The Olympics' appetite for taxpayer money gargantuan and growing
Vaughn Palmer, Vancouver Sun
Published: Saturday, January 10, 2009, Vancouver Sun
For boosters of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, Friday's online edition of The Vancouver Sun provided the front page from hell.
Bang: "Vancouver faces potential $875-million Olympic price tag."
Bang: "B.C. approves upgrading BC Place stadium for $365 million."
Bang: "B.C. balking at increased 2010 Olympics security budget."
A veritable trifecta of bad-news headlines for taxpayers.
The city of Vancouver admits it could be on the hook for the full cost of the Olympic village.
The province commits to a massive (and after the fact) renovation of the venue for the Games' opening and closing ceremonies.
The province fights being stuck with a bill for hundreds of millions of dollars for providing Olympic security.
In the wake of those stories, various politicians offered assurances to minimize the financial horrors.
The Vancouver guarantees were said to pose a "worst case" scenario. The site can probably be developed and sold, offsetting the outlays by the city.
The BC Place upgrade should also be covered by development of the surrounding lands, subject to (ahem) market conditions.
And provincial taxpayers were supposed to feel good that B.C. is fighting to reduce its share of a security bill approaching $1 billion, never mind that any balance would have to be picked up by federal taxpayers.
"There is only one taxpayer," to quote various politicians at moments when it suited them.
On that basis, the all-in tab associated with Friday's three stories could exceed $2 billion.
And counting, one has to add. For taxpayers have repeatedly been given lowball estimates for Games and Games-related facilities, only to discover, too late, that they couldn't take any of those numbers to the bank.
The Olympic village was supposedly self-financing, apart from a mere $30 million in shared backing from the federal and provincial governments.
BC Place? Three years ago, the B.C. Liberals budgeted a mere $2.5 million for renovations that have turned into a $365-million upgrade. "It is not anticipated that BC Place will need a significant capital infusion," minister for the Olympics Colin Hansen assured the legislature then.
The security budget provides its own fiscal pathology. The police and other experts have been saying for years that the supposed $175 million budget wouldn't begin to cover costs.
But senior governments are still refusing to provide an update, other than a federal government suggestion that it will be more than $400 million and less than $1 billion. This is a budget?
Nor does that exhaust the instances of Games-related-budget fudging.
One readily recalls the expansion of the convention centre, ramrodded to ensure it would be ready to serve as the media centre for 2010. Cost, approaching $900 million, almost double the original "budget."
At year's end the independent auditor-general delivered a reminder of the provincial government's failure to acknowledge a further $170 million in Olympic costs.
As to what other surprises might be coming down the road, I would just note that the Olympic sponsors include troubled Nortel and troubled General Motors.
Hansen again, from 2007: "Something that has been the bane of my existence is an obsession that certain members of the media have ... that the cost of the Games are out of control and it is going to cost way more than anyone says it is going to cost. There are days when I am absolutely convinced that there is no amount of facts that will dissuade somebody from a good story."
Well, minister, it remains a fact that when these Games were first pitched to British Columbians in 1998 they were assured that taxpayers would be on the hook for "only" $100 million.
It is also a fact that about that time my colleague, Ian Mulgrew, predicted in these pages that "hosting the 2010 Winter Games would cost taxpayers a fortune."
Others, including yours truly, would say much the same thing. But the admission fee for being able to say "I told you so" is steep, given that, as taxpayers, we're all on the same hook.
When the news broke Friday of Vancouver's worst case scenario, it was said on radio station CKNW that "somewhere" Jean Drapeau, late author of Montreal's Olympic overrun, was probably enjoying a good laugh.
But the laughs might have been closer to home, and coming from this world, not the next.
I'm thinking of former premier Glen Clark, who played a key role in lining up the 2010 Games for British Columbia before he left office.
Clark, now an executive with the Jim Pattison group, remains a fan of the Olympics, according to what he recently told reporter Rod Mickleburgh of the Globe and Mail.
Clark even floated the possibility that he would get an invitation to the opening ceremonies.
"Of course I guess Carole James will be premier by then," he couldn't resist adding.
