Calgary Latest 2026 Bid to Face Plebiscite

(ATR) Calgary’s potential bid for the 2026 Winter Olympics will go before the city’s voters in a plebiscite.

That is, if the project gets that far.

The Calgary city council could still vote to end the effort in June, once the full report on what it would cost the city to host in 2026 is revealed.

"There’s still a lot of work to be done to see if there’s a deal there," Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi told reporters. "If there’s no deal there, if it looks like we can’t make this work financially, or there are other good reasons not to do it, council still has the chance to say ‘we’re pulling out’".

Should the bid survive in June, the plebiscite could happen as early as October or as late as February 2019. Funding for the vote, which is estimated to cost CAN$ 1.96 million, has yet to be determined.

The vote for a plebiscite passed by an overwhelming 14-1 majority, compared to the 9-6 vote to keep the bid alive last week.

In addition, the council approved a revised public engagement plan and created a dedicated Olympic subcommittee.

Mayor Nenshi will sit on the panel along with four councillors. The subcommittee is charged with overseeing the work on the potential bid and for crafting the plebiscite question.

It was also decided that a public hearing on a possible Olympic bid should be held at some point.

Public engagement and a plebiscite were requirements put in place by the province of Alberta last month in exchange for about a third of the CAN$30 million required to create a bid corporation. The federal Canadian government and the city of Calgary are sharing in the cost.

Monday's decision to have a plebiscite means Calgary joins Sion as bids that face public approval to stay in the race for 2026. The Austrian bid in Graz could face a referendum. The previous 2026 bid by Austria was shot down by voters in Innsbruck in October 2017.

Written by Gerard Farek

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