Edmonton has the chance to get back into the mix for the Commonwealth Games. A report heading to city council’s Community and Public Services Committee next week will detail what efforts will be needed to resurrect a bid for either the 2026 or 2030 games.
Edmonton had representatives take part in a bid-briefing workshop in Toronto in January along with 13 other cities, and seven provinces.
“We went through four hours of a deep dive into what the Commonwealth Games were all about,” confirmed Commonwealth Games Canada CEO Brian MacPherson in a phone interview from Ottawa.
“The benefits to a city and a country for hosting the Commonwealth Games (were discussed), lots of guidelines around sports selection, scope, and venue master plan, and then finally our bidding time lines.”
Joining CGC presenters in the four-hour session were reps from the international body — the Commonwealth Games Federation — and Sport Canada.
The move by CGC, CGF and Sport Canada to pursue another bid gained momentum, after a plebiscite in Calgary rejected the notion of bidding for the Olympic Winter Games, MacPherson said.
Edmonton was in line to be the host city for the 2022 games, however, the bid was pulled when Alberta’s energy sector took a dive in 2015 and the Alberta government decided it wasn’t in a position to back the bid. Those games will now be held in Birmingham, England.
MacPherson won’t comment on what competing interest there is for Canada’s next bid, although out of the January session he confirms Hamilton is the only city that has gone public with its intentions for 2030, which would mark the 100th anniversary of the steel city hosting what was then the Empire Games in 1930.
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Hamilton has a local bid committee set up with community leaders, municipal staff and corporate leaders, and has unanimous support of its city council.
It’s presumed Edmonton would go for 2030 as well since it is already on the shortlist for hosting duties for the North American FIFA bid for soccer’s World Cup in 2026.
“We do know, we’ve been told that FIFA has a rule that if you are a city hosting FIFA World Cup games then logically then you cannot host any other big major event in that summer,” MacPherson said.
“So out of those 14 cities that came to our bid briefing, there are three that are candidate cities for the 2026 World Cup that will host a few games, that’s Edmonton, Montreal and Toronto, so suffice to say, none of those cities would be interested in bidding for a 2026 Commonwealth Games.”
MacPherson described the January meeting as one where a games bid can be seen as a community building project, both from an infrastructure and civic pride point of view.
“That’s what we expect to see in the hosting plan submissions.”
Councillor Mike Nickel is not interested in Edmonton putting its name forward.
“It’s fine to do an expression of interest but you also have to face the fiscal reality that you’re in today,” he said as city council set the 2019 budget with a 2.7 per cent blended tax increase.
“I think we have other problems that we need to be talking about and right now the Commonwealth Games, to me it sounds more like bread and circuses in terms of the issues that we’re facing. We need to be talking about the tangible things.
“We should be talking to our commercial and industrial users right now that are fleeing the city before I want to start talking about the Commonwealth Games to be honest,” Nickel added. “I’m done with this whole city building agenda to the point where we have to just deal with our mechanics.”
If Edmonton follows through with an intention to pursue either games, they’ll have to submit their initial plan before the application deadline of Nov. 22. Commonwealth Games Canada will select the winning bid city the following spring.
The report will be discussed at the city’s Community and Public Services Committee meeting on May 8.
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