Halifax's commonWealth games
If Halifax wins the bid to host the 2014 Commonwealth Games, it will stand to pay on the order of $750 million for the honour. Naturally, much of the money will come from federal and provincial coffers, and one hopes from the private sector as well, but according to the municipality's estimates, HRM will be holding the bag to the tune of 0.8 to 3 percent of its entire annual budget for the "lifespan of planned sports infrastructure". Without saying how long this might be, one can only be left to speculate, and speculation leads to thoughts of Montreal 1976.
Dale MacLennan, the city's Finance Director says, "You can’t simply look at costs when you’re evaluating the benefit of this — it must be based on what the net benefits to the communities are."
Too true, Ms. MacLennan, but where does this big-minded dreaming lay dormant in the minds of our municiple leaders when it comes to issues like policing or sheltering the homeless, or expanding schools and libraries? Where is the talk of "net benefit to the communities" on issues more mundane like shortfalls to the Metro Transit budget?
Let's just play a little mental game for a moment. Wouldn't it benefit the community to have a cheaper bus system, hell, for sake of argument, why not a free one? How much of the annual budget do we spend on transit? How much would we spend if it were free? Maybe, instead of throwing unknown quantities of cash into a harbour ferry from Bedford, lets first figure out how many cars we would take off of the road by making the buses free. Would the trip in from Bedford by bus then be as quick as a ferry? How far would we go to meeting our Kyoto committments with that one measure? How much easier would it be to get parking downtown? Oh my, I'm getting dizzy.
I'm not saying that I'm 100% against the Commonwealth Games bid - I love sports and I'd probably buy a ticket or three. Hell, I might even kick my family out of the house and rent the bedrooms out at outrageous prices to homeless kiwis for the duration; but I would dearly love to see the business community, who apparently think they'll make off like bandits on this thing, pony up a healthy chunk of the cost up front. Maybe our business leaders have the heuvos grandes (thank you, Stephen Colbert) necessary to pull this off without putting too many of our public needs at risk.
But I doubt it.
Dale MacLennan, the city's Finance Director says, "You can’t simply look at costs when you’re evaluating the benefit of this — it must be based on what the net benefits to the communities are."
Too true, Ms. MacLennan, but where does this big-minded dreaming lay dormant in the minds of our municiple leaders when it comes to issues like policing or sheltering the homeless, or expanding schools and libraries? Where is the talk of "net benefit to the communities" on issues more mundane like shortfalls to the Metro Transit budget?
Let's just play a little mental game for a moment. Wouldn't it benefit the community to have a cheaper bus system, hell, for sake of argument, why not a free one? How much of the annual budget do we spend on transit? How much would we spend if it were free? Maybe, instead of throwing unknown quantities of cash into a harbour ferry from Bedford, lets first figure out how many cars we would take off of the road by making the buses free. Would the trip in from Bedford by bus then be as quick as a ferry? How far would we go to meeting our Kyoto committments with that one measure? How much easier would it be to get parking downtown? Oh my, I'm getting dizzy.
I'm not saying that I'm 100% against the Commonwealth Games bid - I love sports and I'd probably buy a ticket or three. Hell, I might even kick my family out of the house and rent the bedrooms out at outrageous prices to homeless kiwis for the duration; but I would dearly love to see the business community, who apparently think they'll make off like bandits on this thing, pony up a healthy chunk of the cost up front. Maybe our business leaders have the heuvos grandes (thank you, Stephen Colbert) necessary to pull this off without putting too many of our public needs at risk.
But I doubt it.
