2014 Commonwealth Games Bid

It is a real shame that the provincial and municipal governments withdrew their funding for the 2014 Commonwealth Games bid. They claimed that $1,700,000,000 was too much for what we would get. Forget that $400,000,000 was promised by the Feds and another $300,000,000 was promised by the province and $200,000,000 by HRM. The bid committee said they had the bid figure estimated at $1,300,000,000. That leaves $400,000,000 and 7 years to raise it. Vancouver was able to get enough funding to host the 2010 Summer Olympics. I guess the powers-that-be Out West recognize a good chance to grow when they see it. All we have to do locally is look at how many companies Moncton is wooing away from HRM to see that growth and long-term prospects are not in the politicians' viewplane.

In my opinion, it was a short-sighted decision to withdraw funding without giving the committee an opportunity to present the revised numbers. It is a question of the chicken and egg: do we build infrastructure for a growing city like Halifax before we host a games event, or do we need a games event to get the infrastructure that a growing city like Halifax needs? I believe that an international games event is needed to provide politicians enough political points with voters before they commit to providing and money to build such infrastructure.

We will likely be another 20 years before we see any large-scale sporting/recreational infrastructure built in HRM. By that time, we will be in dire need of it and we will waste another generation of athletes before our facilities and our athletes' needs for such facilities match up and we can provide the number of world-class athletes that we are capable of producing, given our population.

These facilities would not only be for HRM, but Nova Scotia as well as the other Maritime provinces. A population of 2,000,000+ within a few hours' drive is enough to support larger facilities. Unfortunately, it appears that the current political leaders are more concerned with not taking any chances and protecting their own future than looking forward and seeing what a legacy they could leave for future generations.