TORONTO, ON: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) is calling on Mayor John Tory and Premier Kathleen Wynne to end the secrecy around plans for Toronto to bid on the 2024 Olympic Games.

To date, not even basic details about Toronto’s possible bid are available. The Canadian Olympic Committee has offered to pay the $150,000 application fee, but there are no details about where the rest of the money for a bid will come from. The price tag for bidding alone is between $50 million and $60 million.

A successful bid will cost between $3.3 billion and $7 billion. Since 1980, the average cost overrun for the summer Olympics has been 252 per cent. Studies also show that there is no empirical evidence that there are hard economic gains for cities that host the Olympics.

“Taxpayers in Toronto deserve to know what an Olympic bid will cost them, and how it will be paid for,” said CTF Ontario Director Christine Van Geyn. “If the Pan Am Games are any indication, playing host yet again will come with a steep price tag, one that Ontario cannot afford given our $8.5 billion deficit, and $314 billion debt.”

There is also secrecy around who from the City of Toronto will form the bid team and be responsible for the details bid, even though the September 15 deadline for Mayor John Tory to decide if Toronto wants to put the taxpayers’ hat in the ring is only days away.

“The people of Toronto and Ontario deserve to know if the Mayor and Premier are planning on spending billions more on another international sporting event, which historically has not generated economic benefits for the host city”, continued Van Geyn. “Given Ontario’s current fiscal mess, this is not the right time to spend billions hosting the Olympics.”