Whistler ski resort near Vancouver will play host to the 2010 Winter Games' skiing and sliding events. Getting to Whistler via the Sea to Sky highway was a major concern for the IOC, and Vancouver organizers have made the costly redevelopment of the highway a centrepiece of the preparations. (Associated Press/Canadian Olympic Committee)
Viewpoint: The Insider
Vancouver 2010: Shock & Awe?
Last Updated Mon., Sept. 18, 2006
by Michael Drapack
When is an Olympic expense not an Olympic expense? In Vancouver these days, it quite literally depends on whom you ask.
A new report by British Columbia's auditor general says costs for the 2010 Winter Olympics could be higher than forecast. OK, everyone who is surprised by this, raise your hand. I thought so. This is about as newsworthy as all the planes landing safely at the airport today.
Construction costs go up, they always do, for everything. I've yet to see Mike Holmes or Jim Caruk, two stars of the home renovation industry on HGTV, return money for a project.
Shock and awe aside, the AG's report says a $76-million contingency fund to be used for cost overruns on the current $580-million construction budget (which has already gone up once by $110 million) may be inadequate. Did I mention this does not surprise me?
But the report goes on to say that Olympic costs should be higher. Ahhh … caught your attention, did I?
Government-taxpayer considerations
The real dogfight in B.C. is what constitutes an Olympic expense. From the government's and the Vancouver Organizing Committee's point of view (essentially, a smaller number is always better than a bigger number), those expenses should be limited to venues and nothing more. That's the cost of the Olympics. And that cost has been, prior to the aforementioned revision, $580 million. Seems like a bargain.
But from a taxpayer's point of view, which is where the auditor general comes from, a bigger number is more appropriate, a much bigger number. The AG says all projects associated with the Olympics are part of the cost. That would include widening the Sea to Sky Highway and a new Rapid Transit Line between downtown and the airport, to name just two. These added costs would raise the true tab for the Olympics to at least $2.5 billion.
Now let's be clear: this money will be spent and it will come from taxpayers. What's at issue is what you put next to the memo: at the bottom of the cheque.
Boy, didn't see this coming.
It seems pretty disingenuous for the B.C. government to say the Sea to Sky highway improvements should not be an Olympic expense when those improvements were promised in the bid. On that alone, the AG says the estimated cost for those improvements will be closer to $775 million, not the current estimate of $600 million.
$1B transit line included?
Now as far as that rapid transit line goes, that was never part of the bid package sold to the IOC. That alone is a $1-billion item. So should all, or parts of it, be included as an Olympic cost? That's a tough question. The real question is, would it be built if there were no Olympics? If you think it would have been built, then it's hard to argue it's an Olympic expense.
That is the danger for governments when they decide to build massive infrastructure projects around an Olympics. The timing for such projects may make sense, but it becomes far too easy for critics to classify everything as an Olympic expense, rightly or wrongly.
Perhaps Sydney did it best. Big infrastructure projects were underway before Sydney bid for the Olympics. This made defining what's truly an Olympic expense very easy.
But, again, in Vancouver, this is just bookkeeping and money shuffling. What is really worrisome in the AG's report is his assertion that VANOC has fallen behind schedule.
How can that be? Wasn't this the bid that set a new standard in planning and preparedness for the IOC? The bid that was so far ahead, not just of the cities it was competing against for the 2010 Olympics, but also of any bidding city previously? What has gone wrong with the machine? Solving this question will determine what true extra costs will appear in the future.
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About The Insider
- Michael Drapack is The Insider, a journalist with intimate knowledge of the inner workings of both the IOC and the movers and shakers in the Olympic movement worldwide. Working as a producer with CBC for the past 12 years, Michael has covered a plethora of Olympic issues and has helped Sports Online break down the decisions surrounding the awarding of the 2010 Games to Vancouver and 2012 Olympics to London.
