A Hamilton-area politician says the COVID-19 pandemic and the FIFA World Cup are the reasons the province may not be chipping into to help bring the 2026 Commonwealth Games to the city.
Flamborough-Glanbrook MPP Donny Skelly told Global News that a move from hosting the 100th edition of the games in 2030 to the 2026 games has created a “conflict” and suggested it could endanger hosting soccer’s premier event in Ontario.
Originally, Queen’s Park had given Hamilton’s Commonwealth Games committee support for the 100th-anniversary event. However, Skelly says the switch to go after the 2026 games doesn’t necessarily mean the province is on board with the new agenda.
“I’m not sure that the committee even bothered to look at or was concerned about the fact that there was now an attempt to ask the province to host two significant international events in one summer post-pandemic,” said Skelly.
In July, FIFA announced that Edmonton, Montreal and Toronto are the only Canadian sites under consideration for 10 games during the 80-match 2026 World Cup event.
Marvin Ryder, assistant professor of marketing and entrepreneurship at McMaster University, says its likely that Toronto will be the venue for four of the games.
“None of them are playoff games and none of them are the finals or the quarterfinals or the semifinals. They’ll be just sort of the regular part of the World Cup.”
Skelly said she first heard about the proposed Commonwealth bid changes during interviews on Global News Radio 900 CHML’s Bill Kelly show the day after the city’s general issues committee received another filing from the games committee.
The pitch to the city in August boasted the creation of 3,000 units of affordable housing, which would, in the short term, help house about 4,500 athletes before being turned over to the community following the games.
Skelly said she never heard any “clarity” around what potential contribution the province would be expected to pay under the new plan.
She also suggests supporting two major international events in 2026 would absorb the entire annual budget for the ministry of heritage, sport, tourism and culture, leaving no money for any other events.
“All I ever heard was it wasn’t going to cost Hamilton taxpayers any money. Well, as a representative of the province, you know, who then is going to be picking up the tab?” Skelly said.
The MPP says she met with event organizers Lou Frapporti and P.J. Mercanti along with two representatives from the Ministry of Heritage last week. Skelly says it was the first time the ministry had spoken with the group about the 2026 games.
“There’s still a lot of detail missing in the application and this proposal,” said Skelly. “It will come in time, but it doesn’t exist now.”
Upper Stoney Creek Coun. Brad Clark had similar questions about the total capital budget of the games during the August presentation to council saying he heard a “sales pitch” designed to build a “bandwagon effect” rather than providing substantive answers about how the games would work.
“We’re still looking for financial information,” Clark told Global News. “We’re trying to understand the budget. The original proposal was $1.5 billion for the 2030 games, now they’ve paired it back to $1.1 billion but they didn’t provide us with any documentation showing where that would be spent.”
Committee chair Frapporti told Global News on Thursday that the “balance of the funding” for the 2026 event would not be coming from the city but from a combination of the private sector and senior levels of government.
The chair claims the restructured 2026 plan knocks a venue budget of $550 million, approved by the three levels of government, down to around $250 million following a consultation from PCL construction that was vetted by overseas consultants.
“We would prefer a number that could be as low as about $170 million,” Frapporti said, “And we’re looking to take that additional 300 million or so and put that money into housing.”
Global News reached out to chair Frapporti on Tuesday for a response to Skelly’s comments, however, his office declined to comment until after a Tuesday meeting with the province and a session with the city council on Wednesday.
As of Tuesday afternoon, a scheduled meeting with the city’s general issues committee was withdrawn from the agenda.
Originally called “Hamilton 100,” the 2030 venture was to commemorate the first-ever British Empire Games hosted by Hamilton in 1930.
The proposed bid was pivoted to a 2026 proposal when the international Commonwealth Games Federation suggested that bid would likely not be challenged.
Hamilton previously bid on the Commonwealth Games three times — in 1994, 2010 and 2014 — unsuccessfully.
Skelly says coming off the “financial pressures” of the pandemic, a more realistic scenario for provincial support is either a move to 2027 or a bid on the games in 2030.
“Can we come up with have a conversation with the Commonwealth committee and bring someone from the ministry so we have proper representation and see if there’s an opportunity to host the games.”
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