HERE: We can better spend billions.
And I'm glad that the politicians in their gold-gilded towers realized it, too. With so much wrong in this province (not to mention the debt), I'm at a total loss as to why dumping almost two billion dollars into a Commonwealth Games bid was even considered. There are better places this money could be spent: libraries, schools, and health care are only a start.
Yes, yes, I can understand it's a loss to local athletes, and a lot of people feel very strongly about that. But let's try to separate the emotional appeal from the numbers.
The bid was expected to be 1.7 billion dollars. That's
1 700 000 000 dollars.
So, let's compare.
I can walk to the corner store and get a loaf of bread for $2. That bid, even at obscene convenience store rates, represents about 850 million loaves of bread. Or, about half that many kilograms of apples. It's all most a billion and a half cans of soup. Imagine what good Feed Nova Scotia could do with even a portion of those funds.
Maybe I'm not getting my point across. Large numbers have a tendency to get lost in people's consciousness for some reason. That's over 1300 kilometers of twinned highway. It's the tution for 11,000 university student-years. Two-thousand (or so) pieces of expensive hospital equipment. The salaries of ~50,000 teachers.
Back to the emotional appeals, I guess.
What baffles me most is that: "It's a lot of money". And it's a big number. Really big. Mind-bogglingly-big. Douglas-Adams,Hitchhiker's-Guide-to-the-Galaxy big, really. And what would Halifax gain? A stadium built in the middle of nowhere that would be used for a few years then left to rot? A pittance of the money spent back in taxes on the stuff that visitors to the region would buy? Some money for big-box chains?
Maybe take some of the saved money and put it into education at the primary and secondary levels so that we could avoid needing to build Super-Schools where the students are just numbers.
And for the athletes who would have otherwise competed -- I'm sure that more facilities for sport would be less costly than the ridiculous pricing of the Commonwealth games bid.
Update: slight numbers tweak, since loaves of bread do not cost $200.
When I read the news about
When I read the news about this, I sighed with relief. After spending money considering to bid, at least they didn't go all the way through with it. Thank you for the editorial that puts the magnitude of the savings into light.
You're welcome. It was
You're welcome. It was interesting to watch the games bid inflate, from the original estimate of 300 million to the insane amount at which it stopped.
While my comparison numbers might not be entirely accurate, I don't believe they're off by a large-enough margin to make a difference.
It's a very good point. As
It's a very good point. As an athlete, the webmaster for an organization which supported the bid, and friend of some people who were working on the bid, it seemed like a good idea. I never heard the 1.7 number mentioned though. As you point out, the money could be much better spent.
The bid was, a while back,
The bid was, a while back, estimated to be about 780 million give or take a few. Since it was announced it ended up inflating to around a billion, then 1.4. Only in the week up to its cancellation did projections indicate that the true amount would be 1.7 billion or more.
I guess we can only speculate what the fallout is going to be like.
Post new comment