One number growing even faster than the unemployment rate is the price tag for 2010 Olympic security.
Practice drills for 2010 have been taking place all week across B.C.'s Lower Mainland, from military ships docked in Burrard Inlet, to helicopters flying over Cypress Mountain's World Cup events to vehicle checks and voluntary screening at Whistler.
It's all a dry run for the 2010 Olympics, and it's all paid for by taxpayers.
Exactly how much taxpayers are going to have to shell out for the games has become an Olympic sized mystery -- and a political hot potato.
"We're not focused on the costs, we have a task at hand, this time during the World Cup events is the optimal time to test the equipment and infrastructure," says RCMP Const. Bert Paquet.
The security budget is becoming the dirty little secret everyone on the inside seems to know, while the public is kept in the dark.
"It's between $400 million and a billion. I can safely say it's between those two bookends of estimates," Former Safety Minister Stockwell Day told CTV News in October.
But as recently as last month, one of the top people in the security unit also admitted the budget will be much higher than the original projection of $175 million.
"The $175 million was a projected budget," says Bud Mercer, Assistant Commissioner of the 2010 Integrated Security Unit. "I don't think anyone thought that would be the final budget. I've been very clear about that."
Anti-Olympic activists say if the public knew the truth back in 2002, they may not have voted for the games.
"This will be very much like the Olympic village, again, all the promises of how much this will cost are all broken," says Chris Shaw of 2010 Watch. "The veil of secrecy that's surrounded all things Olympics has continued to this day."
Knowing that number becomes even more important as the economy worsens and people lose their jobs.
"Taxpayers are trying to feed their families during tough times, the last thing they need is another surprise," says NDP Finance Critic Harry Bains.
When the number finally does come out, Bains says it won't include money to cover events like the torch run, meaning even more money taxpayers will be on the hook for.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Leah Hendry
