CANMORE - In early May, John Borrowman sat down with journalist Aryn Toombs to discuss the Olympics for the Outlook's Downstream Podcast.
CANMORE - In early May, John Borrowman sat down with journalist Aryn Toombs to discuss the Olympics for the Outlook's Downstream Podcast. Over a half-hour Borrowman was questioned about the town's commitment to the Olympic bid, what a Calgary Games going forward would look like for Canmore, and what the Olympics brings and doesn't bring in terms of costs and infrastructure.
This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.
Aryn: Are the Olympics a done deal?
John: No. It's a long ways from being a done deal. In fact, some days it feels like it's so far away from being a done deal that it's an undone deal. There's a lot of water that's got to go under the bridge between now and whenever a decision is made both locally and regionally to provide a bid for them to move forward in the process. Then the IOC has to review whatever bids come in. So there's close to two years before there's any certainty.
A: In terms of that process, how far along are we? How far have the discussions gone essentially?
J: By the timelines, we're quite a ways behind where we should be in the process. So right now both City of Calgary council and Town of Canmore council have approved becoming part of BidCo. The Town of Canmore has been invited to appoint a member to the board, which we have. But we haven't been asked to provide any funding for BidCo. The CAO of the town, Lisa DeSoto, is our appointee to the board. We're all waiting to see the results of which is the detailed information on what the Games would look like in '26. That has to be in place, really, by the end of this year. So it's not a lot of time. There are quite a number of cities across the world that have announced or indicated to the IOC (International Olympic Committee) that they're interested in the possibility of bidding for 2026. Calgary's has been considered a front runner in that, but there's some very other very interesting possible bids for towards the end of this year and I think it's in October the IOC will actually invite some of the interested cities to provide a bid. Council has said we see the potential value to the town of Canmore to be involved in the bid. We recognize there is potentially some negative impact. We want to have a full understanding of what the vision is to make sure it matches our community vision before we make that final decision to support a bid.
A: Canmore being involved in this process and Canmore not being involved in this process: what do we get from both sides of that?
J: The Nordic Center, which was the primary legacy from the '88 Olympics, has been a very powerful and very strong legacy for our community. Fast forward to 2026. Some of the work we've been doing through this year is through our surveys and public open house engagement process. It's having the community help create the vision and guiding principles of what would what we should be looking for in a bid that would be good for the town of Canmore. Attendant to that: If we were to be building an athletes village, that would be the first proviso; that it would end up being housing that meets our needs. There would be other capital infrastructure needs that would be carried along and one of the possible locations for an athletes village is up in Palliser on land the town owns that has been deemed a future affordable housing site, but which was significantly impacted by the floods in 2013. So Stoneworks Creek, which runs adjacent to the land, has to be mitigated in a similar fashion to Cougar Creek. And we haven't done the studies on that so I don't know how many millions it would cost to mitigate that creek - but millions. And if we were to build housing, call it a neighbourhood, in that region through the Games, that would absolutely kick in the need for a pedestrian overpass. Both of those two pieces of work are things that are in our capital plans. We have to do that at some point and if we do that on our own outside of an Olympic bid, we'll pay for that 100 per cent from our own coffers. If those are associated to an athletes village or being a co-host, there's a very good chance - and I can't put numbers to it - that the Town of Canmore's contribution to the overall cost of that infrastructure would be far less than 100 per cent. And hosting the Games here would fast track some sort of rapid transit, whether it's high speed train, regular speed commuter train, or really great rapid bus transit. And within the town of Canmore, we would have to have the infrastructure and planning in place to reduce and avoid congestion that's associated with the Games which is work again we have to do.
John: Another potential benefit to the town is around our economy and the diversification of our economy and the development of a sports-related economy that's not specifically a tourism based. And there's something I'm just thinking about more recently which is not as concrete: the role the town of Canmore could play in leading globally on how accessibility matters are managed within the town of Canmore. I think we could really show leadership globally that's inspired by the Paralympic Games. We're the home of the Canadian Paralympic Nordic and biathlon teams. So there's something there that I think we could we could add to the conversation.
Aryn: If the bid goes ahead and Canmore's not involved, we're not going to get what we want out of this entire process?
J: If our council votes against supporting a bid, I don't think there's a bid. Certainly the information that I've been given from other levels of government in the city and Province in regard to the importance of Canmore, is we're a small town and we're only talking about two components: the Nordic cross-country and biathlon events. Without Canmore's support I don't see anybody moving forward. The Nordic Centre is a provincial facility, of course, so the Province could say, "well we're allowing our facilities to be used." But the town would have to be actively engaged in things like the athletes village, zoning approval, development approval, and transit issues. So I don't think the other levels of government are going to, if you will, force the town of Canmore to be co-host.
A: The second part of that will be if we decide that we don't want to be involved in the process and the process goes ahead - now obviously you think it wouldn't go ahead without us - but if it did. Canmore wouldn't get what they want out of that and we wouldn't get our funding processes to put in place all those good things that you've talked about. Is that fair?
J: Well I think that's not a reasonable assumption. If the Games were to go ahead, there would have to be a village and the transit and all of those sorts of things. Those components, if the senior level of government were to somehow force the town of Canmore to accept a bid that we're not supportive of, they still have to manage to put in place infrastructure and facilities. I guess I'm coming at it from a different angle. If the answers that we develop, or that are developed and presented to council towards the end of this year shows those positive benefits aren't going to happen, then there really isn't much of a bid to support from any level of government.
A: So this has to work for everyone?
J: It has to work for everyone.
A: John, talking about the cost: you know we have seen a wide variety of cost touted in the public. You know, anywhere from $4 billion to $20 billion.
J: Let me just talk briefly about Sochi. I think it's important that people, when they're thinking about this particular question, remember there's a big difference between a Winter Olympics and a Summer Olympics. Winter Olympics are a third the scale of a Summer Olympics in every metric. Also, don't think about Olympics hosted by countries that are not democracies. Now in Sochi, essentially what Putin wanted Putin got, and the billions spent there were astronomical. If you want to compare apples to apples, consider Winter Olympics that have been hosted in North America over the last period of years. Typically, Winter Olympics that are held in North America, where governments are actually responsible to the people, have been successful. Some people point to Sochi because it was the most egregious example of waste and absolutely horribly spent dollars. That's not going to happen in Alberta, Canada.
A: Now in terms of shouldering the burden, we're not talking about the entire Olympics cost being shouldered by Canmore.
J: No, at this point there's no information on what share of which costs Canmore would be expected to contribute to. But all other levels of government understand that Canmore is a community of 13,000 permanent residents. It would be pointless for the senior levels of government, the senior funders, to expect an unreasonable burden on the local taxpayers in a small town. There are some benefits that we're going to see locally. I mean, I would expect if there are, then there will be some expectation of some funding from coming from the Town. I don't how much that is, but it's certainly not going to be in the billions or tens of millions. It's going to be a manageable amount.
A: Is it fair to say that as this process continues and as more details are hammered out, these financial costs are going to be transparent to the public? Are Canmorites going to know what the costs are?
J: Oh yeah. Costs are always transparent. You can come sit in council chambers when we're debating or planning the budget process. You know the Outlook's there every year and through several meetings there's a detailed conversation about budgets that's always in the public and reported and all the decisions are made in public meetings. There'll be no lack of transparency on the funding aspects when we get to that point where we actually have some information. It's a complex question and, first and foremost, we just have to be clear on what the vision of our community is and whether or not a Games bid could fit our community vision. It includes things like protection of the environment and our community character and future housing costs. You know, I've heard from people that are worried that hosting the Olympics would aggravate our already expensive housing situation, and I mean there are so many factors in that regard. People will compare what happened after the '88 Olympics, where housing starts to ramp up. That was a very different point in time. Canmore was just starting to develop away from being a mining town and after the Olympics in the late '80s early '90s you could you could buy a condo for $80,000 or $100,000. You'd buy a beautiful single-family lot and build a three-four-bedroom family home on that for $120,000. I did. So today, if there is interest about the Olympics, and people think, "Oh I want to have a little second home," there it is. It's a very different prospect. But a big part of the work we would have to do through this exploration is assure ourselves, assure the community, that there is a very positive impact on the housing side of the picture. So the Olympics brings a sort of a microscope onto that conversation, and that conversation is ongoing, and will never in my lifetime, I think, stop.
The full podcast episode is availalable on the Outlook website, www.rmoutlook.com, or at www.soundcloud.com/rmodownsteam and on Apple iTunes.
