{"id":47286,"date":"2018-11-16T11:39:33","date_gmt":"2018-11-16T18:39:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/?p=47286"},"modified":"2021-02-07T22:44:42","modified_gmt":"2021-02-08T05:44:42","slug":"cheers-tears-as-calgary-says-no-to-2026-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/2018\/11\/16\/cheers-tears-as-calgary-says-no-to-2026-olympics\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheers, tears as Calgary says no to 2026 Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Crushing Defeat:<\/strong> At the Yes Calgary 2026 party at bar Vagabond, Calgary 2026 chair Scott Hutcheson comforts a supporter after Calgary voted against the 2026 Olympic bid on Nov. 13, 2018. The plebiscite result was 56 per cent against the bid. (Photo by Alex Hamilton\/The Press)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

C<\/span>heers, tears, and some anger greeted the rejection Nov. 13 of Calgary\u2019s proposed bid to host the 2026 Olympic Winter Games.<\/p>\n

W<\/span>hile opponents of the bid celebrated the 56.4-per-cent majority that came in against the plan in a city plebiscite, some supporters wept at the news, while others blamed failures by senior governments and misleading reporting by some in the news media.<\/p>\n

The plebiscite, which drew about 40 per cent of Calgarians to the polls, will now result in the shutdown of the Olympic bid process by city council, Mayor Naheed Nenshi told reporters after the votes were in.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people have spoken clearly,\u201d said the mayor, adding that as a supporter of the bid, he was disappointed with the outcome.<\/p>\n

Mary Moran, the chief executive officer of the group organizing the bid, admitted in an emailed statement that a lack of unified and timely financial support by the federal and provincial governments hurt the yes campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did the best we could with what we were dealt,\u201d said Moran.<\/p>\n

At the no side headquarters in Hillhurst-Sunnyside, the leaders of the victorious grassroots campaign No Calgary Olympics said the timing of the bid had been a big concern for voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that just going for the Olympics for Calgary was a bit tone-deaf,\u201d said Jeanne Milne.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were certain questions and concerns about the bid, but it was actually if this was the right project at the right time, and we were hearing that over and over again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daniel Gauld said that Calgarians \u201clooked at the [Olympic] plan and decided that there\u2019s something else the city could do.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Calgarians were concerned about unemployment, about the vacancy rates downtown, and they weren\u2019t entirely sure the Olympics were going to be the solution,\u201d said Gauld.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people just didn\u2019t buy the numbers,\u201d said Franco Terrazanno, Alberta director of the Canadian Taxpayers\u2019 Federation, a lobby group which also opposed the bid.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think Calgarians wanted to send a blank cheque to the [International Olympic Committee.]\u201d<\/p>\n

Milne said that No Calgary Olympics\u2019 budget was just $1,400 in the final stretch, compared to BidCo\u2019s $1.4-million push that included polished television and newspaper ads, and automated calls to voters in the run-up to voting day.<\/p>\n

No Calgary Olympics concentrated their efforts on the advance vote, \u201cbefore the advertising hit,\u201d according to Milne.<\/p>\n

One supporter of the no side suggested their financial disadvantage may have actually helped them.<\/p>\n

William McBeath, spokesman for City Hall watchdog group Save Calgary, said that the Yes groups \u201cpainted in people\u2019s minds this picture of big spending, big government, using their tax dollars to campaign against the upstart, grassroots no campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually think it engendered a lot of sympathy for [no],\u201d said McBeath.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more we talked to Calgarians, the more we realized there were many different reasons why people were voting no,\u201d said Terrazanno.<\/p>\n

At the Yes Calgary 2026 voting night headquarters at Vagabond in Victoria Park, the result was greeted with a mix of emotions.<\/p>\n

Yes strategist Stephen Carter initially downplayed advance polling showing an overwhelming no vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cAngry people voted early,\u201d Carter said, predicting that the votes in favour would come in later in the night.<\/p>\n

But those votes never materialized in sufficient numbers, which Carter said would have far-reaching implications.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe lost a generation of projects,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re seeing it in the oil-and-gas industry already.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re a politician, are you going to bring a big idea when you can\u2019t get behind something as big and popular as the Olympics?\u201d Carter added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is much bigger than what we said no to today, because we\u2019re just sitting around waiting for someone to rescue us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carter criticized the media for what he called a misleading $5.2-billion cost projection. But he also said that the federal government\u2019s late commitment to the project did not help.<\/p>\n

Yes organizer Jason Ribeiro said the media and politicians \u201ceither knowingly or unknowingly [misled] or [reported] inaccurate information on a very complex deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Volunteers with Yes were disappointed more generally in the response of their fellow citizens.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t feel like this is our Calgary,\u201d said an emotional Jaime Sorenson.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Calgary I know is the friendliest, most welcoming place that there is, and the vitriol and how divisive this issue has been, I\u2019ve been shocked for weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuite frankly, I\u2019m devastated tonight that people don\u2019t see the advantage in what this can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sorenson said that since building oil pipelines are \u201cout of our hands,” the Olympic bid would have brought jobs back.<\/p>\n

There were certain questions and concerns about the bid, but it was actually if this was the right project at the right time, and we were hearing that over and over again – Jeanne Milne<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Brenda Rogers, a Yes volunteer and lobbyist for Curling Canada, said she was \u201cvery disappointed in the short-sightedness of Calgarians.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the error was having our politicians involved. If it had been left to private enterprise, this would have been a successful outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rogers said \u201ccitizens would not trust anything that came out of\u201d city council.<\/p>\n

Although the plebiscite was non-binding, the bid is expected to formally end at a Nov. 19 city council meeting.<\/p>\n

Provincial and federal funding was contingent on a \u201cyes\u201d vote, and without that, the city can\u2019t go ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cheers, tears, and some anger greeted the rejection Tuesday of Calgary\u2019s proposed bid to host the 2026 Olympic Winter Games. [ READ MORE ]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":47288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_ef_editorial_meta_text_assignment-slug":"S3 Olympic Vote","footnotes":""},"categories":[711,17],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-47286","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-featured","8":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47286"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47419,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47286\/revisions\/47419"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}