December 17, 2002

Salzburg 2010

Recognition of the strength of the Salzburg bid will not stop critics from blaming Mayor Larry Campbell and COPE if Vancouver loses the bid. Part of that spin is that COPE would never have approved a vote on the Olympic bid if the NDP were in power. Those who advance that argument, including Vancouver Province columnist Mike Smyth, demonstrate that they know nothing about COPE. Premier Gordon Campbell seemed to be a big fan of citizens voting on anything they desire when he introduced a private members bill in 1995 to amend the Recall and Initiative Act, and as Premier he insisted that a vote on treaty principles was the right thing to do no matter what the cost. As is too often the case, what is right seems to depend on whose side you are on and let the facts be damned.

Critics of Vancouver's upcoming vote tend to forget that there is no guarantee that Vancouver will win the bid, vote or no vote. Since everyone's costs are someone's income, the $35 million spent on the bid will benefit someone even if it doesn't produce the games for Vancouver-Whistler. One of the beneficiaries of the bid, even an unsuccessful bid, should be tourism in British Columbia. The economic case for an expanded convention centre is much stronger than the case for the Olympics. Perhaps that is why the economic study for the bid declines to separate the future benefits of the convention centre from the marginal benefits of the bid. Ottawa and Victoria should be crystal clear that the convention centre expansion will proceed with or without a successful Olympic bid. Attention to those details seems to be lost as debate shifts to the merits of COPE honouring its election promise.

GamesBid.com is a website that describes itself as "an authoritative review of Olympic bid business". Its bid index has consistently put Vancouver in second place to Salzburg. Those who believe that a successful bid would distort priorities and lose money might be inclined to shout "Go Salzburg". Readers of the GamesBid.com website will discover that Salzburg also has its Olympic bid critics. In a news story dated November 7, 2002, Helmut Huettinger, spokesman for a concerned citizens committee, appears to have gotten the director of the Salzburg 2010 to admit that the worst case scenario could be that the 2010 Games would create a 20 per cent deficit or about 100 million euro. That may sound like a lot but it is small relative to the $6 billion price tag that some put on the Vancouver bid. Of course, followers of the competing bids know that the Salzburg bid does not depend on the massive, and perhaps inappropriate, infrastructure spending that is required for Vancouver.

Does anyone really believe that an expensive expansion of the Sea to Sky Highway would be BC's top highway project if it weren't for the bid? Critics of Mayor Larry Campbell's vote on the bid say that anyone denied a community grant in the future may say that the money spent on the vote could have gone to their community group. The same applies thousands of times over for every denied or postponed highway project that must wait while the Sea to Sky is upgraded beyond all reason. Those who point to deaths on that highway should consider the number of single vehicle fatalities on the Coquihalla Highway. Spending hundreds of millions will not prevent fatalities from reckless driving.

Some economists argue that any form of government spending, even building a pyramid in the desert, will help the economy when it is down. Others believe that any government spending should always be done on the highest possible priorities. Who would have thought that the Campbell Liberals are in the pyramid camp?