Halifax 2014 Commonwealth Games bid - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Halifax bid for the 2014 Commonwealth Games was a withdrawn bid

2014 Commonwealth Games bids

Bidding for the 2014 Commonwealth Games began from 24 February 2006 until the winner was announced on 9 November 2007. Glasgow won the race and was selected by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth Games Federation at a meeting in Sri Lanka to host the games. The vote was 47 votes for Glasgow...

to host the 2014 Commonwealth Games

2014 Commonwealth Games

The 20th Commonwealth Games in 2014 will be held in Glasgow, the largest city in Scotland. The winning city was announced by the Commonwealth Games Federation on 9 November 2007 in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The Games will run over 11 days of competition from 24 July to 3 August 2014...

by Halifax Regional Municipality, the capital of the province

Provinces and territories of Canada

The provinces and territories of Canada combine to make up the world's second-largest country by area. There are ten provinces and three territories...

of Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...

, Canada.

The bid was eventually won by Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

(Scotland), who beat Abuja

Abuja

Abuja is the capital city of Nigeria. It is located in the centre of Nigeria, within the Federal Capital Territory . Abuja is a planned city, and was built mainly in the 1980s. It officially became Nigeria's capital on 12 December 1991, replacing Lagos...

(Nigeria

Nigeria

Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...

) after a vote of 47 to 24 vote by the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) General Assembly on 9 November 2007 in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...

Background

Halifax and Hamilton

Hamilton, Ontario

Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812, Hamilton has become the centre of a densely populated and industrialized region at the west end of Lake Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe...

were both finalists in the selection process to host the 2010 Commonwealth Games

2010 Commonwealth Games

The 2010 Commonwealth Games, officially known as the XIX Commonwealth Games, were held in Delhi, India, from 3 to 14 October 2010. A total of 6,081 athletes from 71 Commonwealth nations and dependencies competed in 21 sports and 272 events, making it the largest Commonwealth Games till date...

. Hamilton won the right to bid for the 2010 Commonwealth Games ahead of Halifax. New Delhi eventually beat Hamilton in the competition to host the games.

Canada has hosted the Commonwealth Games

Commonwealth Games

The Commonwealth Games is an international, multi-sport event involving athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations. The event was first held in 1930 and takes place every four years....

on four previous occasions (Hamilton 1930, Vancouver

Vancouver

Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

1954, Edmonton

Edmonton

Edmonton is the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta and is the province's second-largest city. Edmonton is located on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Capital Region, which is surrounded by the central region of the province.The city and its census...

1978 and Victoria

Victoria, British Columbia

Victoria is the capital city of British Columbia, Canada and is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of about 78,000 within the metropolitan area of Greater Victoria, which has a population of 360,063, the 15th most populous Canadian...

1994).

Halifax, Ottawa

Ottawa

Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...

, York Region, Hamilton and Calgary

Calgary

Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...

all submitted proposals and a deposit to Commonwealth Games Association of Canada (CGC) by the deadline of 22 July 2005, in order to be considered as potential hosts of the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

Selection of bid city for Canada

The key dates for the Canadian selection process were as follows:

August 2005. The Bid City Conference

1 November 2005. The deadline for the full bid proposal

15 December 2005. The announcement of the Canadian bid city

Selection of host city for the 2014 Commonwealth Games

The key dates for the Commonwealth Games selection process were as follows:

24 February 2006. This was the date when Commonwealth Games Associations / Candidate Cities had to notify the CGF that they intended to bid.

10 March 2006. This was the date when Candidate Cities had to pay a non-refundable Candidature Fee of GB£60,000 to the CGF.

9 May 2007. The bids were lodged with the CGF on this date, or sooner. Candidate Cities were then allowed to produce an emblem with the Commonwealth Games symbol (The Bar) and also contain terminology which stipulates that the city is a "Candidate City" for the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

June/July 2007. The CGF Evaluation Committee formally reviewed confirmed bids.

9 September 2007. The CGF Evaluation Committee Report was published.

9 October 2007. Deadline for any updates by the Candidate Cities in response to the Evaluation Committee Report.

9 November 2007. The CGF General Assembly awards the right to host the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

The final selection of the Canadian bid

A Bid Review Committee (BRC) was established to evaluate each bid city proposal and to recommend a Canadian Candidate Bid City to the CGC.

Only Halifax, Ottawa, York Region and Hamilton actually submitted bid proposals to host the 2014 Commonwealth Games on 1 November 2005. Calgary had by then pulled out of the running. Presentations were held on 13 December 2005 by each bid city to the BRC and two days later Halifax had been chosen to be Canada's bid city for the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

The Halifax 2014 Commonwealth Games Bid Society, also known as "The Bid Society", had been established and had appointed Scott Logan as the Chief Executive Officer and Fred MacGillivray as the Chair. They had established a website (www.2014halifax.com/) and had plans and budgets for hosting the Games.

The withdrawal of the bid

The Bid Society and CGC gave an estimate of C$1.6 billion for hosting the games and this figure was presented to the Government of Canada

Government of Canada

The Government of Canada, formally Her Majesty's Government, is the system whereby the federation of Canada is administered by a common authority; in Canadian English, the term can mean either the collective set of institutions or specifically the Queen-in-Council...

, the Province of Nova Scotia and the Halifax Regional Municipality on 26 January 2007. This figure was considered too high and not realistic, therefore at a meeting of the Bid Society on 7 March 2007, they provided options to reduce the budget from $1.6 billion to $1.3 billion. Without offering precise funding commitment figures, the three levels of government indicated that further reductions were still needed. The CGC and the Bid Society committed themselves to reduce this figure again to funding of approximately $1 billion ($900 million coming from the three levels of government and $100–$200 million from other sponsors such as Sport Canada and from Games revenues). The Government of Canada was committed to contribute up to $396.5 million for Halifax to host the games alone.

Sport Canada commissioned a consultant to evaluate the 2014 business plan and budgets. The “McMahon Report” was delivered to the province and regional governments in draft form without any prior review by the Bid Society or the CGC. This report was very critical of the 2014 plan and budget.

However the Bid Society required more time to present a new financial package to reduce costs down to $1 billion, but the following day on 8 March 2007 the provincial and regional governments decided to withdraw their support, which then ended the Halifax 2014 bid. The CGC would have liked to have put forward another city to represent Canada in the 2014 bid process, but this was not possible as all bidding cities had to register their intent with the CGF a year in 2006.
.

Dr. Andrew Pipe, President of CGC, said:
It was the first time that Canada had withdrawn a bid for a Commonwealth Games event.

External links

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