According to a 17-page agreement signed between the Province of Ontario, the City of Toronto and TO-Bid, the province will control every major decision made by Toronto’s Olympic Committee, should the city host the 2008 Games.
Provincial Finance Minister Ernie Eves said that the province had to maintain full control over the Olympics because it had agreed to be responsible for cost overruns.
He said “signing this guarantee is not signing a blank cheque. Rather, it gives the province the ability to ensure that the Toronto Olympic Games are not only the best ever but also that they are carried out in the most efficient and cost-effective way”.
Eves insisted Ontario taxpayers won’t be stuck with a deficit if Toronto wins its bid. “We virtually would have to agree to a deficit for there to be one the way the agreement is structured. And I don’t foresee that happening”.
TO-Bid CEO John Bitove said “the province is simply saying ‘you can’t do anything unusual without us agreeing to it'”.
Eves noted that the provincial guarantee for the failed 1996 bid was only 1-1/2 pages, whereas this agreement is a full 17 pages. The detail involved will help shelter taxpayers from deficit scenarios faced by Montreal and Sydney after they hosted the Games.
The guarantee states that any cost overrun or higher-than-anticipated expense will only be paid out with the full agreement of the province. The province also would have to approve the organizing committee’s chief executive officer, and organizers would have to choose the chief financial officer from three names supplied by the province.
Also, the province would effectively control six of the 18 seats on the board of directors of the organizing committee, the Canadian Olympic Association would appoint six and the city of Toronto and the federal government would each name three.
The province would be allowed to appoint added directors and assume a majority of the board if it were asked for a financial bailout.
