SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
It appears the city's proposed bid to host the 2023 Canada Winter Games is dead in the water, or perhaps more appropriately, dead on a non-existent ski and snowboard hill.
City councillor Rebecca Alty, left, explains why she won't be voting in favour of a city bid to host the 2023 Canada Winter Games. Alty sided with six other councillors who said they also won't be supporting the bid either. Coun. Shauna Morgan, centre, says she is undecided while Coun. Steve Payne, right, agrees with the majority. Council will officially vote at next Monday's council meeting. - John McFadden/NNSL photo |
Although the official vote will not happen until next week, seven of eight councillors announced at Monday's municipal services committee meeting that will not be supporting a bid - effectively taking Yellowknife out of the running from hosting the Games until 2049.
This is despite the recommendation from city administration that council move forward with the bid, as stated in Monday's agenda package.
Mayor Mark Heyck did not offer an opinion on the Games during the meeting. Heyck stated in an e-mail that he would be reserving comment until after Monday's vote.
Council's stance follows an online survey released by the city last week showing fully two thirds of 335 people who responded were against hosting the Games.
Only city councillor Shauna Morgan said she remains undecided. Her vote will likely be a moot point regardless as the city has essentially said it would not be supporting the bid without the support of the majority of council.
Monday's meeting saw council ask dozens of questions about the games to city staff, representatives of the working committee for the games and a spokesperson for the territorial government among others. There are still unanswered questions about the number of hotel rooms in the city, whether enough volunteers could be recruited, whether the GNWT would be fully on board with funding and what would be done with the athletes' village once the games were over. Council also wondered about hosting the games without alpine events, including downhill skiing and snowboarding. Yellowknife's bid would have replaced those alpine events with other sports,but if officials told the city that those events had to be held, then the it would have had to relocate the alpine events to either Alberta or the Yukon, adding more costs to the estimated $70-million price tag.
"To think that those (alpine) athletes that worked so hard to try to go to something like this - that the opportunity for them won't be there - is one of the biggest reasons for me why I won't be supporting the games," said Coun. Niels Konge.
"Had this been a summer games bid, it would be a much harder decision and I would have had to try to figure out if taking money from infrastructure and not a tax increase was what I believed in."
Coun. Adrian Bell said he supports the concept of hosting the games but not at any cost.
"I don't have a lot of confidence in our budget projections and the way we came up with these numbers," said Bell.
"We are now identifying some things we may have missed."
He pointed out that the games held in Prince George, B.C. in 2015 cost that city about $652 per resident. The projected cost for Red Deer in 2019 is about $547 per resident while the games in Yellowknife would cost about $2,396 per resident.
Council was told should they reject a bid the city won't have another chance at hosting the Games until 2049 but Bell said he believes another opportunity will come before that as another province or territory will have to take the NWT's spot in 2023 and the territory could thus step into that jurisdiction's spot in the rotation.
Coun. Julian Morse said people begging him not to support the bid outnumbered the Games supporters by about a 20-1 margin.
"It has surprised me how large a percentage of the community is not behind this initiative and I think that's very important," said Morse. "Without community support it's going to be very difficult to pull the Games off."
John Stephenson, president of the Yellowknife Ski Club, has been one of the strongest proponents of the Games bid. He said he was stunned, shocked and dismayed at the negative reaction by a good sector of the community. He said, however, he accepts what people are saying.
"The city was not behind this and councillors are elected to heed the input of the community and they are making a decision based on the input they have received from their constituents," said Stephenson.
