A lot of people aren't happy about the upcoming BC Winter Olympics. Can you blame them? Between the speech codes, the extra legislation, the union-trouncing, and the general re-arrangement of the entire province at the Olympics' beck and call, one can expect a few sad sacks to fail to see the grand vision. What grand vision? Well, simply put: the Winter Olympics are just too big to fail. They have to work. Otherwise, everything that has gone into setting them up, every little concession on the part of the BC government, will have been for naught.
Indeed, if you take the chance to listen to some of the rhetoric surrounding the games, you'll find a hint of manic hope mixed into the arguments. Take Liberal Burquitlam MLA Harry Bloy's recent comments painting Olympics protesters as 'terrorists' of 'limited intellect'. The government, and therefore, the BC Libs, have put way too much into this venture for it not to pan out.
Unfortunately, hope and reality seldom coincide; something which the Campbell government is slowly coming to realize. A little while ago, The Tyee reported that the provincial government had reduced its estimate of the economic activity surrounding the Winter Olympic games from around $10 billion to $4 billion, although during subsequent questioning, provincial finance minister Colin Hansen only said that the games would generate a nebulous 'billions and billions'.
Also, according to The Tyee, four reports from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) measured the 2003 and 2008 Olympics preparation effects against economic benefit projections from a 2002 InterVISTAS Consulting Inc. report. This InterVISTAS report was the basis for the $10 and $4 billion figures quoted by the BC government ( the $10 billion figure was based on the total economic impact surrounding the Games, including the expansion of the Vancouver Conference and Event Center; the $4 billion figure wasn't ). The PwC reports came up with an estimate that over the course of six years, the Olympics' impact on GDP and employment will be to the tune of 788 million dollars, with 18,362 people employed - about the middle of the road when it comes to the original InterVISTAS projections.
Things get difficult from there, though. The 2008 GDP for the province of British Columbia was 199 billion dollars, and the amount of people employed in BC is around 2.4 million. The Olympics projections, although they sound impressive on their own, are a drop in the bucket when it comes to the larger picture. Employment, for instance, according to these projections may only be boosted by 0.125 percent.
Furthermore, although the $10 and $4 billion figures were based on expectations of high amounts of tourism from five years before the Games onward, PwC's analysis was that tourism-related spending between 2003 and 2008 had not increased substantially, with lower amounts of tourism than hoped for associated with the Olympics at that time.
To top all of this off, the estimated bill for pulling off the 2010 Winter Olympics is around $6-7 billion.
Now, it's true that a series of reports from PricewaterhouseCoopers isn't conclusive evidence that the Winter Games are going to fail. In fact, as the author of the 2002 InterVISTAS report, Mike Tretheway, stated in a subsequent story by The Tyee, the Olympics security prep people, and those working on various technical aspects of Olympic venues weren't included in PwC's tourism statistics, and resorts that are outside of the greater Vancouver area - such as in Kelowna, Kamloops, and Vancouver Island - have seen an upswing in customers. But at any rate, even Tretheway's predictions of the most likely economic impact - either a $2.4 billion addition to BC's GDP, with 54,000 employed, or $3.3 billion with 77,000 employed - fall short of the total estimated cost for the games.
Reality's harsh. The BC Liberals would do well to remember this as they continue with their rather pie-in-the-sky rhetoric surrounding the Olympic Games. It may be their game to play, but it's ours to lose.
