Calgary’s 2026 Olympic bid, backed by Mayor Nenshi and Premier Notley, faces $5.2–$5.3 billion costs—$3B from governments—with BidCo promising $7.4B in benefits, though critics like William Macbeth (Save Calgary) call it unrealistic, warning true expenses could hit $8–$10B due to IOC demands: five-star hotels, free alcohol, segregated venues, and private transport. Macbeth highlights past overruns, citing Oslo and Sapporo’s bid withdrawals, while questioning Calgary’s $600M security budget against Vancouver’s $1B in 2010. With the province tying funding to a November 13 plebiscite and local infrastructure crises like garbage collection and potholes unresolved, the bid risks becoming a costly distraction from urgent priorities amid economic uncertainty. [Automatically generated summary]
How much are you willing to spend to woo and curry favor with one of the world's most corrupt and sleazy organizations, the IOC?
Calgary's mayor hopes that number is over $5 billion.
I'm Sheila Gunread.
you're watching The Gun Show.
The city of Calgary's hopes to host the 2026 Olympic Games are getting closer to reality and I'm getting worried.
There's a municipal plebiscite slated for November 13th that will finally give city taxpayers an opportunity to have their say in how their tax dollars are being spent.
Are taxpayers willing to spend billions and billions of dollars to have a two-week-long legacy party for Mayor Nenshi and Premier Rachel Notley?
The yes side of the plebiscite debate sure hopes so.
The yes side hopes that taxpayers will be able to overlook their money being spent on courting and pleasing corrupt international Olympic committee officials to support what lowest estimates say will be a $5.2 billion event.
Or do taxpayers think their money is better spent on, I don't know, garbage collection, pothole fixing, and municipal maintenance, especially in the wake of the cancellation of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion, a cancellation that nuked 8,000 jobs.
I guess we're going to find out in two short months.
Notable former Calgary politicians have come out and expressed concern about the cost.
Former alderman John Chamal says he's a hard no on the Olympics for economic reasons.
In the meantime, taxpayer-funded Olympic bid examination corporation BIDCO is campaigning for a yes.
Joining me tonight to update us on any new Olympic bid news and to cut through the municipal spin and help us all understand the true cost of the Calgary Olympic bid is my good friend William Macbeth from Save Calgary.
Hey William, thanks for joining me.
You folks at Save Calgary are right on top of all the Olympic bid news and I wanted to have you on because there has been a few developments on the Olympic bid front.
We finally got some numbers out of the city of Calgary and BidCo.
Why don't you break those down for us?
Sure.
And we should probably start by saying we have some numbers.
From those of us who have looked at them, we're not really that confident that these numbers are in any way reflective of reality or real life.
So, but at least we have a document.
We have a document with some numbers on it, which is a place to start the conversation, I guess.
So BidCo released the proposed bid saying that the Olympics would cost roughly $5.2 to $5.3 billion with $3 billion of that coming from other orders of government.
So the federal, provincial, and the city of Calgary when it happens.
And they are trying to reuse as many of the previous venues as possible.
They're only planning to do upgrades for the most part with limited construction.
And they seem to think that hosting an Olympics is all about affordable housing.
That's a huge part of their document focuses on the fact that holding an Olympics means we will build affordable housing units here in Calgary.
For what?
And they also, I mean, that's so crazy.
But I also saw some other numbers that they think that it will bring in $2 billion in GDP growth.
Well, it would seem to me that there's a bit of a shortfall then, right?
Oh, you know, it's amazing.
Well, first of all, on the affordable housing standpoint, I guess what they think is they have to build an athlete's village and multiple athletes' villages because, of course, they're predicting the Olympics will take place across a whole series of venues.
And that affordable housing will then, or that Olympic village will then become affordable housing.
Now, for anybody paying attention to Vancouver, that was the same plan that Vancouver had.
Of course, the problem is, like almost every other Olympics, they came in over budget.
And so the affordable housing promised through the Athletes Village turned into million-dollar condos in order to balance the books and come out at a break-even cost in Vancouver.
So it looks like, yeah, sure, affordable housing is great from a laudable goal, but it's usually the first thing that goes when the Olympics run over budget.
And they will go over budget.
I would put money on that.
This $5.2 billion, I would estimate that that's probably closer to eight or nine or $10 billion by the time we're done.
I was looking actually today at some of the demands that the IOC makes of the Olympic cities.
And my chest tightens at the thought of what exactly Calgary is willing to throw at the IOC to get their hands on the Olympics.
Like it's such, it's expensive things, but it's petty things like the IOC must be put up in five-star hotels or better.
They need special lanes for them to drive in.
They need hot breakfasts.
Like it's just, it's so crazy.
They're treating this like aristocracy when they're just a bunch of, well, I guess, I mean, it is a government unto itself, and we're supposed to treat them like dignitaries instead of the corruptocrats that I think they are.
It's certainly true that the IOC does not like to travel basic economy when they go on an Olympic trip.
Your comment about aristocracy is very true.
A lot of members of the IOC actually are aristocrats.
There are crown princes and dukes and barons and sheiks.
And this is not a group of people who understand the struggle of paying your taxes and trying to make ends meet, who worry about how they're going to scrape together their property tax at the end of the year, mostly because they own whole countries and don't have to pay property tax on their palaces.
So, you know, you make some points about the outrageous IOC demands.
And it's one of the reasons why so many cities have dropped out of bidding for not just this Olympics, but every Olympics.
Oslo pulled out Oslo, Norway, because of the ridiculous IOC demands that got made of them.
Sapporo, Japan just dropped out of bidding from the 2026 Olympics precisely because of the over-inflated economic benefits promised by Olympic proponents and the outrageous costs that come with an Olympics, including staying in five-star hotels.
Now, in the case of the IOC, they've gone slumming and said they're prepared to stay in a four-star hotel.
No.
But I think that's only if there's no five-star hotel available.
I don't think they're willingly accepting that if there's a five-star hotel down the street.
They want to drink for free for the entire games.
They want a well-stocked mini bar in their hotel room.
They want a lounge on site that is stocked with beer and wine.
And at Norway, one of the demands I love is they demanded to meet the king upon their arrival, and that the king would then host a free cocktail reception for them.
So this is not a group of people who really understand the hardworking, everyday people who actually have to pay the bills when it comes to these Olympics.
Yeah, that's crazy.
I mean, when you can't get your garbage picked up, but then you're paying for a private lounge for a literal aristocrat to get drunk in for, you know, 10 days or two weeks.
It's appalling, really.
Now, you talked about the cities that have pulled out, and I'm very scared about this.
And I'm scared because the crowd is starting to thin.
Stockholm, Sweden is still in the running.
Erzurum, Turkey, I don't know if I'm saying that right.
And there's still a three-way bid from three cities in Italy.
I'm worried that we're going to actually get this Olympics.
I'm very scared.
Yes, the Olympics that no one wants could end up in Calgary if every other bid city drops out because of the incredible cost of hosting, you know, cost and extravagance of hosting these Olympics.
The IOC, in their response to, you know, every bid city dropping out, offers this condescending, well, it's so sad for you, host city, host country, that you'll be missing out on these great things.
And it's a shame that your athletes won't be able to win gold in their home country.
And it comes across as like, if you don't get the Olympics, somehow life just can't go on for you and your city and your country.
Now, the reality is the IOC themselves, quite worried about this.
They've actually asked Salt Lake City to stand by for an alternate venue in 2026 if they can't get a host city for this Olympics.
So, I mean, obviously, some city is going to take the Olympics when if and when a bid happens.
It could be one of the bid cities for 2026, but the IOC is going to make sure it goes on.
Certainly, they're not prepared to give up their two-year, you know, every two-year luxury vacation on our tax dollars.
So they're already talking to Salt Lake City to see if they can tick up the slack if nobody actually ends up bidding for the 2026 Olympics.
Poor Salt Lake City drawing the short straw on the Olympics.
I was reading today, and I didn't realize this, and I suppose I should have because the government is sneaky.
That's how they are.
I was reading that the plebiscite to be held in November or on November 13th, it's non-binding.
So even at the end of the day, even if City of Calgary taxpayers decide that no, we don't want this Olympics and they vote it down this Nenshi legacy project, the city could go ahead without them.
The city could.
Now, I think what the good news on the plebiscite is the province has made it very clear that, remember, the city didn't want to hold a plebiscite.
The city was perfectly happy to just go ahead with these Olympics without ever asking Calgarians if they actually wanted to host them or not.
It was only because the provincial government, and I don't say nice things about our NDP provincial government very often, but I will give them credit for the fact that the province said we're not putting in our share of the money, which could be a billion dollars if there is no plebiscite happening in Calgary.
So even if the city doesn't keep it as binding, I think the province has said that they're not putting in their huge chunk of money if there isn't a vote and the wishes of the voters aren't respected.
So at least we have, I'm not saying, you know, city council won't still try and go ahead with it anyway, but at least we have a piece of common sense coming from our NDP government.
A sentence I never thought I'd say.
You know, it's rare.
We should highlight it when they do it.
And actually, you and I should take the day off next year to celebrate.
We'll just make it a holiday.
That's right.
We'll mark the date and time.
Yeah.
The only other thing I think it's important to focus on, there's a couple more numbers in that report.
The first is the economic benefits.
You mentioned $2 billion in GDP growth.
The document itself lists $7.4 billion in overall economic benefits for Calgary.
And that number is ridiculous.
There's no other way to say it.
That is what we spend to run Calgary for more than two and a half years.
And, you know, economists across this country, people who have studied the Olympics, have all come to the same conclusion that that is a pie-in-the-sky number.
Those benefits will never materialize.
But that's the Olympic, that's the Olympic Game Show.
That's the Olympic magic show that they always say.
They always put something on the table and they say it's going to offer this much in terms of benefits to your city.
And then they never materialize.
Every Olympics that has been held recently has had an analysis done post-Olympics to see what the actual benefits were.
And in a lot of cases, the benefits that did happen were very temporary, only in the period immediately around the Games.
It displaces other economic activity, of course, because if someone's working on the Olympics, that means they're not working in the private sector, creating wealth and prosperity.
And ultimately, a lot of cities end up a lot worse for having hosted the Olympics.
My favorite one, Lillehammer, cost them so much money they had to dissolve the town for a period because they couldn't pay the bills.
And Norway itself just had to step in and fund the rest of the debt themselves.
So to me, they're really overstating the economic benefits while understating the true costs of these Olympic Games.
Now, you had mentioned earlier that this could actually be spread out across a few venues.
Do you know which ones they're considering right now?
They're looking primarily at Canmore and Whistler.
Whistler, of course, one of the venues for the 2010 Winter Olympics and Canmore as well.
They haven't identified a venue for curling yet.
And I think that's something they're looking at Edmonton for, possibly, to take on.
I think what's interesting is they've only pegged security costs at $600 million, which every person I've spoken to who has some idea about planning security for these sorts of things says is an incredibly low number for what we're saying, especially if we're going to be hosting the Olympics across four or five different Olympic venues.
And Vancouver, for example, came in at just under a billion dollars.
Security Costs Controversy00:09:01
That was in 2010.
And I think we'll all agree the world has only gotten more dangerous since 2010.
Since then, we've had terrorist attacks, tragically, on our own soil.
We've been listed as a country that ISIS and other terrorist groups are targeting.
So why are we now suggesting that we can cut the security budget by 40% over what we spent in 2010?
To me, this is just a way of trying to show a break-even Olympics when the reality is we're going to go deeply, deeply into debt when all of the bills come in and all of the revenue figures are counted.
You know, William, you probably haven't heard, but the more we say diversity is our strength, the more the terrorists leave us alone.
Haven't you heard that?
Now, what happens if one of these other venues basically tells us to stick it in our ear?
Do we have to create a venue from scratch within Calgary?
Because that's not in the budget.
No, I mean, I suspect what we would have to do is assume all of the costs associated with renting and constructing venues in other locations.
So if one of the, you know, say one of the Alpine venues said it didn't want to participate, we could probably still host those Olympic Games there, but it would be at a hugely added cost for Calgary because we would have virtually no local on-the-ground support.
We'd have to bring everyone out from Calgary to do the work, to do the construction, to do the venue management.
We'd have to pay rent.
We'd have to pay security.
We have to pay traffic.
We may have to build pieces of infrastructure to support huge traffic flows and pedestrian flows and things like that in those other locations.
So I don't necessarily know if it would be a complete deal breaker, but what it would do is start to add a lot more zeros onto the ends of the bills that we're already paying.
Now, we've actually seen some pretty prominent people, people who've been involved in municipal government in Calgary, come out on the no side, including a former alderman.
Do you think that's going to have any bearing on sort of the momentum that the no side is picking up?
You know, we really hope so.
I can say that so far, I mean, look, the yes side is filled with people who have been political allies and supporters of Mayor Nanxi.
They're hosting pretty glitzy events with lots of audiovisual and fancy venues to show off the thing.
And, you know, Calgary 2026, the big corporation, has already said they're going to be promoting their plan for the 2026 Olympics, which in other words means they're going to be campaigning for a yes vote in this plebiscite.
Something, by the way, the city said it would not do, which was put taxpayer dollars into campaigning for either side.
Well, there's now a full-time big corporation campaigning for a yes in these Olympic Games.
So to me, I think it's people are starting to wonder how much is this really going to cost everybody?
They're saying $3 billion.
Some people put that figure closer to $5 billion.
People have looked at how Olympic cost overruns go.
And if, you know, Canada puts in half and the city puts in a quarter and the province puts in a quarter, whatever the financial breakdown is, we're still talking about billions and billions of dollars.
And as we joked about earlier on, we can't even get our garbage picked up correctly.
We can't even get potholes filled in in a timely manner.
And yet, somehow, we think we have the kind of money to invest in something, which could leave us deeply in debt when it's done.
The mayor himself, for whom possibly the only reason we're even having this Olympic discussion is because of our mayor, has said that money is so tight at City Hall that we're either going to have to raise taxes or cut the mediocre services we're already getting.
And so what is it?
Do we have enough money to be able to host a lavish multi-billion dollar party?
Or is money so tight that we can't even get our garbage picked up efficiently in Calgary without raising taxes?
So those are the questions that I think Calgarians are starting to really ask themselves.
And given the performance so far of our city government on this Olympic file, I think a lot of people have questions if we could even execute a games in any way approaching something efficiently and effectively.
Well, and I think there's a lot of obfuscation with where exactly this money is coming from.
You know, they'll say, oh, a quarter's coming from the city of Calgary and a quarter's coming from the province.
And then the feds are going to make up the rest.
But yeah, there's only one taxpayer.
Like there's only one taxpayer.
I don't care what money pot they're taking it from.
The money came from my pocket and your pocket.
And I just think at a time when, you know, we can't get a pipeline built.
We've seen 8,000 jobs nuked right off the top, many of those in Calgary.
It just seems like there should be other things that will generate real economic growth that everybody along the way should be focusing on instead of, you know, a two-week party and a legacy project for Nenshi and quite frankly, Rachel Notley.
And I think that it's, we were talking off camera about how this is starting to gobble up the agenda down at City Hall.
There was supposed to be a debate on lowering the municipal speed limit down to 30 kilometers per hour.
And, you know, there's a lot of controversy swirling around that.
Some people think it'll reduce traffic fatalities.
And some people, maybe people like me, think it's a bit of a money grab.
But that is sort of being put over because the Olympics are sucking all the air out of the room.
You're absolutely right.
I mean, I doubt that until this plebiscite happens, we're going to talk about a lot of issues other than the Olympics.
And certainly, I think that if you talk about there only being one taxpayer, you're absolutely right.
We saw a major energy project, the Transmountain Pipeline Expansion, put on ice for goodness knows how long while we wait for the federal government, you know, Mr. Trudeau playing the role of Hamlet, dithering to decide what to do about this energy decision.
Is he going to appeal?
Is he going to pass legislation?
Well, so far, he's done nothing.
You've got NAFTA, you know, a major trade agreement upon which a lot of Canada's economic prosperity is based, in jeopardy.
You've seen our federal government mismanage the negotiations with the Americans on the NAFTA file.
And now it doesn't look like certainly a deal is likely and possibly a deal won't happen at all.
And if so, what's the economic impact on Calgary, on Alberta, and on Canada?
Certainly, we're going to have a lot of things we need to focus on, to spend money on, to invest in.
And this Olympics, it's just not the right time to host a five, six, seven, eight, nine, $10 billion party because the mayor decided he wanted a legacy.
I don't think there's ever a right time.
That's just me.
William, I think that's a great spot to leave the interview.
How do people find out what's on the radar of Save Calgary and what's happening down at City Hall that taxpayers need to be concerned about?
Sure.
The three things I really suggest is go to our website, savecalgary.com, and sign up to our weekly e-newsletter.
Your emails are fantastic.
Best written political emails in the world.
I love them.
Thank you.
Well, certainly we put one out every week where we talk about sort of what's happening at City Hall, the latest things we've uncovered.
When we speak to counselors and to municipal stakeholders, we try and get at like what you do at the Rebel, the real story happening at City Hall.
You can go to our Facebook page where we post ongoing content.
And that's just searching for Save Calgary there.
And you can follow us on Twitter at our at Save Calgary account.
And we try and push out a lot of information for people because, you know, with a handful of exceptions, really the only coverage of City Hall is just repeating the pretty positive talking points that come out of City Hall.
And, you know, I think we're all tired of hearing how great a job our city council is doing, according to our city council.
I think a lot of people want to know the real story of what's happening behind closed doors at City Hall.
Bid Process Perks00:02:35
Well, you know what, William?
I think you're doing a great job.
You're a good friend to me.
You're a great friend to the show.
And more importantly, you're a great friend to the taxpayers of Calgary.
So I want to thank you for taking the time to come on today.
Thanks, Sheila.
It's always a pleasure.
Awesome.
you.
About some of those IOC perks that William and I referenced in our interview.
Let me just tell you a little bit more about the perks the IOC demanded from Norway so that you can be outraged that the city of Calgary is even considering spending taxpayer dollars on making these aristocratic elites happy for two weeks.
According to a recent report in Business Insider, every IOC member demanded that they must be greeted by a smiling, positive, and welcoming staff at the airport.
All of the venues must be designed such that IOC members and guests are segregated from press and broadcast personnel.
Private cars must be provided to select IOC members at the expense of the Olympic organizing committee.
And about those cars, volunteer drivers for IOC members must speak fluent English or French and be available to work up to 10 hours per day for six days per week.
The IOC hotel must make available at no extra cost existing sports facilities such as fitness facilities, swimming pools, and sauna facilities to all IOC hotel guests and IOC staff members.
Oh, and about those hotels.
The hotels must have a members' lounge to be used exclusively by IOC members.
And if there isn't one, the hotel has to install one at their cost.
And there must be 100% security screening of passengers and their baggage for IOC hotels.
Now, this is not a requirement for other hotels, which means it's just about keeping those IOC officials safe and not the rest of us.
Anyway, these are some of the demands that became some of the reasons that Norway pulled out of the bid process for the 2026 Olympics.
Just imagine for a second what Calgary is willing to bend over and give to these corruptocrats to stay in the Olympic bid process.
Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight.
Thanks again, as always, for tuning in.
I'll see everybody back here in the same time in the same place next week.