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How much will the security budget cost by then? It's already like what, 10 billion dollars for a two week event in 2008 dollars? No thanks. Just say no to the surface-to-air-lympics.
 
The benefits outweight the negatives in hosting an Olympics. You have to be smart with the budget and be realistic something London wasn't with the original 2012 Olympic budget. They've had so many cost overruns.

Vancouver on the other hand has gone pretty smoothly with only the Athlete's Village posing any type of problem but in the end Vancouver will be better off after hosting their Winter Olympics.

The amount of money the host cities Olympic Organizing Committee receives from corporate sponsorship and television revenues is enormous as well.

Add to the fact that the Olympics have proven to put cities on the worldwide map for travel destinations. These are the added benefits of hosting such a prestigious event such as the Summer Olympics.

Let's be honest, how long will it take for Toronto to get most of its city developments and improvements on its dream list done? Forever, this city honestly moves at a snail pace. Don't lie to yourselves if you don't think the Olympics wouldn't speed up this development. The city would be on a strict deadline to get all developments for the Games complete within a 7 year time span. What other ways can we get the full attention from all governments and have massive amounts of funds pouring into the city of Toronto? It's actually kind of sad that we would probably have to bid for the Olympics for us to get what Toronto should have been getting years ago. It's true though. How long has this city been discussing developing the waterfront? What really has been done? Honestly!

I say the city should go for the Olympics when the right opportunity and time comes around, be it either in 2020, 2024, 2028 or whatever.
 
I'm willing to deal with the Olympic excess, corruption, commercialism, etc. in order to obtain what needs to be done in this city during my lifetime (I'm not that old too! :D)
 
Tewder said:
We are in primetime rating zones for huge population areas in North America, many of which are within a day's drive of our beautiful province.
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By the time Toronto comes around and wins the Olympics, the 3 billion or so viewers in South and East Asia will be a much more lucrative media market than the 200 million on the eastern half of the North American continent. Maybe CCTV rivals NBC/Universal in the amount of funding they provide to the IOC.

Just something to think about.
 
kEiThZ said:
Product of a hyper-active imagination....Canada is not budgeting 10 billion for Vancouver 2010 that's for sure. Even the brigade size deployment of the CF will only cost a small fraction of that.
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Vancouver's security budget has increased to the range of 800 million - 1 billion.
 
urbanfan89 said:
By the time Toronto comes around and wins the Olympics, the 3 billion or so viewers in South and East Asia will be a much more lucrative media market than the 200 million on the eastern half of the North American continent. Maybe CCTV rivals NBC/Universal in the amount of funding they provide to the IOC.

Just something to think about.
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Perhaps, didn't think about that. Still, you can probably add the west coast into North American prime time numbers because people there are still able to tune into key events aired at primetime EST, even if it is slightly a little off of primetime for the west coast. They tend to be used to it (The Oscars airing here in primetime but earlier on the west coast, for example). Also, you have to wonder whether cultural consumption of the Olympics and television in general is the same in parts of Asia as it is pretty much everywhere in North America, including all kinds of other demographic issues.

As for naysayers of the Olympic games they apparantly have insider information that says it is ill-advised to seek hosting the games that London, Paris, Sidney, Tokyo, Montreal, Vancouver, Chicago and many other cities didn't or don't know about?:rolleyes: Of course it is expensive and bloated and fraught with many issues, which goes without saying, but hosting the games is sort of like competing in them in that the rewards and benefits of success can be enormous. For a relatively 'unknown' city like Toronto the Olympics can be the type and scale of event to put Toronto on the map internationally will all kinds of potential benefits to tourism, culture and the economy, as well as secure a committed dedication to fund and complete major investments in infrastructure.
 
kEiThZ said:
Even the brigade size deployment of the CF will only cost a small fraction of that.
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They won't be available anyway. Canada has a grand total of approx 3,500 full-time infantry combat soldiers. Of that total, more than 3% have been killed in Afghanistan.

The remaining 60-odd thousand full-time Canadian military personnel are engaged in all the other tasks of a military, from logistics, navy crews, pilots, medics, etc... and of course administration.

You may get some CF reservists to complement Olympic security details, but considering that the typical NATO standard brigade consists of approximately 4,000 to 5,000 troops, you'll be hard pressed to put one brigade together for the Olympics.
 
I was half-joking about the 10 billion dollars if that wasn't apparent. The real numbers are hard to determine because the costs are largely hidden from the published budget figures. The summer olympics are virtually uncomparable to the winter event which is on an entirely different scale. The published security budget for Athens 2004 was 1.3 billion US or about 1.75 billion Canadian. This excludes contribution from foreign military operators from specific countries and organizations such as NATO. 2008 is impossible to determine. The published budget was something over 2 billion US. I suspect they spent many many times that value not including the cost of virtually shutting down one of their largest city-regions. London 2012 will generate the next realistic "official" security budget.
 
Why on earth would Torontonians (as apart from politicians!) want to host the Olympics - Montreal took 25 years to pay off their debt and Vancouver is already VERY worried. Olympics bring visitors (if they can afford the costs) for about 2 weeks, at least a Worlds Fair runs for 6 months so there's a greater chance to get enough extra visitors to, partly, help pay for all the extra construction.
 
^It's the classic Toronto inferiority complex. A very expensive way of putting us on the map. The way I see it, everyone in the world has heard of Toronto and those who haven't probably aren't the kind of people who make the world go round, anyway.
 
DSC said:
Why on earth would Torontonians (as apart from politicians!) want to host the Olympics - Montreal took 25 years to pay off their debt and Vancouver is already VERY worried. Olympics bring visitors (if they can afford the costs) for about 2 weeks, at least a Worlds Fair runs for 6 months so there's a greater chance to get enough extra visitors to, partly, help pay for all the extra construction.
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How many times does Canada have to host Olympic events? I think 1976, 1988 and now 2010 is enough Olympic coverage for our country.

Let's stop postponing infrastructure and rebuilding in Toronto for possible dreams of an Olympic cash cow, and instead get building the waterfront now with the resources available.
 
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