Winter Games – Vancouver’s Stimulus Plan
Good to know that our politicians in Vancouver are doing our part by spending an unreal amount of money on a glorified hockey tournament, called the Winter Olympics.
The Vancouver Sun has a breakdown, but the bottom line is:
The various levels of government are spending a combined $5.84 billion on the Games. We still don’t know the full cost of: security (budgeted at $175 million, but now estimated at up to $1 billion); the Vancouver Olympic Athletes’ Village; 2010 curriculum; indirect labour costs; municipal torch relay celebrations; municipal programs designed to piggyback on the Olympics..
I wrote in August that the games would cost us at least $3 billion – I guess my wild prediction was off by almost half.
New prediction? 6.5 billion. This will blow away the Montreal Games “debacle” and will translate into much higher property taxes in Vancouver for the next 30 years.
photo credit: Antony Pranata
January 25th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
I hope this finally convinces the municipal, provincial and federal governments to never again seek to stage an Olympics anywhere in Canada. If some city wants to stage the Olympics, let them and their provincial government, if they are so short sighted, pay the entire bill for themselves. God save us from ever again inflating the civic ego with another boondoggle like the Olympics. I never want to ever hear of the Olympics happening anywhere in Canada. It is a massive waste of valuable resources. The money, if all other civic needs are met, should remain in the pockets of those who earned it.
January 26th, 2009 at 6:32 am
Hmmm, as an American, I’d like to visit your Olympics. It might be a waste of money, and it might cost 6 billion dollars.
It is done now, though. And, for a while all eyes around the world will be on Vancouver, and what a beautiful place it is, and safe.
People might think about visiting there in years to come, and remember how civilized it all looks there, a place where there are still good manners (having been under the British rule for 100 year longer than us).
I hope I get to go.