Winter Of (Dis?)Content: Vancouver Winter Olympics

When talking about the economic legacy of the Vancouver Olympic Games, people need to focus on the longer-term impact.

Story and photos by: Mark Keast

A lovely halo, as someone said. That is what’s lingering from the Vancouver Winter Olympics when you travel to the city.

Those who were against hosting the Games would tell you something else is lingering in the air.

“The two week Olympic spectacle will leave in its wake a legacy of financial debt, deepening impoverishment, violations of civil and social rights, and a significant reinforcement of the tools and weapons of the national security state.” That’s how Australia’s Green Left newspaper saw it going in.

Massive taxpayer outlays, corporate bullying, invasive security, athlete doping, over-the-top commercialism, and a corrupt International Olympic Committee (IOC) – there was plenty for people to complain about before the Games began. That should only intensify now as the final cost emerges. (The BC government announced their final tally in July: $925 million, up from their original estimate in 2002 of $600 million, after they factored in security costs and additional funds the government spent to “enhance the Games experience.”)

The rings are gone. The banners are down. Whatever the opinion, for or against, those memories of the Games are fading with time. Was it worth it, when considering its economic legacy? What about the impact on business, both short- and long-term, perceived or realized? Robson Square, site of all of those celebrations, is being ripped up. The Olympic legacy is not unlike those six acres of brown, overgrown indigenous plants that cover the roof of the new Vancouver Convention Centre, part of the city’s commitment to sustainability: the effects may some day be something lush and wondrous but these days they look like a patchy eyesore (image top right).

“What the Olympics did was cast a beautiful spotlight on the city,” says Chella Levesque, national director of marketing for Opus hotels, including a luxury location in Vancouver’s Yaletown. That’s true. According to the International Olympic Committee over 3.5 billion people watched the games on television, the internet or via mobile. The Vancouver Olympic Games Organizing Committee (VANOC) estimates that the Games generated $250 million in equivalent ad value for Canada through earned media other than advertising. For Carol Stephenson, dean of the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario and a member of the board of directors for VANOC, the Olympics were above all a great brand-building exercise for the city with long-term economic impacts. It was for the country, too. “In a global environment you have to fight to get your country on the radar screen,” she says. “To get through all the clutter, sometimes to get your country on the world stage, you have to do these things. An event like this has longer-term benefits.”

Even Toronto’s G20 Summit this summer, with all the rioting, still had its value, Stephenson says. The rationale behind public investment in something like an Olympics is that it will yield returns through increased tax revenues, employment and economic growth as a result of more spending, significant community sport and health benefits, and capital improvement yielding long-term benefits. (I liked the VANOC grant to Just Beginnings Non-Profit Society, a flower shop and floral design school for women with barriers to employment – be it victims of violence, or women  recovering from addiction, exiting prison or the sex trade – to make the 1,700 victory bouquets the athletes waved on the podiums. Put a dollar figure on how it made those women feel, critics.)

“I think it was positive,” says Jill Earthy, executive director of the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs, based in Vancouver, which educates and mentors women who have started their own business (BC has seen the fastest growth in the number of female entrepreneurs in the country). “As a community, it was quite unexpected the energy, the way people came together. I had no expectations, but I was blown away with the atmosphere.” Companies like RBC and Price Waterhouse Coopers were hosting numerous events where business people, both Canadian and from abroad, could network. “A lot came out of that,” she says. “The networking opportunities were immense.”

According to the Commerce Centre, created by the BC Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Secretariat in 2004 to generate networking opportunities and to build long-term economic benefits for the province by offering information on the business opportunities the Games provided, a total of 3,197 business people attended 46 business-to-business programs at the BC Showcase at Robson Square during the Games, and BC firms reported making 2,072 new business connections.

In the spring 2010 provincial outlook, the Conference Board of Canada forecasted that BC will record 3.8% real GDP growth this year, which will tie it for first nationally. The 2010 Games, plus gains in the forestry, manufacturing and construction sectors, were the big contributors.

Still, spend some time in the Gastown district, embroiled in the ramifications of gentrification; watch the guy out of his mind on some substance stand right next to the businessman in the Canali suit waiting to get into the Chill Winston patio. Rarely do you see two different worlds so closely mingling as you do in Gastown. Social issues like these aren’t unique to Vancouver. The high cost of living isn’t unique to it either. But it becomes an issue when one is trying to justify a billion dollar party.

“Governments find money for things they find money for,” says Catherine Winckler, partner/creative director of Switch United, a multi-disciplinary design studio based in Vancouver that was awarded a contract to quarterback a 110-foot-long sensory-driven digital display wall in the Commerce Centre during the Games which showcased Western Canadian economic development. The Games were a “coming out party” for her firm, she says. “That’s not to say we don’t fight (for social causes). But I do buy that argument that a lot of that money wouldn’t have gone (to social causes) anyway. I think the money (in these areas) has more of a chance of getting spent if the world is focusing on our city in a bigger way. There’s a bigger likelihood that as we get more attention, longer term, we will clean (these issues) up.”

The actual provincial cost of the Games will be debated for a long time to come (VANOC’s tally for planning, organizing, staging and financing the Games is expected this fall). Should the province’s stake in three major capital projects related to the Olympics be part of that final tally? If so that total takes a big jump. Take the province’s stake in the $600 million Sea-to-Sky highway upgrade, built by a public-private consortium. Long a deadly stretch of road, safety and reliability upgrades were built in to shorten travel times and increase capacity for the drive between Vancouver and Whistler. The province was on the hook for some of that cost but it wasn’t included in the final Olympic bill. Same with the $2 billion rapid transit Canada Line, a partnership between the Ministry of Transportation, Translink, the federal government and other partners not part of the province’s final tally on Olympic investments but another necessary infrastructure investment that wouldn’t have happened without the Olympics (see the preparation for Toronto’s 2015 Pan American Games which includes a new direct transit line from downtown to Pearson International Airport). Or what about that $900 million convention centre which housed the Olympic broadcasters?

There are now reports and studies being written on the real economic impact of hosting the Winter Olympics. Many people on both sides of the argument have agendas. The government had an agenda when they announced the final bill in July. The federal government has an agenda. VANOC has an agenda. For me, I go with the impetus argument: without the Games these necessary infrastructure projects never would have happened, or at least probably not in our lifetime. What is it going to do for business flow over the next 25 years, not having to sit in a Yellow Cab battling traffic, trying to get to the airport? The Canada Line Yaletown stop was right across the street from the Opus Hotel where we stayed. The ride to the airport was exactly 23 minutes, as quoted to me. Or what about the Sea-to-Sky highway upgrades, knowing that the economic benefits of decreased travel times, vehicle operating cost savings and accident cost savings, and decreased fuel consumption will be in the hundreds of millions, on top of the tourism boost and benefits to the forestry and agriculture sector?

The decision was made, the money was spent, the Games were held. The real benefits will come down to how aggressively those in the city and province capitalize on that fading halo.