Toronto Wins Pan Am Games, But at What Cost?

by John Laforet
posted on November 7th, 2009 at 11:11:36 am

Toronto is poised to host the 2015 Pan Am Games at a cost of 2.4 billion dollars. It is the first time Ontario will host an international sporting event since 1930 (a number of media sources are citing this fact, but none seem to mention what that was). In some ways hosting an event like this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because it does result in investment in infrastructure and leaves behind legacy projects that can be useful to the city after the games are though.

The Province is thrilled as I’m sure many of the participating municipalities in the the GTA. I wonder how residents are feeling about it though.

I passively watch the Olympics both Summer and Winter with some interest, and not necessarily just when Canadians are in the mix. For all of its faults, there is still something to be said about the symbolism of the Olympics and the world wide scope of competition that makes it seem worthwhile – particularly when its on someone else’s dime.

With the Pan Am Games though, I’m not sold Canadians are all that into it. Can anyone name five Pan Am sports without the aid of google, or ten countries that participate in the Pan Am Games? There are a few challenges I have getting excited about Toronto’s bid and I’ll briefly explain them.

Relevance is a big one, but not necessarily the critical one. I just don’t believe the Pan Am Games are relevant to many people in the GTA, and particularly in comparison to something like the Olympics which Canada is hosting in 2010. Nationalism driven by sports for this country is mostly a hockey thing, and more broadly a winter sports thing. I’m not sold that an 11 day summer sporting event in 2015 will have the rousing impact on Canadians you’d expect 2.4 billion dollars to buy. What’s more, the Pan Am games are considerably more popular in Central and South America making Lima or Bogota seem like more natural selections for host cities for both the viewers and the potential positive impacts the games could have for Peru or Columbia.

Cost is probably my biggest objection. In 1999 when Winnipeg hosted the Pan Am Games, they had a proposed bid of $141 million dollars to get the necessary infrastructure in place to host a successful event. Those games generated a profit of $6 million dollars. The 2003 games were hosted in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic at a cost of $175 million. In 2007 Rio hosted the games, but the cost isn’t readily publicly available. The 2011 games will be hosted by Guadalajara Mexico with an expected budget of $250 million. Why will Toronto be spending $2.4 billion on something that has cost others consistently less than 10% of that.

Toronto has other desperate needs for that money. We have a serious infrastructure deficit in the TTC’s capital budget brought on by nixing a number projects in favour of buying those streetcars – a decision that saw the City spend $400 million it wasn’t expecting to in less than 24 hours. We have a $200 million dollar backlog in maintenance in our Toronto Community Housing buildings. There are a number of at risk communities that lack community centres and other recreation infrastructure for youth that could be better helped with this money. What’s more, Toronto is broke, the Province is broke and the Feds are also broke. No one actually has the money to pay for this and each level of government will be debt financing their support for the Pan Am Games.

Considering Winnipeg brought in $147 million in revenue from the games in 1999, what does the City, Province and Federal Government realistically expect the City of Toronto to bring in?

If we’ve got a pot of $2.4 billion these three levels of governments are itching to spend, invest it in Transit City, Affordable Housing, Community Centres, keeping pools open, the waterfront (remember when Lastman, Harris and Chretien announced a billion dollars for that in 2000 – how is that working out so far?). If you don’t want to do that stuff, throw it at Toronto’s debt and free the City up for interest payments. Almost anything would be a better use than this. To me hosting the Pan Am Games is a misguided money loser that should have residents mightily pissed with their governments for prioritizing this over the needs of everyday residents of our city.

I wish I could celebrate with the bid organizers who think all is great. I will say the regional cooperation concept of the games is positive if not just because it is bringing municipal governments together over big infrastructure projects, but at the same time, I would prefer to see them working together on roads, sewers, interconnected public transit and things that will actually improve their city’s and be worth the investment at the end of the days, especially when compared to a 16 day sporting event to take place six years from now in July.

Tags: 2015 Pan Am Games, 2015 Toronto Pan Am Games, Pan Am Games, Toronto Bid for Pan Am Games, Toronto Pan Am Games