Olympic report gaffe brings scrutiny to Calgary’s bidding process

A quickly-deleted report on the City of Calgary’s website has once again brought a possible 2026 Olympic Games bid into the spotlight.

On Friday, a document published on the website said the city had secured the millions of dollars from the provincial and federal governments necessary to form an Olympic BidCo., the group which would further explore the costs and benefits of a potential bid.

But it was quickly removed with the city saying it was an incorrect version and that money hadn’t been secured.

Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi opened with a joke about the situation.

“I was super excited on Friday night because I thought a big cheque had arrived and I had to quickly to go the bank and drop it off at the ATM,” he said, later explaining that it was his understanding that two drafts had been prepared.

“It hasn’t come yet,” he said of the funding. “It was very possible that we may have concluded those negotiations this week, so there were two slightly different versions of the report written.

“The wrong one was published.”

One version alluded to releasing the funding earmarked by council on the condition money from the province and the feds was secured, with the other simply saying to release the funding.

The gaffe sparked immediate scrutiny from some councillors, with Ward 7’s Druh Farrell originally saying she thought it was no mistake and that it was another signal that they were headed towards a pre-determined outcome.

But she later apologized for the comment.

“I should know by now never to tweet in anger and so I implied that the accidental release of information – even though this is the third accidental release of information – that it was intentional,” she said. “I acknowledge that it was an error.

“That doesn’t mean I’m still not really frustrated with the process.”

Farrell said she’ll continue to ask further questions about the cost of hosting the Games and told reporters that council had been informed by the city that there was no time to hold a possible plebiscite.

But Nenshi disputed that.

“No, that isn’t right,” he said, adding however that they only have so much time to do a plebiscite and they have to find almost $2 million to pay for it.

“You need four to six months to really set up a plebiscite properly, which means honestly the earliest that we could do it would be around early October and the latest we could do it would be around early October.”

October is when the IOC intends to open the bidding to host cities.

Ward 3 Councillor Jyoti Gondek said we shouldn’t point the finger at administration for the incorrect report, saying they’re being asked to do a lot of work under strict deadlines.

“When we’re moving from a paper-based system to more electronic documentation, mistakes like this will happen,” she said. “I feel badly that staff may feel that we’re criticizing them, it’s not a criticism, I absolutely appreciate that it’s moving too quickly, we need to back up and look at the process.

“We should be reporting through a committee before it comes to council.”

The weekend’s mishap led councillor Shane Keating to suggest councillors discuss the matter during their current meeting as opposed to a strategic session on Wednesday and it’s expected council will debate the process Tuesday.

The correct report was released late Monday afternoon.