To everyone that is pissed off about Halifax dropping the Commonwealth games bid, seek psychological counsel! We are talking about $1B+. The idea that Halifax is in any way able to host such an event is one my brain can’t explain. The city can’t even get potholes patched up, and you want them to build a multi-million-dollar badminton arena? Please. This is the first time the mayor has shown some backbone and done the right thing—at least he seems to have figured out that this is a town, it is not a city.
This article appears in Apr 24-30, 2008.
Absolutely correct. Our wise mayor has figured out it’s a town indeed. The only thing he hasn’t figures out is that it’s a town with a village mentality. 🙂
This “town” can choose to become a city if and when it culls the dead wood at city hall, gets rid of the authority of backward thinking interest groups and makes the decision to actually build, grow and evolve. Getting rid of that bumbling mayor and a lot of especially rural councillors is step one.As for the bid, the people running it seem to have basically lied to Council and they should be hung out to dry because all it achieved this late in the process was making Halifax again look like a backwater burg and this time on the international stage as well as to the rest of the country. Sooner or later though, if Halifax is to truly become the city it suposidly wants to be and not just a weekend hang out for country folk looking for cheap beer, then it will have to step up to the plate. Get some exposure, take charge of it’s future and run things well (unlike this bid). Oh, and the honorable mayor played this issue like a teenager. He basically dissappeared afterwards, didn’t have the backbone to stand up and say much or address the many questions and most importantly, didn’t seem to be aware that he could have actually used the budget numbers to publically leverage the feds for one or at least change the tone of the situation so that Halifax didn’t look so wishy washy.If we can’t compete against a “city” like Hamilton then it’s game over forever.
Gimme a fucking break. We can’t even get enough cash to pave our fucking potholed roads let alone pay for a bunch of games most people don’t give two sweet shits about.
Well, if you wait to fill every pothole before doing anything nothing will ever happen for one. As well, it really doesn’t matter if people don’t care. People also think the local music scene is on par with cities five times as big so their judgement is flawed. Yes, the budget was crap and yeah, it probably should have been cancelled but it was handled very very badly, the city gave up waaaaay too quickly and if the games had come, it could have meant very good things if managed properly. Instead = status quo and the downtown coffee drinkers get to keep complaining about everything while not being willing to do anything about it.
Hey Chuck U, I both agree and disagree with some of what you say.Unfortunately HRM is so large area wise we can’t help but have a rural mentality in council chambers. If Elmsdale is part of HRM then Elmsdale must be represented on council etc. I believe that “rural” viewpoint does affect HRM. We can thank Walter Fitzgerald for that.I found Peter Kelly to be quite accessable after the bid failure. He did an interview with Steve Murphy that night and was on the hotline the following day. Halifax has a proven track record of hosting world class events. The G-7 conference, Tall Ships, World Junior Championship, Memorial Cup, CIAU Basketball, World Figure Skating Championships etc etc. I don’t think we would have had a problem staging and hosting the games either. However, we would have had a hard time paying for them and that’s where the rub is.The experts involved agreed that HRM could not afford these games. As a side note, did anybody know the suggested price for the opening ceremonies was $375? I’m positive the Games Committee was aware of the real cost and that explains the secrecy. It probably explains the initial lowball cost of $785 million. Perhaps they assumed everyone would be on board and when the “real” cost came out we would already be drunk on the benefits of the games. Obviously that’s not how it played out and, IMO, the games committe made a huge strategic error here.If the CWG bid did anything it magnified the incredible reluctance for change in this area. This goes far beyond the CWG and makes me wonder why the general populace is so afraid of change?We are currently the 13th largest CITY in Canada. Worrying about fixing all the potholes and maintaining the “village or town” mentality will further impede growth. The CWG might not have been the right venture but it is time for this city to take a major step forward. That means “CHANGE” everyone.
Raoul,I actually agree in many ways as well. Fear of change and the ingrained interest groups that represent that fear are possibly the biggest challenge for the urban area. Rural councillors (and provincial ministers) are a MAJOR problem. I realize that’s the way things are set up but that doesn’t mean it’s healthy. If change in area representation is needed then so be it but something has to give. Urban Halifax is growing (slowly) and rural areas are generally shrinking, we continuously lose many of the best and brightest year after year and we are over represented by rural interests both municipally and provincially (while urban Halifax creates far more economic growth and production than anywhere else). That is what leads to things like the sunday shopping garbage not to mention electing fiddle playing gym teachers to run what should be an up and coming city and province.Of course, city staff also need to be seriously culled at the highest levels. They are secretive, insular and selfish with their own agendas. I hate to compare Halifax to cities like Moncton as it should be no contest but they are growing much faster than we are, employment is up, change is happening, etc. It’s disheartening to watch. But you’re right. The CWC magnified a lot of issues. I’m just hoping they don’t get swept away.
you don’t just get to say one day “i want the rest of the world to see my town as a proper city”. are you kidding me? progress? honestly have you been affected by school cut backs, or do you just believe what you are told by the one who speaks the loudest? we CANNOT afford it! plain and simple. we have not got the money because this is a poor town with not nearly enough people. we need more debt like we need a reputation for drinking too much. the counsel should look at mississauga’s way of doing things, debt free since 1978, and now it is 2x the size of halifax. hmmm growth without debt. say what you want about growth, and being taken seriously, but nobody will take you seriously when you think going into debt will solve your problems, except that is someone sell you a bill of goods.I’m still glad it’s game over
Well, you go into realistic debt to do most anything productive so as long as it is manageable it is a valid approach. Maybe it wasn’t in this case but maybe it was. Considering the people running things, we’ll probably never know.And Mississauga?! Seriously. If Halifax were sitting on the edge of the fastest growing metro area in the country with massive property values (taxes), loads of employment and corporate headquarters galore we’d have no problem either. Well, assuming decent people were running the show in that environment how could you lose. Development charges alone in Mississauga provide that city with massive revenues and having greenfield opportunities for growth right on Toronto’s doorstep helped a bit don’t you think?The real test for Miss will be managing themselves in 50 years when the infrastructure is aging, the fields are all built up, no new revenues of that nature are coming in and perhaps another GTA location is the hot one.It’s not really comparable.
at the risk of paying both sides of the coin it is exactly comparable. in 1978 mississauga was smaller than halifax is today. what went on was the mayor, who is still the mayor and second place for the world’s best mayor, said to herself i am going to make it my mission to grow this town into a proper city. mccallion’s pay as you go idea is not too hard to follow, attract business, real business, develop a plan for growth and here is the hardest part- stick to that plan. you’re right mississauga is next to toronto, kudos! toronto is what now? say it together…a city. want to go to a play? there is only ever one here, king st, dozens. ever take the bus here? try the TTC, actually runs often and takes you direct to where you want to go, inc the airport.what was the city’s plan for how to deal with the spectators? if the hotels are full of competitors, may be we should build more hotels that will go out of business after 5 years, that the idea? how was everyone who sits on the bedford HWY everyday, or has to cross the bridge supposed to get to work? The things we can do to make this town biger, more vibrant and just plain better are numerous, this games, not one of them, the games were a misguided idea persued by short-sighted politicians.
McCallion…..the mayor who gets hit by a truck and refuses to quit. Well, she’s certainly got “gumption” but beyond that, she’s an annoying little woman.In terms of growth though, while good planning is obviously essential, do you seriously think that Hazel is some sort of geriatric economic guru who can just be copied to replicate Mississauga’s massive growth anywhere? Economic development experts have been pouring over many cities (including this one) for decades trying to bring prosperity and no one has ever developed some sort of magic theory that works across the board. If it were that easy don’t you think someone might have noticed?I am hardly defending our mayor or any of the council members because I think they are lacking in many ways. Can they do better? Most definitely. Is it easy? No way and trying to copy the musings of a flush GTA burb just won’t cut it. Incidentally, you might want to take another look at Mississauga’s urban development as well because while the city has money now, it lacks a soul, has no functioning downtown, is a slave to car traffic and without enjoying the benefits of nearby Toronto, would be the equivalent of an ugly Dallas north but a fraction of the size it currently is. Again, if the CWG was a bad deal, fine but the idea that considering anything like this as a development engine is somehow doomed just because it’s Halifax is simply wrong and defeatist. Believe it or not, other cities have benefited greatly from past games so if you want to copy a growth formula, maybe you should have started there.
take another look at mississauga? i was there 3 weeks ago, i went to downtown to see what was going on, a snow storm as it turned out, but to say it is a souless place is bonkers. the city of mississauga places a premium the people who live there, art, accessability, public transit and the environment. may be you are correct, may be they are souless drones that live there; that sounds horid to me. as for benifiting from the games, i lived in victoria, it seemed that the perks were limited to further costs, as in yipeee we have all these buildings we have no need of, but we get the bill for up keep. either way that is neither here nor there, the simple point i am making is that 400M$ in debt is the last thing halifax needs, for a games that we don’t care about, that is forgeting the bills that these facilities will have every month. it seems that the casino in “downtown”is not enough, it seems a lot of people here are not content to gamble their own futures, they want to roll the dice on the whole town.everyone should be happy we are not going to have them, there should have been a parade. as for competing with hamilton ontario, we are not there yet, as gross as that sounds to me too, beer and funny accents do not a prosperous town make. i mean really, this place is like the team on survivor than builds their camp in the wrong place and won’t budge. just wait for the day when the ships stop coming because even the port is too rinky-dink.it’s not personal, this place is slipping and panicing, when what needs to be done is fix the foundation, before you extend up-that is if you can find a construction crew to do it that is not moving to calgary tomorrow.
I never said Mississauga was full of drones. But the urban core is garbage and the art scene contrived. Regardless, it’s more of a prevailing attitude that I find in this city that bothers me regarding the games and almost anything else. Especially among the older generations there is a very real defeatist funk that you can see a mile away and a kind of hopelessness that no matter what is done nothing will change. This is one of the big reasons why backroom politics and family favors run the show here and it’s so difficult to break in or change. Maybe they’re right. Maybe it’s a lost cause and we all should just shuffle on “down the road” to leave the place to church goin, country folk with a grade 10 education and a pick up who are just fine with “tings” as they are.