Mayor Nenshi has suggested Calgary’s Olympic bid is in the ditch. News reports have suggested the Olympic bid project could die at next week’s council meeting.

Taxpayers can only hope. The Olympics are fun to watch, but there’s just no business case to keep pursuing a bid for Calgary.

We shouldn’t take anything for granted though; city hall is an unpredictable place. Anything could happen. Now is not the time to let up, but to sprint to the finish line and tell your councillor “we just can’t afford the Olympics.”

Consider what happened the same day as council’s recent discussion about the Olympics.

There was a rally in downtown Calgary about the Trans Mountain pipeline project. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation attended and spoke. Over a thousand people were there. The public understands it’s a very important issue.

If the Trans Mountain project falls through, think about the reverberations the news will send throughout the world’s oil and gas industry. Think about the impact on Calgary. Will we see more layoffs? Will other companies cancel projects? We do know it won’t be pretty.

We’re not trying to fear monger – these are legitimate concerns. Our city’s economic recovery is still very fragile. Our unemployment rate is still high and many people are underemployed.

With that in mind, considering an Olympic bid is similar to you getting a cut in your wages and then thinking about maxing out your credit card to throw a large house party. Would you do it?

Olympic proponents point to two rosy reports the City of Calgary included in a massive stack of information that was provided to council members before a discussion about the Olympics. The reports are full of the usual spin – thousands of jobs will be created, the economy will boom as far as the eye can see and Elvis will return from the dead. We’re exaggerating, but you get the picture.

We think it’s more important to look at the two economics reports that council wasn’t provided ... that is, until the media started asking questions about them.

The two reports in question – one by University of Calgary Professor Trevor Tombe, and the other by University of West Virginia Professor Brad Humphreys, pour cold water on the economic benefit claims.

Tombe notes, “A more reasonable estimate of the effect on employment of hosting the games is for a change in the type of jobs in which people work, not a change in the total number of jobs.”

So we’re going to spend over $2.4 billion of taxpayers’ money and not “create” any jobs. What’s the point?

Think about this too – a City of Vancouver report indicates their city spent over $500 million when they hosted the 2010 Olympics.

What would it cost the City of Calgary to host the Olympics? We still don’t know. How will Calgary pay its bill? More property tax increases – you can bet on it.

And those tax increases would come on top of the tax increases that Calgary households and businesses are already struggling to pay.

The Olympics are a fun event, but unless you want to wake up after all the fun with a massive tax bill hangover, you’d better speak up.

Colin Craig is the Alberta Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation