The Costs of the Olympics

At this stage, more than six years after Vancouver/Whistler "won" the bid to host the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, it is clear that the event will swallow up over $6 billion of public money. What does Vancouver get in return?

Most evident is the publicity associated with a seventeen-day party for the world's elite. By the time the bills are paid off, though, the glories of a fleeting association with supposed sports excellence will be long past. Just ask Montreal.

The 2010 Winter Games will take place in a city and a province that always cry "tough times" when it comes to finding money for essentials like hospital beds, seismic upgrade for public schools, and affordable housing for people on the street. Yet those same governments pushed the Olympic bid and readily found huge amounts of funding for that. What gives?

In one sense it is the same old story from beginning to end. Genesis 11 remembers people who set out to build a city and a tower that would make their name. Revelation 18 excoriates a world-class city that has profited its kings and merchants. Both of these places are called Babylon.

Learn more about Vancouver's embrace of the Olympic idol. Read Follow the Money, Understand the Olympic Scam (.pdf file) for a concise, up-to-date, documented account of who pays and who profits, who loses and who wins – and how and why.