The ring cycles

You don’t have to look far in the Lower Mainland these days for evidence that the 2010 Olympics are pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into B.C.’s economy. Take, for instance, the $315-million athletes village currently under construction along Southeast False Creek. Or drive up Cambie Street, hang a left at 29th Avenue and check out the $82.2-million Hillcrest curling centre, the catalyst for an Olympics-driven makeover of Nat Bailey Stadium Park. Out at UBC, there’s a $48-million winter sports centre, where most of the 2010 Olympic ice hockey games will take place, while in Richmond there’s a $180-million speed skating oval. And up in the mountains, an estimated $270 million has been spent on outdoor venues for alpine and Nordic events at Whistler and Cypress mountains.

Then there’s the spending on major infrastructure projects that have been fast-tracked or expanded to be ready in time for the Olympics, notably the $775-million Sea-to-Sky Highway upgrade, the $885-million Vancouver Trade and Exhibition Centre expansion and the new $1.9-billion Canada Line transit system. With so many tax dollars flying around, it’s worth pausing to consider the costs and benefits of the Olympic and Paralympic Games – not just in terms of dollars and cents, but long-term community legacies as well.

Video: A narrated photographic tour

Admittedly, it’s a task fraught with uncertainties. The degree to which the province’s megaprojects are driven by the 2010 Olympics remains a matter of opinion, with the B.C. NDP opposition levelling accusations of overspending and the Liberal government claiming the projects are unrelated to the Games.

As for the return on investment, there’s no guarantee the promises of increased tourism, investment and employment will all come true. And then there’s the issue of measuring benefits that don’t show up on the balance sheet: the economic value of improving the highway to Whistler, the social impact of affordable housing projects woven into the Games and the quality-of-life benefits from all the leftover sports facilities. Nor is there an easy way to put a dollar figure on the marketing cachet that 17 days in the international spotlight will bring.

As with most investments, the payoff will take time to materialize. For the moment, the larger question is, “How much are we spending?” And with 18 months

Probably the most reasonable and objective look at Olympic spending is contained in a September 2006 report from former auditor general Arn Van Iersel, who pegged the federal, provincial and municipal tax contributions to the 2010 Games at $2.5 billion. Van Iersel attributed $1.5 billion of that total to the Province of B.C., an estimate that includes the province’s venue construction budget and the entire cost of the Sea-to-Sky Highway, which, the report notes, was included in the original 2010 Olympic bid book. The report also includes $41 million in funding for the province’s Olympic Secretariat, $20 million for building roads to the Nordic Centre in Callahan Valley and $8 million for the Canada Line’s designated stop at Vancouver’s athletes village.

B.C. Minister of Economic Devel­opment Colin Hansen insists that the province’s direct Olympic costs are no more than $600 million. Infrastructure projects such as the Sea-to-Sky Highway do not meet the government’s definition of Olympics spending, he says. Harry Bains, the NDP’s Olympics critic, argues the auditor general’s report didn’t go far enough, citing the omission of the province’s $130-million 2010 Legacies Now Fund, created to “develop sustainable legacies” for sports and community recreation. Meanwhile, the anti-Olympic citizens group 2010 Watch predicts the Games will cost taxpayers a whopping $6 billion, an estimate that includes all of the above, as well as an extra $1 billion they claim will be needed for security. Hansen says the government’s critics are distorting the truth. “They’ve made up this grand definition of things that are actually Olympic-related,” Hansen told BCBusiness. “They put a lot more things into the Olympic basket than I would.”

With estimates ranging from $600 million to $6 billion, there’s little chance of a consensus on the final tally. But whatever the final costs, those estimates have been steadily escalating. When the Olympic bid book was released back in 2002, the cost of venue construction was pegged at $470 million, including a $110-million legacy fund, split evenly between Ottawa and Victoria. In all, the two senior levels of government were expected to spend $620 million on the Olympics, although organizers pointed out the numbers hadn’t been adjusted for inflation. By 2006 the Vancouver Olympics Organizing Committee (VANOC) was facing a $195-million cost overrun for venue construction alone, due in large part to an unexpected 20 per cent spike in building costs. The federal and provincial governments rode to the rescue with an extra $110 million for the build program, while VANOC trimmed $85 million from its budget to balance the books.

Municipalities have also felt the pinch, as their contributions to Games venues jump proportionally to rising costs. But while some costs have stayed in step with inflation, others have risen to dizzying new heights. The price tag for Whistler’s Nordic venues increased a mere 12 per cent, from $103 million to $119 million, and the cost for the upgraded alpine facilities rose about 22 per cent, from $23 million to just under $28 million. Costs for the Hillcrest curling facility and the UBC hockey facilities have gone up by about a third – from $60 million to around $80 million in Hillcrest’s case, and from $36 million to about $48 million in the case of the hockey facilities. The sliding centre – home to bobsled, luge and skeleton events – nearly doubled in price, from $55 million to $105 million, and the Richmond skating oval – once envisioned as a $68-million project at SFU – is now over 2½ times more expensive at $178 million.

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