like, what you do at The Rebel, the real story happening at City Hall.
00:23:30.920You can go to our Facebook page where we post ongoing content, and that's just searching for Save Calgary there.
00:23:37.420And you can follow us on Twitter at our at Save Calgary account.
00:23:40.880And we try and push out a lot of information for people because, you know, with a handful of exceptions, really the only coverage of City Hall is just repeating the pretty positive talking points that come out of City Hall.
00:23:54.640And, you know, I think we're all tired of hearing how great a job our city council is doing according to our city council.
00:24:01.520I think a lot of people want to know the real story of what's happening behind closed doors at City Hall.
00:24:31.520About some of those IOC perks that William and I referenced in our interview.
00:24:39.600Let me just tell you a little bit more about the perks the IOC demanded from Norway so that you can be outraged that the city of Calgary is even considering spending taxpayer dollars on making these aristocratic elites happy for two weeks.
00:24:54.960According to a recent report in Business Insider, every IOC member demanded that they must be greeted by a smiling, positive, and welcoming staff at the airport.
00:25:04.860All of the venues must be designed such that IOC members and guests are segregated from press and broadcast personnel.
00:25:14.660Private cars must be provided to select IOC members at the expense of the Olympic Organizing Committee and about those cars.
00:25:22.840Volunteer drivers for IOC members must speak fluent English or French and be available to work up to 10 hours per day for six days per week.
00:25:32.300The IOC hotel must make available at no extra cost existing sports facilities such as fitness facilities, swimming pools, and sauna facilities to all IOC hotel guests and IOC staff members.
00:25:46.680Oh and about those hotels, the hotels must have a member's lounge to be used exclusively by IOC members and if there isn't one, the hotel has to install one at their cost and there must be 100% security screening of passengers and their baggage for IOC hotels.
00:26:05.520Now this is not a requirement for other hotels which means it's just about keeping those IOC officials safe and not the rest of us.
00:26:13.560Anyway, these are some of the demands that became some of the reasons that Norway pulled out of the bid process for the 2026 Olympics.
00:26:23.660Just imagine for a second what Calgary is willing to bend over and give to these corruptocrats to stay in the Olympic bid process.
00:26:33.580Well everybody, that's the show for tonight.