Costs of Olympic Proportions: One Man's Opinion

By Ben Meisner

   
Whether you want to argue that the 2010 expenses so far include the Sea to Sky Highway really doesn’t matter in the final picture.

We had a peak a boo courtesy the Auditor General last week of what the show is going to cost.

If you take away the $775 million that is being spent on the Sea to Sky highway, the games are within $100 million (including the contingency) of being on budget.

But wait; there are some other important factors that so far haven’t been addressed, the main one being the cost of security which was tabbed at $1 billion dollars for the Torino games.

Now the Feds might be obligated to put some of that money  up, but make no mistake, it is the province not the Feds that is staging the games and it is British COlumbians who will have to pull out the credit card as the party ends.

The second and more important issue is the municipalities that are putting up money to stage events.

Take Whistler, if they don’t come in on budget and there is no reason they will given today’s economy and the cost of building, who they will go calling on for that extra overrun?

How about Richmond, how about the RAV line that wouldn’t have been built had we had no games or at least in the immediate future.

So what have we? Well not unlike any other games that have been held before, an over run that we have been predicting from the very beginning and at what expense?  

Well we Bush Bunnies from the frozen north will have to wait for our highway to be twinned, never mind the traffic and the fact we account for the bulk of the BC tax money and the money will flow into the 604 for the party.

Now closer to home, just when can we expect that big economic boom to begin with the 2010?  Maybe it’s on right now in this region and we just haven’t seen it.

I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s opinion. 

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