Push to include Olympic bid question on fall ballot blocked by Vancouver city council

The Vancouver Olympic Cauldron is seen in Jack Poole Plaza in this undated image. (Shutterstock)

An attempt by one Vancouver city councillor to include a question about proceeding with a 2030 Winter Olympics bid on the upcoming municipal election ballots was blocked by the rest of council this week.

Coun. Colleen Hardwick presented the motion at Tuesday's council meeting. However, to move forward to debate and a council vote, a motion requires another councillor to second it and Hardwick didn't receive a seconder this week.

The motion suggested that a yes-or-no style question asking voters if they support Vancouver's participation in hosting the 2030 Olympic Winter Games be included in the upcoming October election. It was updated from an earlier motion, which asked for a plebiscite on the matter.

Hardwick compared the potential vote to one that was held in 2003 about the 2010 Olympics. Turnout for the plebiscite was about 50 per cent, with nearly 64 per cent in favour and about 36 per cent opposed. That vote, however, was held outside of a regular election and Hardwick argued coupling it with the one coming up in the fall would be more cost-effective.

"Adding this vote to the ballot in October could increase voter participation," Hardwick added while introducing her motion to council on Tuesday.

Hardwick's reasoning for holding a vote at all included allowing the public to weigh in on the financial impacts of the event. She also argued that viewership of the Winter Games "is falling."

However, Hardwick used viewership data from the recent Beijing Winter Olympics, which not only came amid the COVID-19 pandemic but was diplomatically boycotted by several countries, including Canada. Regarding that boycott, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said late last year he was "extremely concerned by the repeated human rights violations by the Chinese government." 

Ahead of Tuesday's council meeting, Mayor Kennedy Stewart urged councillors through a series of social media posts to oppose Hardwick's motion, saying it "violates the signed agreement between the governments of Vancouver and Whistler with the Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Líl̓wat upon whose unceded lands our cities are built."

Stewart was referring to an agreement announced in early February to explore a bid. Though Vancouver and Whistler were involved in the agreement, the bid would be led by the four nations and has been referred to as the "reconciliation games."

"I urge other councillors to consider what supporting (Hardwick's) decision to essentially tear up our (Memorandum of Understanding) says about their own commitments to reconciliation," Stewart wrote on Twitter.

In response, Hardwick said Tuesday the motion doesn't violate that agreement.

"Like any MOU, all parties are responsible to their own membership, and in our case, our citizens," she said at the council meeting.

A final decision hasn't been made on whether the Olympic bid will move ahead. That's expected later this year. A subsequent decision from the International Olympic Committee on who will host the 2030 Games is expected in 2023.

With files from CTV News Vancouver's Ben Miljure