Security Costs Approaching $3/4 Billion; Are Olympics Still Relevant?

When the Vancouver/Whistler 2010 Olympics were first being introduced back in 2004, almost nobody in the mainstream media (TV, print or radio) wanted to talk about security costs, including the two Campbell's - Premier Gordon Campbell and then Vancouver Mayor, Larry Campbell, which at that time were 'estimated' at a 'bargain' amount of $175 million. I even had CKNW talk-show host, Jon McComb, cut me off as I was trying to make the point that this amount flew directly in the face of all recently-held Olympics [Salt Lake City (winter 2002) - $310 million, Athens (summer 2004) - $ 1.5 billion [incl. $312 million for communications 'backbone'], Turino (winter 2006) - $ 1.4 billion, London (summer 2012) - est. $1.7 billion; 3 x bigger Summer games cost more than Winter] and that the taxpayers were the ones who would be paying.
Well, Stockwell Day, Federal Minister of Public Safety recently offered his own 'estimate' for security costs - $400 million to 1 billion (a 228 - 571% increase) and I would still question whether that is even going to be enough. VANOC, which has been missing deadlines for budgets almost since Day 1, now says that their entire, updated and approved budget, including security costs, should be released to the public soon after their next meeting on January 29, 2009 (just over a year before the Games are due to begin). Hang onto your hats for that one, folks!
We really need to ask ourselves (actually we should have done this years ago!) if, in today's dangerous world whether or not holding a 17-day event (plus the much lower profile 10-day Paralympic Games), where the security cost alone could well approach three-quarters of a billion dollars, makes any sense at all. It is expected that the Olympics will be good for a relatively small segment of the population (such as construction, hotels, restaurants and the athletes) but what does it really do for the rest of us, who will have to foot the bill if they blow the budget?
[UPDATE 09 02 19]
Five and a half years after winning the 2010 Olympic games for Vancouver/Whistler, the organizers finally come clean with the projected costs of these Olympics, announcing, on the same day that Obama-mania hit Canada, that the security costs, which they had been carrying on the books at $175 million for all that time (in spite of overwhelming evidence that it almost certainly would be significantly higher - see above), are now most likely to be in the order of $900 million, a five-fold ($725 million) increase!!
It's a little like making the big decision to have a house built and being told by the contractor that the costs of the roof will be $12,000 (but subject to revision), only to arrive at the paint, flooring and fixtures stage and then being told that they are now $62,000, a figure that, had you known at the beginning, you may not have taken that decision. So, the benefactors of the Games now tells us that the Olympic games are here and we should just enjoy them. That's pretty hard to do when you feel like you've been played for a sucker using that time-honoured tradition of understating costs in order to get a publicly-funded project approved. Will we never learn, why do we just keep "bending over"?! Once again, we've been "sold a bill of goods" by those paid to look after EVERYONE'S interests!
I, like the vast majority of British Columbians, will likely never ski the 'Super-G' at Whistler Creekside, fly off the Whistler Olympic park ski jump, experience the thrill of the ice track at the Sliding Centre, rent out a room, sell a meal or guide a tour - no, all I will ever get to do is help pay for it all - for how long, who knows?! Unlike the athletes, many of whom are already professionals earning millions of dollars with even the amateurs being provided the opportunity to earn lucrative contracts as a result of the Games - all at no cost to themselves!If we're going to be spending public money, how about doing it on something that will actually have a chance of benefiting the majority of us?!

The 'Politics' of Infrastructure Grants

'Letter to the Editor' largely as submitted to the Nanaimo Daily News on Nov. 11/08 (in order to try and stay within their 300 word limit, I had to pare it down to the absolute essentials - although that resulted in leaving out some bits that I thought were important to understanding my point). Think very carefully before you consider rewarding any politician for giving some of your own money back to you.
The Daily News published my letter on Nov. 15th but, since the item was still about 40 words over their limit, they chose to eliminate the entire second to the last paragraph (containing 85 words, dropping it down to 253). Now, for the sake of a few words, especially those particular words, I would have thought they would have let them stand. How do you feel - is it acceptable that local newspapers enforce such rigid limits on items submitted by the public when they themselves can go on and on in an editorial/opinion piece, if it suits their purposes? I see it as one of the many reasons that people are just not subscribing to newspapers anymore.

While we're on the subject of 'bright ideas', what do you think of someone who tells you that paying for services out of reserve funds is great because you get the service without an increase in taxes. While reserve funds can be useful in limited circumstances, I find three things wrong with their use:
1. they result in taxes higher than they needed to be because the monies are collected in advance, so how is that a benefit? If you move money from your savings account to chequing to pay for a major purchase, are you not poorer than before?
2. because the public's approval is not required to create and fund a reserve fund, it can be used as a way to get around obtaining the public's consent for major projects (as would be required if the money had to be borrowed)
3. once the money has been put into the reserve fund, Council is pretty much required to build something for which the fund was designed (i.e., the money is 'restricted' and can't be used for general revenues) so there is really no opportunity for 'sober, second thought'

Dear Editor,
I find it quite troubling that we have come to the point where we actually use how much infrastructure money a politician claims to have obtained for us as a measure of their performance (Compare benefits brought to two Nanaimo ridings, Nanaimo Daily News, Oct. 21/08).
The whole 'era of infrastructure grants' is designed to separate us from our tax dollars and leave us feeling beholden to our politicians/government(s). The entire concept of infrastructure grants is problematic for me - it is a system whereby taxes are collected from the people, squirreled away in government accounts, grant applications are processed by a group of bureaucrats and a portion of it (less 'administrative' costs, of course) is then returned to some of the taxpayers in a blatant effort to influence voters. We are being 'bought with our own money'!
It would be much more efficient (and far less 'political') if the money were raised locally for broadly-supported projects solving real problems from those who will benefit. Otherwise, it becomes a game of 'get yours or somebody else will' and even the 'winners' have no certainty that they have received back anywhere near what they have paid in.
The photo 'ops' and the news releases are always quick to follow the awarding of any monies. The politicians obviously don't write the 'cookie-cutter' press release (I have even seen one where the announcing MLA was still referred to as 'xxx') and typically don't have a clue of the real cost/benefits of the project being funded.
I know of at least two projects where the essential criteria of the grants were ignored and a total of $6.7 million was awarded anyway. $5.6 million of that was in my own community, where it was/will be used to install collector sewers to deal with what the technical evaluation said could be as little as a 5% septic system failure rate and we get to live with the varied 'unintended consequences'. Should I vote for any of Lantzville's current councillors on Nov. 15th or support my MLA, Ron Cantelon, in May '09 based on that? I think not!
We would all do well to remember Rafe Mair's Axiom of Subsidiarity, perfectly tailored for this situation: lesser politicians should always, without fail, beware of gifts coming from higher levels of governments.

Update [08 11 13] Well, that really couldn't have been more timely -
On the Log blog [http://thelog.ca] (Nov. 11/08), Lantzville Councillor Denise Haime said:
With respect to the Tourism plan, it was paid for by a Provincial government grant not out of the District of Lantzville budget.
Doing such a plan was a requirement in order to get other grant monies for items such as Minetown Days.

(Nov. 11/08) Lantzville Councillor Douglas Parkhurst said:
The plan has been funded by a provincial grant. It was required as part of a larger grant that the district received. The other part of the funds have been used to fund mine town days and for the future, it can be used to help with a trail plan and other amenity developments. This plan didn't cost the ratepayers. The province is really the one who paid for it.

So, we applied for some money that we really didn't need in order to get some that we had a use for and it "didn't cost the ratepayers". Well, I hate to break it to accountants, Haime (x2) and Parkhurst, but just where do you think the province gets their money from? Local governments everywhere appear to be on this grant treadmill that seems to be running out of control, you might even say they are becoming addicted to it. Now I think you can begin to appreciate what Rafe Mair was talking about.

Update [10 06 16] Well, look at that, will you?! In a piece written for Maclean's magazine (Nov. 2/09 issue), Andrew Coyne, National editor and former journalist, editor and contributor to the National Post and Globe and Mail agrees with what I have been saying all along about infrastructure grants, calling the Conservative government's action on this file both a disgrace and rotten. Read the entire article at http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/10/26/the-cheques-arent-the-real-scandal/