Well that’s all she wrote. The huge story in these parts is Halifax’s withdraw as a bid city for the 2014 Commonwealth Games. The news hit the city like a sledgehammer and obviously left a lot of my co-workers simply stunned by the news. There’s been a lot said and written about the bid, throughout the process. So here’s my take. Yesterday, I had three questions burning through my mind: How did we get to this point? What happened? and What does this mean from here on out?
I’ve spent the past two days just absorbing information, trying to make sense of why the Bid failed and what it would mean. Anything I write here should be preceded with the terms ‘allegedly’, ‘apparently’ and ‘I think’. None of this information is official and some of it might not be true. But this is the story as I understand it.
How Did We Get To This Point?
Unfortunately, there’s a lot that can be written on what went wrong with the Bid. There’s not one particular party involved who can be solely blamed for the failure, nor is there one moment in time that can be pinpointed when the hopeful dreams went off course and began barreling towards destruction. But this much is clear:
- The Bid Committee mismanaged the media and public opinion. There was a well documented silent majority in favour of the bid. Despite claims to the contrary by the No side, most people in Metro and Nova Scotia were in support of the idea of hosting the Commonwealth Games. Unfortunately, the Bid Committee never gave them anything to latch onto and be supportive about, thus fostering a broad amount of negative coverage and unanswered questions.
- The Bid Committee either didn’t keep the Province and the HRM in the loop, or the Province and the HRM did not do their due diligence keeping an eye on the bid process. It appears that some sort of vital communication between the Bid Committee and their two major funding partners was lacking. Things spiralled far too out of control with the price becoming too much for the province and the city, causing them to pull the plug. The original estimate was 785 million, now we’re hearing a final number of 1.7 Billion. That’s a Billion dollar difference, which can’t be a matter of ‘oh, I forgot to carry the one’.
- HRM didn’t understand what they were getting into when they won the right to bid at an international level. This is clear just by the way that the HRM council clearly had no idea what was going on and as a result, looked foolish and amateur in the eyes of the public. More on this later, but it’s safe to say that the city was in a little over their heads.
- The province is limited fiscally for the next few years due to legislation. Due to legislation passed by the Hamm government, the province has an obligation to begin to pay down the deficit. This coupled with dwindling offshore revenue is the reason why Finance Minister Baker is saying that this isn’t going to be a good budget coming down the tubes. Apparently, when all is said and done, the province has about 250 million in capital to spend on everything (roads, education, etc) and that trend should continue for the next few years. Despite the fact that there was cross-party support for the Bid, the combination of bad budgets and a large unwieldy Bid is basically political suicide.
- The Bid mismanaged or underestimated the Federal government. I think it is safe to say that everyone assumed the Feds would be willing to kick in extra cash if needed. That was obviously not the case as a line in the sand at 400 million was drawn and the Federal government would not budge.
What happened on Thursday?
Thursday was an interesting story in itself. Here is a timeline of what happened as far as I can put together.
During the end of January, the Bid Committee came up with that budget of 1.7 Billion. They passed it along to their Board of Directors and then later passed it down to their funding partners in the city and the province.
Doing their due diligence and making sure it made fiscal sense, the province and the city enlisted their own independent study on the budget. The study was apparently finished earlier this week. And this is where the story gets interesting.
Apparently, the provincial Cabinet was supposed to meet on the 20th, which would have given both the city and the province two weeks to digest a report that was apparently in the tune of 400 pages. What happened instead is the Cabinet held an emergency meeting on Wednesday where the decision to walk away was made.
The city heard about this and basically panicked. They held an emergency meeting on Thursday morning, getting their first look at the study. Then, partway through the meeting, everyone’s Blackberries started to go off as news of a press release posted on a NS Government website spread. The press release stated that both the province and the city were dropping the bid. Naturally a large number of city council was upset because the decision was already being spread before they even got an opportunity to vote.
Apparently, the Bid committee made plays towards the city to delay their judgment until the 20th, giving them some extra time to respond to the study and perhaps re-evaluate their numbers in hope to make a bid that was easier for everyone to swallow. According to some, there would have been the right number of votes to defer that decision to give the committee a bit more time. Then, of course, they heard the news from the province and nine members of council walked out of the meeting. Soon afterwards the motion to drop the Bid passed.
The real question is: who at the city made that call and told the province that the city was going to drop their support of the Bid?
What does this all mean from here on out?
There will be no funding for infrastructure in the foreseeable future. The Bid was viewed as the only vehicle to get the necessary plan in place to establish the sporting facilities and programs that are needed. Without the Bid, the funding will not remain available. There are already mentions that the 400 million from the Feds could easily find its way into the coffers of the Vancouver 2010 budget, which is running a little pricey.
The failure could also hurt the image of Halifax, Nova Scotia and Canada as an international host for sporting events. Quitting like this does not look good in the eyes of the sporting community, especially in such a bizarre manner.
On a personal note, not much changes. I still go to work, I still have a job, although some on the Bid Committee are not so lucky. I viewed this as a great opportunity to move up in the sport/technology field that I am in. Now as it stands, there is really little or no place for advancement in the current climate. What this means for me, I haven’t really digested yet. There’s never been a rush to make a decision on if and when I take a next step in my working future. This just changes my view on the future a bit.
This was supposed to be Canada’s chance to host the Commonwealth Games. Halifax won that chance in competition with the rest of Canada. It could have been a great opportunity to develop both the city and the province. Unfortunately, we are left with nothing but a foul taste in our mouth and the smell of a bit of eau de shameful failure.
For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: ‘It might have been!
