Olympic Security To Cost $900 Million
Olympic security estimated to cost $900M
CBC News, Thursday, February 19, 2009
The federal and provincial governments have revealed their revised estimates for 2010 Olympic Games security, now pegged at $900 million, or almost five times the amount initially estimated.
Under the new agreement, B.C.'s total contribution will be $252.5 million, which includes $165 million in new money that was announced Thursday.
The province's new funding will be go toward infrastructure and will involve capital spending spread over three years.
"This allows us to take what was going to be a pressure on our operating budget and cap it, so that we didn't have to divert dollars away from other programs in the province, such as health care and education, to live up to our Olympic security obligations," Colin Hansen, Minister Responsible for the Olympics, said Thursday.
The federal government announced in a news release that its total contribution will now be $647.5 million and also, that it will pay for any unforeseen costs that may arise.
"It would be nice if we could do it for less, but our approach has not been to set a budget and then deliver security for that budget," said Peter van Loan, the federal minister in charge of Olympic security.
The province initially estimated its contribution for providing security for the Games would be $87.5 million. As recently as July 2008, Colin Hansen, minister responsible for the Olympics, announced the entire security budget would be $175 million.
Subsequent estimates, including one from the federal government, suggested the entire cost of providing security for the Games could cost as much as $1 billion.
Cost of security for 2010 Olympics rises to $900 million
Jeff Lee and Jonathan Fowlie, Canwest News Service/Vancouver Sun
Published: Thursday, February 19, 2009
The cost of providing security to the 2010 Winter Olympics is estimated to be $900 million but could go higher if threats emerge, Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan said Thursday.
Saying he was confident security planners had now accurately calculated the cost of protecting athletes, officials and dignitaries, Van Loan nonetheless refused to say that the new budget would be enough.
"The one caveat I make to this is that this is made on an assumption of a certain level of risk," he said. "If the level of risk goes up or incidents happen before or at the Games you may have to change that."
The new figure is more than five times the original $175 million budget that the International Olympic Committee had been told in 2002 that it would cost to provide a safe Olympics. The IOC itself questioned the validity of the budget, but it was only after Vancouver won the bid that security planners admitted it was grossly underestimated.
"I wasn't around at that time when the budget was created. The $175 million estimate was before my time. But I can tell you it was developed without an actual plan for security in place," Van Loan said.
B.C. Finance Minister Colin Hansen said B.C.'s total share of the Olympic security budget is now $252.5 million, just under three times more than the province's original estimate. Under a proposal put forward by the province in mid-December, B.C. will pay the remaining $165 million over the next three years without putting direct pressure on its already constrained operating budget. It has already given Ottawa $87.5 million, its share of the original budget.
After weeks of on-and-off plans to release the new budget, the governments chose a curious time to hand out the bad news. Late on the same day that U.S. President Barak Obama visited Canada, which has triggered massive media coverage, the two governments put out simultaneous press releases. This was also the day that B.C. and municipal officials presided over the opening ceremony of the last Olympic venue to be built, the curling facility in Vancouver.
Van Loan said the timing of the announcement was "totally a coincidence" and that both sides were still working out details when the decision was made to go public.
Officials in Ottawa said the new budget is based on a "medium" threat level. In the past, the RCMP has said costs could rise if a terrorist attack or other incident raises the national threat level.
The scope of the new budget easily makes it the single biggest expense of the Olympics. By comparison, the Vancouver Organizing Committee's total cost of operating the Games is $1.7 billion, and it built all of its sporting venues for $580 million.
The biggest chunk, an estimated $491.9 million, will go to the RCMP-led Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit. Another $212 million goes to the Department of National Defence. But there's also money for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Transport Canada, Industry Canada and other government agencies.
B.C.'s share is being accounted for in a convoluted way because it is projected to have two successive years of deficit. B.C. and Ottawa agreed the money could be paid through provincial contributions to infrastructure projects that otherwise would have been funded by Ottawa.
"As these projects are funded -- these infrastructure projects -- we will flow a disproportionately larger share of [money for] those projects until we hit a maximum of $165 million," Hansen said, adding those extra provincial dollars were accounted for in Tuesday's budget.
In return, B.C. gave up any right to help plan security. "The old agreement invited "co-management" of the security budget and it was not going to get us anywhere very fast," Hansen said.
New Democratic Party leader Carole James was critical of the overrun.
"One thing was clear today, it's going to cost the taxpayers more than the government's been telling us," she said, suggesting the new payment structure amounts to a "shell game" that allows both levels of government to "play politics with the numbers."
"Ultimately, let's remember, there's one taxpayer, and the taxpayer is paying more for security than the government told us," she said.
John Furlong, CEO of the Vancouver Organizing Committee, said he always believed security planners would provide the appropriate level of protection for the public, athletes and officials. But he was reluctant to comment on the scale of the increase, saying it was not Vanoc's responsibility. However, he said it offers stability .
"I am happy now that the number is out in the public domain," he said.
© The Vancouver Sun 2009