CALGARY—Calgary’s 2026 Olympic bid has one foot in the grave after a city committee set in motion Tuesday steps that would pull the plug.

Ward 8 Councillor Evan Woolley, chair of council’s Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games assessment committee, recommended suspending work on the bid over a lack of agreement between the three orders of government on how to split $3 billion in public funding needed to host the Games.

But the city’s Olympic plans and accompanying Nov. 13 plebiscite on hosting aren’t over yet.

Council is set to vote on Woolley’s recommendations at a Wednesday meeting, and because the first item requires a reconsideration of the council’s September decision to go to a plebiscite, at least 10 council members must vote in favour.

Conflict over how the city, province and feds would split hosting costs was revealed in the media late last week, with the parties in apparent deadlock after reports that the federal government would contribute up to $1.75 billion to the cost of hosting — in 2026 dollars. With a firm $700-million commitment from the province, that leaves the city with a cost burden officials say is too heavy.

Woolley said that without a finalized cost-sharing agreement that offers an affordable way to close the public funding gap, Calgarians can’t be expected to make an informed decision in a vote less than two weeks away.

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“I am not bluffing,” he said. We were committed to have this cost-share agreement to Calgarians in June. And then it was September. And then it was 35 days before the vote of the electors. And then it was 30 days. And then it was which week and which week.”

Knowing the commitments from the province and feds don’t add up to the amount needed to host the Games, Woolley said he had to make a tough call.

“And that point for me, as chair of this committee, is today.”

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Woolley said the prospect of cancelling the bid is “deeply disappointing” and council will be faced with difficult conversations on Wednesday.

Woolley presented eight recommendations to the committee, and they voted unanimously to refer them to Wednesday’s strategic meeting of council, where councillors will have a final vote.

A statement from the Calgary Olympic Bid Corp., known as Calgary 2026, says government negotiations are still continuing.

“We remain confident an agreement will be reached,” said BidCo chair Scott Hutcheson. “We know thousands of Calgarians understand what’s at stake and the importance of deciding the outcome themselves.”

Mayor Naheed Nenshi said he is still optimistic that something might change to make a deal possible by Wednesday. He and federal Sport Minister Kirsty Duncan both said the government negotiating teams were in talks until late into Monday night.

On Tuesday morning, Duncan said she was still “hopeful” about the prospects of Calgary’s Olympic bid, adding that the federal government would “support the federal hosting policy” in offering funds for the Olympics.

Before council’s Olympic committee entered closed-session talks that lasted nearly four hours, Nenshi said it had been “challenging” for government negotiators to deal with details of their discussions being revealed in public.

But the mayor said councillors are now focused on whether Calgary can afford to move forward with a bid for the Games.

“What we were talking about today were a variety of options to close the gap,” he said.

“It’s about the horse that is right for Calgary and the deal that is right for Calgary. If council does not feel that that deal is good enough to take to a vote, then that is absolutely council’s prerogative and we’ll have much more to say about that tomorrow.”

Nenshi added that if more than half of city council votes in favour of Woolley’s proposed reconsideration — but not the 10 needed to officially approve the move — Calgarians could be caught in a strange situation.

“What it means legally is we go forward with a plebiscite on a deal that does not have majority support of council,” he said.

After the committee meeting, the BidCo called for Calgarians to gather on the steps of City Hall at 9 a.m. Wednesday to signal their support for the Nov. 13 plebiscite to proceed. Cassandra McAuley, executive director of stakeholder engagement with Tourism Calgary, issued a clarion call on Twitter for citizens to don red during the rally and push for their voices to be heard at the ballot.

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“Calgarians have become part of the conversation, and letting them have their say would be fantastic at this point,” said McAuley, who emphasized she was not speaking in an official capacity for Tourism Calgary. “I think that it’s important that we show support for continuing the conversation to get to the plebiscite.”

“Hosting the Games would be good for the city for many, many reasons,” she said. “We’ve talked about the fact that the tourism industry would benefit from that, the economy would benefit, and the city’s brand and awareness of Calgary would benefit. I think that it’s important that we get to the plebiscite on this.”

Lori Williams, an associate professor in policy studies at Mount Royal University, said she has a feeling Calgary’s Olympic quest is not yet over, but there is still a lot that’s been left up in the air.

“I think there’s got to be a little bit of give in the agreement process at all three levels, but primarily at the federal and provincial level,” she said. “Realistically, there has to be more committed to by governments that have stable revenue sources.”

University of Alberta social sciences professor Stacy Lorenz, a sports historian who teaches a course on the modern Olympics, said the discord over government funding for Calgary’s 2026 bid is somewhat of a positive sign about officials being attentive to the financial obligations they agree to.

But he said a major unanswered question remains of who could be left responsible in the event of blowing the budget.

“There’s a danger here in somebody is going to be writing a blank cheque for future cost overruns, which are highly likely to happen,” he said.

Under the federal hosting policy for international sporting events, Calgary would get the money Ottawa is promising only if the city and province increased their contributions to match the feds’ total amount.

The provincial government announced earlier this month that they would give a “maximum” of $700 million for Olympic costs, with conditions that included a “yes” vote in the plebiscite and “increased transparency requirements.” Finance Minister Joe Ceci insisted in recent days that the amount would not be increased.

Nenshi said earlier in October that if the city has to contribute more money than the province to Olympic hosting costs “that is not a good deal.”

The International Olympic Committee is set to offer $925 million (U.S.) to the 2026 host city. During the wait for the federal government to reveal the share of funding it would offer, Premier Rachel Notley and Nenshi suggested the IOC’s amount could increase.

But during a visit to Calgary last week, an IOC official said the organization couldn’t chip in any more than its stated commitment.

Calgary 2026 appointed Mary Moran as CEO in late July and publicly presented their draft hosting plan on Sept. 11. At the time, BidCo estimated the cost of hosting at about $5.2 billion, with $3 billion coming from taxpayer funds. The plan included updating Calgary’s aging venues, constructing athletes’ villages that would be converted into affordable housing, and building a new field house and mid-sized arena. Canmore, Alta., and Whistler, B.C. would also be involved in hosting some Olympic events.

City council voted 12-3 at that point in favour of going forward to the plebiscite. Ward 7 Councillor Druh Farrell, Ward 2 Councillor Joe Magliocca and Ward 4 Councillor Sean Chu voted against. Some other councillors expressed doubt about going ahead with the bid, but voted in favour of giving Calgarians a chance to weigh in.

Calgary 2026 has also been promoting an Olympic bid as a way to bring billions of dollars of investment into Calgary, spurring job creation and other economic benefits.

The city, province and Ottawa each agreed to jointly fund the BidCo in March, and holding a plebiscite was one of the province’s conditions for offering those funds.

The $2-million cost of carrying out the plebiscite comes from a fund granted by the provincial government. City returning officer Laura Kennedy said nearly a month ago that the legislative process for the vote was well under way, with equipment and facilities already booked and hiring nearly complete for the 3,000 workers needed to facilitate the plebiscite.

The IOC approved Calgary several weeks ago as one of three bids in the running for the 2026 Games. The other two are Stockholm and the combined Italian bid of Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo.

With a file from The Canadian Press

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