Toronto city councillor Michael Walker, who opposed Toronto’s bid for the 2008 Games, said it has been 20 months since TO-Bid released its budget for the 2008 Games and tax-payers should get the latest budget as soon as possible.
In a letter to Economic Developmment Commissioner Joe Halstead, Walker said, “there still exists a great deal of concern about the potential exposure to the taxpayer that this multi-billion (dollar) undertaking might entail”.
Walker also wrote to Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman asking him to explain a recent TO-Bid assertion to the International Olympic Committee executive board members that 74 per cent of the venues needed to stage the Olympics are already in place.
TO-Bid chief operating officer Bob Richardson said the 74 per cent figure “is completely defensible. All we were saying is that about three-quarters of the sports that are included in the Olympics would take place at venues that already exist”.
He added “is there a ton of bulding to be done? Absolutely. Would we have to add seats and make changes to those venues? Absolutely. We didn’t say that 74 per cent of venues were ready to go right now. There’s a stadium to be built and a velodrome and an aquatic centre and other venues. All we were trying to say was that this bid doesn’t have to be built from scratch, that there’s a ton of infrastructure already in place that can be moved up almost immediately to Olympic standards”.
