(ATR) Calgary City Council decided to keep exploring the possibility of a bid for the 2026 Winter Olympics.
The council voted 9-6 in favor of continuing the bid process. The creation of an Olympic subcommittee, consisting of four councillors and the mayor, was also approved. Only two councillors opposed this measure.
The subcommittee is expected to help the council develop public engagement options, including a plebiscite at some point, as a full financial cost analysis for hosting a 2026 Winter Games is finalized by this summer.
Public engagement and a plebiscite were requirements put in place by the province of Alberta last month in exchange for about a third of the CAN$30 million required to create a bid corporation. The federal Canadian government and the city of Calgary are sharing in the cost.
The council is expected next Monday to determine both the duties and members of the subcommittee. Councillor Druh Farrell, a longtime critic of a bid, urged the inclusion of all viewpoints to the five-member panel.
"I would like to see some critics at the table," Farrell told her fellow councillors.
Next week will be a busy one for the council, which also must hash out details for public engagement and the plebiscite. It is possible they could hand some of that work to the subcommittee.
Monday's vote by the city council to stay in the process followed some heavy lobbying by those in favor of pursuing a bid, including more than a dozen athletes who met with the media at the Winsport facility in Calgary on Friday. The facility is where Olympic hopefuls learn and train.
"Sport has had a positive impact not only to the Calgary community but across the country and we owe it to our athletes, present and future, to thoroughly explore a bid before making a decision," Canadian Olympic Committee CEO Chris Overholt said in a statement on Friday.
Two of the councillors who last week had talked about changing their 'yes' votes to 'no' decided in the end to continue to support a potential bid. Ward Sutherland said today that even though the project "still has too many red flags" he was swayed by the Calgary chamber of commerce arguments showing the positives of hosting an Olympics for the city.
"To kill it right now is not really a good business decision for Calgarians," Sutherland said, adding that he hadn't been able to sleep nights since he had decided to vote "no".
Diane Colley-Urquhart was considering changing her vote but in the end stayed the course as well, though she isn't sure that the bid can be put on track after so many missteps.
Written and reported by Gerard Farek
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