Seven members of Hamilton’s failed bid to become Canada’s candidate for the 2014 Commonwealth Games met Wednesday with three officials from Commonwealth Games Canada (CGC) and were told the city should bid again for future Games. Halifax was selected Canada’s representative for the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
But Hamilton Mayor Larry Di Ianni said Hamilton’s city council will have to decide whether the city is willing to risk another bid. He said, “you know the old adage, once bitten twice shy. Well, we have been bitten twice”.
The bid committee grilled the officials for more than two hours on why Hamilton lost its bid to Halifax.
The Hamilton Spectator reports that the mayor and Thomas Jones, chief executive office of CGC, said that there were “frank” and “productive” discussions about Hamilton’s losing bid.
Hamilton officials say they will make a full report to their own Games bid committee and council in the days ahead, but the newspaper reports it was clear they were less than satisfied after Wednesday’s debriefing session.
The mayor said Hamilton was hurt because there were two other Ontario bids, Ottawa and York Region, but only the Halifax bid was from the Maritimes. He said that meant not all bidders ended up with “the same level of support from their provincial government”.
Commonwealth Games Canada insisted on bid confidentiality so as not to give Glasgow Scotland and Abuja Nigeria, Canada’s competitors for the 2014 Commonwealth Games, an advantage in the international bid process.
