This article appears in Dec 6-12, 2007.
Commonwealth Games
I can’t see why people want these games so much without fully knowing all the facts. The games committee is so secretive and refuses to open their books for a thorough investigation. Why? They first stated that it won’t cost much, etc.. But now we find
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These games are a total waste of taxpayer’s money. Secrecy has no place with this bid – it’s our money, we the public have a right to know. I’d rather see affordable housing than this fucking fiasco.
I totally agree with you guys. Let them take the taxpayers hard earned money and fix the roads for once, lower tuition, the list goes on and on. It is our money and the sad thing is we have no control over what’s done with it.
When is the next Provincial election? Man can’t you just smell the payola surrounding these (cough) games (cough).
d’oh I wasn’t aware that this blog doesn’t support html code. “games” in the last post was supposed to read (cough) games (cough).
So, the NSLC is trying to raise money so these clowns can submit their bid. I hear it’s in the neighbourhood of around $40,000 alone. Then, if that goes through and they win the games, you’re looking at a bill of up to $1 BILLION. Let’s see what that could pay for. Couple new schools, lots of hospital equipment, improved transit, more homeless shelters, social programs, sports facilities, improved paving of roads, job programs. Name it and we could fund it. But no, the secretive society wants you to spend your hard earned cash (and mortgage your’s and your kids’ futures) to fund their 2 weeks of sporting events. Don’t get me wrong, I like sports, but I don’t think we can afford to fund this. Time to start being more realistic and stop this nonsense before it gets out of control.
I heard on the radio this morning, if our bid is successful, we will donate $10,000 to each of the commonwealth nations to invest in sport. Hmmmm, sound like a bribe to anyone else?Originally, I supported the games despite the horrendous PR gaffes by the organizing committee. This is our money and keeping the tax payer in the dark, regardless of their reasoning, was wrong. Now we are going to give out $10,000 handshakes if we “win” the bid. Shouldn’t we be taking care of Nova Scotians first?
everyones so geeze darn cynical…bad experiences much? can’t you all just open your minds to something good happening for once? Its money isn’t it? well just imagine there was unlimited supply..then allow your mind to think of the benefits surrounding this inovation, which is, making sports a big part of our culture so that everyone can benefit. would you really suffer so much if you weren’t always anticipating it?
Some good points jill but the sad reality is that there isn’t an unlimited supply of money. We can get some of the infastructure without being on the hook for a 2 week party. As much as I would love to have a 25,000 seat stadium we also have people waiting 8 months or more for an MRI.Now I’ve heard on the radio that the 70 Commonwealth nations will receive the $10,000 regardless of Halifax winning the bid. Sorry to come across negatively jill but this makes me angry. I’m curious what others think?
The Commonwealth Games is the mother of all icebergs and Halifax is the Titanic heading straight towards it. (Apologies to deAdder of the Daily Snooze)
If this bullshit keeps up, Freddie McG will be farting thru silk.
jill, I’ll just quote a part of what you wrote:”…can’t you all just open your minds to something good happening for once? Its money isn’t it? well just imagine there was unlimited supply..then allow your mind to think of the benefits surrounding this inovation…”Can you explain to all of us where this unlimited money is coming from? Where’s the innovation in holding these games?Let’s see, a BILLION dollars could result in free education for anyone/everyone in NS for decades. Try to imagine how many engineers, doctors, teachers, nurses and whatever other profession out there we’d have. Now that would be innovation.Let’s continue on with your train of thought. This unlimited amount of money is kind of like your credit card. You can buy lots and lots with it because it’s not your money. It’s free money!Lots of us participate in sports. How about taking the money and funding amateur sports leagues and such, which could benifit from new fields and equipment. We don’t need to spend hundreds of millions or a billion on foreign athletes to use for two weeks and then leave. We’ll use more of our imagination as soon as you come out of the clouds and use some reality.
Perhaps we all do sound bitter. But hey there is something called reality…and sorry Jill there isn’t an unlimited supply of money for the commonwealth games. I also want to win the lottery and buy an island down south…once again there is this little thing called reality. The taxpayers would pay for it. And I’m sorry. I work really hard for my money and I believe there are alot more important causes millions maybe billions of our money could go towards to help improve Nova Scotia.
It sounds bitter to those who run around still believing in the tooth fairy and santa claus and as well to those of us that still check the seeds in the backyard to see if the money tree has sprouted yet. To the rest of us we know the money doesn’t magically appear, it will be bled out of the taxpayers like everything else. Bitter? I think not. Reality, yes.
Unbelievable. Will someone please read anything about economics. “why don’t we spend our money on our roads? or pay our doctors” holy Christ, if I hear this any more I’m going to open a Walmart just to spite you hippys. Look this is how it works. ECONOMIC ACTIVITY AND DEVELOPMENT MEANS JOBS AND MONEY BEING SPENT IN HALIFAX. 1B BEING SPENT (HALF OF WHICH IS BEING OFFERED BY THE FEDS THAT WOULD NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS BE GIVEN OTHERWISE)WHICH WILL GO TOWARDS JOBS, INFRASTRUCTURE AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT. ALL OF THESE JOBS, CONTRACTS BEING HANDED OUT AND BUSINESSES MAKING MONEY EQUALS MEGA TAX BEING PAID BY THE BUSINESSES AND WORKERS VIA INCOME TAX, CORPORATE TAX AND OUR PROVINCIAL SHARE OF THE HST. We are not paving your roads because there is not enough economic activity and people making money here in Halifax. The games will generate the tax money that you want to pay your doctors and pave your roads and build your schools. Get it? Maybe then we may be able to crawl out of the hole that is Halifax, AKA the City stuck 10 years behind every other Canadian city.
All of you who wrote in complaining about how costly these games will be, please put down your Tim Horton double doubles and think for a moment at what this means for the city of Halifax. First of all, yes this will cost a butt load of money, but hey you gotta spend money to make money. Yes of course you could put the money into some other program such as public housing, fixing roads and provide free education, but that is only a band aid solution to a growing number of problems. Here’s what would happen with that money ‘well spent’ in the long term. The public housing wouldn’t be so great. It would drive the property value down in that area and therefore decrease property taxes and where do you propose the funds come from to maintain these properties…wait let me guess, property taxes right. Ok so that’s a little glitch. Now what if you fixed all the roads, filled in the pot holes, and improved the public transit system? Well, I’d hate to break this to you but the same thing will happen. Roads will deteriorate and public transit users will have to pay higher service fees just to maintain a faster and more convenient transit system. Ooops, another short-sighted quick fix. How about free education? Now that’s rich idea. Let’s see, we educate all these wonderful professionals who by and large will pack in their shit the day the graduate and move to what….a better city! A professional doesn’t give care if the people living on welfare have a nice cozy apartment or that you can get downtown faster and on fewer transfers. A professional wants a city to cater to their wants and needs. YES, I know there are many who live in the city, but how many more leave to pursue a career somewhere else? On a side note for you who think free education is a good idea. In the 1970’s the Australian government created free education for everyone, but the problem that arose was the value of a degree decreased. Since every Joe Blow had a degree it became next to worthless. Therefore, to get an advantage one had to further their studies to be better than the next guy. This creates a drain sucking the system dry. You’d have a significant part of the labor force in school at the same time and not enough young, fresh minds, actually contributing to the system…but that’s another story. So, you don’t want the Games. Here’s what you’re losing:Lillehammer, Salt Lake City, Sydney, Torino, Calgary, Nagano, Athens…ring any bells? These are world famous Olympic venues that you must have heard of. But wait, we are talking about the Common Wealth Games aren’t we. Yes I know that. Let me help you clarify what I’m arguing. Let’s say you want a job but to get that job you need experience and if you lack the experience necessary you can’t get that job. Well that’s kind of what the CWG could be for Halifax. The Games are chance to expose the city a significant part of the world. It’s essentially a great way to advertise Halifax. The city would also benefit from learning how to manage major events. Hosting the CWG will require a crazy amount of planning and infrastructure but the city will have all of these wonderful venues at the end of it all. By the way, the city would have to improve roads and even sewer systems which would benefit everyone long after the games were finished. Oh look! Fixed an existing problem! I know this maybe too much for you all to consider at once. But please think outside of the traditional arguments as to what the city could do with ‘the money.’ Yes, the Games would cost a ridiculous amount of money but once the city had new stadiums, arenas, swimming pools, etc there is a possibility the Olympics could come to town and the city would already have half of what’s needed to run them (I’m speaking of the Summer Games BTW). All of this would make Halifax a more attractive place to live and raise kids. Heck, if the city were that successful it may even get a professional hockey team and we could watch Sydney Crosby play in his home town! Wouldn’t that be sweet!Phew! I’m done but I’ll be honest with you, I really don’t think spending money on money draining projects like social housing, and transit will improve the city significantly enough to enrich everyone’s life. I also don’t think the Games will help any That much either, but for once let’s let something new in and be excited about change.
Slapshot, that was a fantastic well thought out post. I agree with much of what you said. As previously posted, I was originally a supporter of the games for many of the reasons you listed above. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I don’t support the Games anymore but I’m definitely on the fence. What I’d like to do is raise some points to think about and play devil’s advocate with some of your thoughts. It’s a long one but I hope you will take a quick read.The Feds aren’t going to pay 1/2 the cost of the games. They are willing to contribute $400 million. The original cost of the games was estimated at $500 million, before the Feds made their commitment. That has since moved to $785 million with rumblings that it could grow to $1.5 billion and we’re still 7 years from the opening ceremonies. If you think about it for a second it makes some sense. How could we stage the games and build the infrastructure for $500 mil or even $785 mil. The stadium alone would likely be at least $100 million and I think that would be a bargain. We haven’t even broached the subject of covering the security costs and let’s not forget that Federal tax dollars are still partially our tax dollars.The major reason why I am having a change of heart is the lack of information from the organizing committee. I understand there is a competitive nature to these bids and playing your cards close to your chest is important. However, if the games are to be financed largely with taxpayer money then we have to know the cost …. we have to. When I hear about the cost of the games rising and I’m not getting any information from the games committee it’s hard to stay positive about the games. Another unknown is the Corporate sector, where are they? We need Sobeys, Irving, McCain and other large corporations to be on board. If we could raise another $400-$500 million from the corporate sector that makes the games much easier to afford. With the winning bid being announced in November the current lack of corporate sponsorship is troubling. You could even argue that once the infrastructure is in place people from all over the Maritimes would be using the facilities. I think it’s only fair for the NB and PEI governments to contribute financially to staging the games as there would be some financial benefit for the entire region.Contrary to traditional belief the CWG are not as popular as people think. People, in general, don’t travel around the world to watch the games. Obviously the US is not a Commonwealth nation so we can’t expect to draw great numbers from our neighbours. The fact is in CWG most of the spectators are from the general area in which the games are being held. Do we have enough people in a 500km radius to support the games … I don’t know. I agree that TV exposure is good advertising for Halifax but likely not great. From a personal perspective I have known for quite sometime that I wanted to go to Austrailia. I didn’t need the CWG to make me realize that. When the CWG were held in Malaysia I wasn’t at home thinking “wow I really need to get there someday.” I don’t think the games being televised on TV would create that much of a tourism boom. Our location would make it hard for many commonwealth tourists to get here and the games will not be seen by the Americans because they are not competing.The one thing I did disagree with was the correlation between Olympic hosts and Halifax. The Olympic venues in Lillehammer, Salt Lake City, Calgary, Nagano, and Torino are all Winter Olympic sites. The Olympic Winter games are dramatically smaller in scope than the Summer games and not comparable for the type of infrastructure needed to host. Looking back at recent some summer hosts: Athens, Atlanta, Seoul, Los Angeles, Beijing in 2008 and London in 2012. These cities are far bigger than Halifax and most of these encountered hardships in hosting the games successfully, Athens almost lost the games. Point being, Halifax is far too small to even seriously mention the Summer Games. The venues would have to be far bigger than what the CWG require. As an example we would need an 80,000 – 100,000 seat stadium not the 25,000 seat stadium currently in the plans. Most of the CWG facilities would not be adequate for the Olympics and there are far more events in an Olympic Games. However, I do understand the point you were trying to make about “climbing the ladder”.In closing, the CWG would bring many benefits to the region. The sheer number of employment opportunities and subsequent tax dollars and contribution to the local economy cannot be over looked. I personally believe we could finance some of the infrastructure without hosting the games and is worth investigating. Like I mentioned above, if the corporate sector and neighbouring governments can come on board to reduce the burden then let’s do it because we could do it! If money wasn’t an object I couldn’t see too many people who would be opposed to the CWG. Unfortunately, money is an obstacle. There is a history of failure in this province when projects are undertaken with a blank cheque and no disclosure mentality. I don’t see the CWG being any different in that regard. Thank you for anyone who took the time to read this, it was much longer than I intended.
Since I don’t drink coffee, I’ll keep my hands up in protest. Ok, so if everyone gets free education, we shouldn’t even bother, right? Since the education is worthless. Oh, that’s great logic. Let’s just keep everyone stupid and strugging to pay for a “worthless” education instead of having a highly educated population. Yah, that’s great logic.Let’s not bother funding public transportation either. That way we’ll have to pay for MORE roads, which means more maintenance and higher costs. We’ll just let urban sprawl continue and keep spewing out more gases from all those cars which people have to use to get around instead of having a good transit system. Traffic keeps getting worse and worse because of all the cars out there. Replace those cars with buses and whoah, no more massive traffic jams. Ever wonder why it’s so bad in the States? It’s because they have bad transit and everyone drives everywhere. What about the hospitals that need all that new equipment? Forget about them too, because what’s the economic return on investment for new imaging systems or equipment? Zero! So forget about that too. Let everyone suffer. We’ll keep the waiting times 6+ months instead. Everyone loves that.Your argument about public housing is not a valid one either. All the residences built for these athletes will be owned by the gov. What do you think they’ll do with the housing after the athletes are done? It’ll be handed over to Community Services to house those in the lower income bracket. Do you think the property values will be high then? If they were smart, they’d plan for mixed housing so that it doesn’t just become another housing project. That way property values remain the same or even go up. That means assesments remain same (highly unlikely) but would go up so that the gov can get more $$ from you. Assessments going down is like income tax going down. How many people do you know fight their assessments? Now, let’s do a comparison between Halifax and all those other cities mentioned. Your first group are all large cities. We’re talking metropolitan areas in the range of 1,000,000+. Not only that, but they can draw from surrounding areas which then increases the population pool to 3,000,000+. What’s Halifax got? Hmmm, the entire Maritimes alone has less than the population of Montreal. Do you honestly think we have the population base to not only pay for these games but to even attend the games? Ya, tourists will show up for them, but how many do you expect? 50,000+ ?? I doubt it. They wouldn’t even be able to find a place to stay if they came. And how many of them would drive hours to get to Halifax to attend a few events? Zero. Since we’re trying to compare against other cities, let’s consider what happened after the games left. Calgary is basically the National training centre for speed skating and other winter events. Athens spent like 3 Billion Euros building infrastructure and such. But what are they doing with the facilities? When the games ended, do you think the stadiums and all that magically stay clean and perfect? You’re stuck with buildings that have to be maintained, heated, etc… Who’s going to pay for that? Not the feds or the province. So problem NOT resolved.To fix the problem of doctors or others leaving, you just put in a clause like the military, your free higher specialized education requires that you put in 4 years of work afterwards. That keeps them in province and fixes that problem.Now let’s consider the remote possibility of Halifax landing a pro sports team. Actually, just forget about it. Ottawa can’t even maintain a CFL team. Most CFL teams struggle to break even. Now you’re dreaming if you think we can get an NHL team. Let’s take a look at the cities that have them and either lost them or are currently struggling. Winnipeg, Quebec City, Columbus, and Nashville are a few. What do they have in common? They’re all way bigger than Halifax. They all have rinks and such yet they couldn’t or can’t host an NHL team. Our population base is way too small, and our tv market is a joke so no revenue there. So just get that idea out of your head now.If you don’t think putting money into public transit or socialized housing will enrich everyone’s life, then you’re not looking at the big picture. You need to look over in Europe and see how it works. Their cities have all of that and the people enjoy a high quality of life.I’d say that if you want us to host these games, you’ve either taken too many slapshots to the head or you’ve been smoking the same stuff as jill, but not quite as strong.
I forgot. Since we’re talking about paying for these games, let’s not forget about Montreal hosting those fine Summer Olympics. It’s not called the Big Owe for no reason.
Why doesn’t the HRM get Premier Macdonald to try to get his paws on some of that 51 BILLION dollars that is apparently in the EI account….talk about surpluses…We could fund every olympic, commenwealth and Canada Games wth that amount of loot for the next 80 years.
For what it’s worth…I support the CWG.. although I absolutely see the merit in the negative view point… I only take exception with people who trash the secrecy….. It’s a competitive bid and you lay all of your cards on the table, you probably won’t win! Wether we should spend the mone is an entirely different argument!
It seems to me an awful lot of money for the city and the province to have to pony up for a second class sporting event. Why can’t the different levels of Government work together like this normally? Why does it have to be the Commonwealth games that spurs this type of wallet opening on a galactic scale? Shouldn’t we get this kind of gracious support (i.e. billion(s) of dollars) for the things we really need:hospitalspublic transiteducationimproved rail infrastructurebridgesport infrastructureConsidering we have to put up with the insanely high levels of taxation in this country/province/city and haven’t had any body’s head on a stick yet, I think that’s the least that the different levels of goverment can do.Who’s going to pay off the ever spiraling “estimates”? And I mean the majority of the cost of the gamers over and above $400 M from the feds.It won’t be the feds who fund Halifax near the bottom of the list in Canada. It won’t be the province – Halifax is Nova Scotia cash cow, those poor bastards in Province House have to use us to balance the provincial expense book.So yep, it’ll be poor old Halifax, stuck in the poor house for another 50 years for:a stadiuma short term economic injection2 weeks of media exposure, mostly to countries too poor to be economic partners (G7 partners other than UK on the list anyone?)multi-generational debt.I think they (being the levels of government above the HRM) OWE US $1.5 Billion to SPEND HOWEVER WE GODDAMN PLEASE, Commonwealth Games or not!!
For once I agree with Mike1979. I think that the mere thought of Halifax being able to AFFORD the Commonwealth games is ridiculous. And I for one am sick and tired of the poor condition of this city….the list is too long to type..
In Edmonton, when they hosted the Commonwealth Games in 1978 – in addition to all of the sporting infrastructure built, they also spent $350 Million (in 1978 dollars) on an LRT system to link the airport, the city universities and downtown. Now if there was some kind of major infrastructure like this included in the Halifax deal, I might get behind it. I guess us downtrodden Maritimers should be happy with whatever we get instead…
Negative people jeezes.No one wants this thing to be a bad experience and games can actually result in improved infrastructure, better facilities, etc if done right. Many of you seem to act like it’s immediately a “bad deal” just because it’s possibly happening here. Defeatist is not the attitude to take but I can’t say I’m surprised.If anything, be wary of the people running the show but not automatically the concept itself.
I don’t think people are against the concept of the city hosting a major event. But this thing is so far beyond our means that it’s outrageous. To compound the problem is the whole secrecy behind it. If you can’t trust the people running the show, how can you expect to support the show?
If the funding is made available there should be no problem. A lot of what the bid folks are actually doing right now is putting forward a plan and betting that the Feds, etc will chip in needed money later. It’s a gamble yes but that’s how all of these things are run and unless we want to see corporate logos on medals then that option won’t fly as the major $$ source either.If it makes no sense then yeah, dump it but I hate to see budget numbers tossed around in newspapers because they are so often outrageous to many who have no clue what is normal. Running a city costs a lot of money and department budgets are huge but every once in a while a little $75,000 study for example, will get complained about and ya know….it’s usually pretty bargain basement compared to other places in the country. Like it or not, planning and building things properly costs big money but to do otherwise usually costs more in the end. If the Games are a good deal that can spur investment and infrastructure then excellent but without proper investigation we’ll never know and if we wait until every last number is in to bid, the chance will be gone.