When Vancouver Mayor-elect Larry Campbell promised, during the heat of a political campaign, to hold a referendum on Vancouver’s 2010 Olympic bid if he was elected Mayor, he may not have realized what reaction it would cause.
The CBC reports that during several interviews Campbell held Monday, the topic of discussion was the referendum, overshadowing other campaign promises he had made.
Jack Poole, head of Vancouver’s 2010 bid said a referendum would be risky. “People with any grievance at all with government might vote no because it’s something the government is supporting. It’s a dangerous thing to commence. I see no upside. I see only risk”.
He said a referendum would have been more timely five years ago, when the Vancouver bid began. “A referendum now is going to send a very strange signal to the IOC”.
Sam Corea, a spokesman for Vancouver’s bid told the Globe and Mail, “we’re pretty far down the process. Internationally it might create some confusion”.
Corea told GamesBids.com that Poole has phoned Campbell requesting a meeting with him to go over the Vancouver 2010 business plan. He added, “we will also be requesting an early meeting with the new Vancouver City Council to bring them up to date as well.
“We’re not in the referendum business. If the City of Vancouver chooses to hold a referendum, then the Bid Corporation would continue its job of speaking about the features of the bid and the benefits and legacies for Vancouver, Whistler, B.C. and the global Olympic movement” Corea told the Web site.
Meanwhile, Jim Green, one of the newly elected COPE councilors said Poole should a referendum. “If they’re afraid that a referendum will kill the Olympics, they’re also saying that they don’t have the support of the people. Now is the time to sit down and try to make this work or let us know why it won’t work”.
Green said he is concerned that the Olympics will be of little benefit to low-income people and local small businesses. He’s also concerned that the Olympic bid will bolster the chances of a proposal to build a $2-billion subway as part of a rapid-transit project to Richmond and the Vancouver International Airport.
John Lucas, a retired Pennsylvania State University professor who has taught classes and written about the Olympic movement said any hint of discontent could sour the IOC’s appetite for Vancouver.
“If there is a referendum, and unless it’s overwhelmingly in favour, this would be taken by the IOC as a bad, bad, sign”.
Whistler’s Mayor Hugh O’Reilly, who will co-host the Games with Vancouver, said, “we know there is going to be telephone surveying done by the IOC, and if there isn’t support we won’t win the bid”.
Meanwhile John MacAloon, author of several books on the Olympics, said a referendum isn’t necessarily the bogeyman some people nave made it out to be. “If the referendum results were to be positive, that could do nothing but help the bid. If they showed pretty much what the public opinion polling is showing so far, that is neutral to the outcome. If the referendum showed a great deal of public opposition that hadn’t previously surfaced, then that would be harmful to the bid”.
McAloon has just returned from Lausanne, Switzerland where at an IOC conference discussing the future of the Olympic movement he spoke to IOC delegates who said improving the Sea-to-Sky Highway linking Vancouver to Whistler was the number one priority.
“It is very clear there has to be an answer from Vancouver about what will be done and where the funding is going to come from. At least with some IOC members it is a deal killer”.
