First, a quick test: Where were the last FIFA games held? What did you learn about the CITY where the games were held? What did you learn about the REGION where the games were held? When the games were over, did you plan a visit or make investments in the city, region, country?
Some may remember FIFA 2022 was held in Doha, Qatar, but I doubt many Vancouverites, British Columbians or Canadians remembered much more than that … certainly not enough to invest or visit the place.
I recall, from TV coverage, how rich the place seemed, with luxurious sports venues, gold-star hotels and very high end indoor shopping malls … all quite fitting for one of the wealthiest per-capita nations on earth, built on massive exports of oil and gas revenues. (No pipeline blockades or coastal oil tanker ban there!!!)
But there were also many reports/stories/revelations about the use/abuse of hundreds of thousands of foreign migrant workers.
“Human rights organizations reported grueling working conditions in extreme heat, unpaid wages, and the confiscation of passports. Investigations highlighted thousands of unexplained migrant worker deaths, though Qatari authorities claimed only a small fraction were directly work-related,” the BBC reported.
Qatar, of course, is a dictatorship… a monarchy ruled by the Al Thani family. No political parties are legally allowed in the country, so there is no Opposition Leader, no Question Period, no free media and no cheeky bloggers!
Qatar was a FIFA paradise! And so was Russia, host for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada are quite different … thankfully!
The Parliamentary Budget Officer has revealed the estimated PUBLIC cost (all levels of government) for hosting 13 FIFA games will top One Billion dollars … or $82 Million per game. (That’s the estimate: I predict the figure will be considerably higher once all the security bills… and all the “unanticipated overtime’ run up by the cops … piles up.)
Ka-ching! Ka-ching! Ka-ching!
Easy for Qatar and Russia to absorb, control and suppress: no public outcry there.
But here, we’re watching … and should be mortified at the politicians who got us into this mess, being held at the same time that the BC government put “on hold” plans to add 160 critically-needed more beds and a cancer center at Burnaby Hospital; postponed announced plans for seven long-term care homes in Abbotsford, Delta and Chilliwack; delayed the student housing expansion at the University of Victoria: and will “slow down” its plans for housing investments.
“Seniors are dying in hospital beds waiting for long-term care as B.C. waitlists span years,” read the headline in The Vancouver Sun just days ago.
“Statistics provided by (Health Minister Josie) Osborne during debate on the budget for her ministry show that 7,829 seniors are on waitlists for long-term care beds in B.C.”
“The wait time in the Island Health region averages 345 days, with some seniors waiting as long as 1,861 days. The situation is even worse for some in Vancouver Coastal Health with the maximum wait hitting 2,825 days. The average wait time in the health authority is 315 days. Northern Health has the highest average wait time at 376 days,” The Sun reported. (Read the full story: https://vancouversun.com/news/seniors-dying-hospital-beds-waiting-for-long-term-care-bc-waitlists-span-years.)
This, despite the BC NDP government still running up a deficit this year alone of $13 Billion!
How can the politicians (municipal, regional, provincial, federal) find more than a Billion dollars of taxpayers’ money for FIFA soccer games while so many of the people they’re pulling those dollars from can barely afford rents, groceries, other essential services or, worse, can’t get the essential health care they need … and deserve!
Harv Oberfeld
🇨🇦🇨🇦 Buy Canadian! More than ever …🇨🇦🇨🇦
(Follow @harveyoberfeld on “X” for FREE First Alerts to new postings on this BC Blog.)
,
I have a feeling that with the road closures and detours downtown that a lot of people will be inconvenienced during the course of their everyday lives and we will all be hearing about it through the local media.
What I’m really concerned about is what the final tally will be for the security to cover the games here. My hunch tells me it could be huge and way more than people wish to admit right now. It’s almost like no one seems to want to discuss it. The elephant in the room?
Time will tell.
(Response: The overtime bills various police forces will run up … hopefully all of it for just standing around in groups and chatting … will almost guaranteed go beyond budget. And I suspect the total hit for the taxpayers to host FIFA will be higher than a billion … but no one will be held responsible. Think about that next time you are waiting in an emergency room for several hours or visiting a friend or relative or see a senior housed in a hallway in a hospital because there are no rooms/beds available.Ho)
How much money has been lost because cruise ship passengers are going straight to and from airport to their cruise rather than spending a few days pre and or post cruise? Especially given high hotel costs. Does this help explain 20% lower hotel bookings? If all these passengers are not visiting city etc they have nothing to say about our city when back home so also future visitors lost. FIFA = net loss to city???
(Response: That is a very good point about cruise ship passengers. I know the number of cruise ships stopping in Vancouver this year is going up to 360 from 301 last year. Yet hotel bookings are down. I guess that should be no surprise if they find hotels are going for $900 a night! I wonder if the greed of the hotel operators will come back and bite them! Ho)
I had to put fire out in weekend near city hall in alley.Homeless person with shopping cart- said he didnt do it then headed off eastbound down alley.
New st Pauls has extra 100 beds so at 2 B $ we get 20M each room extra?
Most cruises leave at 4-5 pm so you can fly in the am and have zero hotel stay. Suprised ships dont have first night in port but if busy probably the boot for next boat spacewise.
Ive been on 4 cruise over 35 years.
Makes TOIFA look like a bargain at 11M
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/times-of-india-film-awards-may-come-back-to-vancouver-amidst-criticism-1.3524400
Olympics, regularly, have similar cost concerns.
Maybe Ebys a baller?
(Response: Many cruisers fly into their departure port at least a day in advance and many stay afterwards … if the city is attractive and the prices are not exhorbitant. But at $700 or $900 or more, I sure would not stay! But the real question is how could governments, especially those experiencing financial difficulties, spend spend more more more than 1 billion dollars of taxpayers’ funds to host 13 soccer games??? I think it’s outrageous… a violation of their fiduciary duty to those who elected them. Ho)
The angry drums will only get louder. The Traffic changes downtown where thousands live has just kicked in. I got caught in it and the lack of proactive planning to try and mitigate the clearly unnecessary changes will be front and center. Presumably construction deliveries and such will be impacted as as well as emergency vehicles trying to make their way through the sclerosis. But party on!
Yes, the flagrant waste/misappropriation of tax $ that could have been allocated to long term benefits for us BC’ers as you have so clearly articulated instead goes to corrupt or at the very least arrogant and entitled FIFA carpetbaggers. The electorate is quietly seething, the BC Cons simply need to elect a moderate, fiscally responsible, leader who is willing to sideline the far right Mini Maga’s.
Eby will wear this on top of everything else (even though he wasn’t the leader who approved, he is now) NDP are going to be scorched earth next general election.
(Response: This one can’t really be blamed on Eby personally,or just the provincial government, but the NDP will wear it once the total price tag comes in. The only thing they could save them would be if the games make so much money that the provincial tax revenues cover the entire cost or even produce a profit that could then be allocated to the critical needs I and others have pointed out. Ho)
I have no interest in soccer. I don’t follow (at all) the Whitecaps or the MSL. I know nothing about any of the soccer leagues around the world. I just asked myself to name a soccer player: David Beckham, Christine Sinclair, Pele. I am sure I would recognize a few more names if you tossed them at me. That is my level of soccer knowledge. But it is the World Cup so I may watch part of a game or two, especially one involving Canada. I would do that wherever the games were being held.
When someone tells me that $1B of taxpayer’s dollars is being spent to put on the games, I could be outraged, maybe I should be outraged but I am not because I don’t have all the facts. So quick google searches brings me this. And please, correct me if I am wrong. This was quick. And I am barely awake as I type this.
Of the $1B, almost half $473M is coming from the federal government.
The hosting costs for Vancouver are $578M. The feds are contributing $215M so that leaves $363M for Vancouver/BC. Some of that is infrastructure improvements to BC Place totalling somewhere around $170M. We can argue the value of those but at least there is something tangible at the end of the games. That still leaves almost $200M. But the estimated revenue from the 2.5% hotel room tax is estimated to be $230M.
That is as far as I got because I am lazy. I didn’t bother doing Ontario. And I don’t know what benefits the government may get out of the $1B they say will be generated from spending during and after the games. But it seems that Vancouver and BC are not out of pocket (if you count infrastructure costs as a positive) once you include the federal government’s contributions. So if anybody should be upset it’s the people of Saskatchewan or Nova Scotia or Nunavut and the rest of Canada outside of BC and Ontario.
Oh yeh Messi and Ronaldo. Maybe I know even more names.
(Response: Congratulations… you know more soccer players than I do! I would have no objection to holding the event here if the costs were more reasonable, and if the city, region, province and federal coffees were in better position than they are now… and the costs reflected the economic conditions we are all now facing. It’s the extravagance, the disrespect for public dollars and the billions FIFA itself will cart away that really offends. I don’t buy the explanation that the federal government will pick up part of the cost… It’s ALL taxpayers dollars in that more than 1 billion that will be spent!As for the hotel tax revenues etc, that is a red herring because during the Summer the hotels, bars, restaurants etc would be full and collecting those taxes even without FIFA being here. In fact, the much higher prices this year will likely scare more tourists away than attract them. And even locals who usually patronize downtown businesses likely won’t go near the area for weeks during, before and after the games. Ho)