Building On the Success of the Pan Am Games

The Empire Club Presents

Honourable David R. Peterson Chairman, Toronto 2015 Pan Am/ Parapan Am Games: Building on the Success of the Pan Am Games

September 15, 2015

Welcome Address by Gordon McIvor, President, Empire Club of Canada

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen from the Arcadian Court in downtown Toronto, welcome to the season opener of the 112th season of the Empire Club of Canada—112 years of history, of bringing the most important public figures and issues to the Canadian public from Gandhi to Churchill, from Ronald Regan to screen icon Audrey Hepburn. There has been so many names, almost everybody ends up stopping at the Empire Club of Canada, eventually. And we are very proud of the fact that we have continued to bring these issues to the Canadian public from the dawn of the 20th century until today. For those of you who are joining us through either our webcast or our podcast or on television through Rogers Cable, welcome to this meeting.

Before our distinguished speaker is introduced today, it gives me great pleasure to introduce our head table guests. I would ask that each guest rise for a brief moment and then be seated as your name is called, and I would ask that the audience, please, refrain from applauding until all of the head table guests have been introduced.

Head Table:

Distinguished Guest Speaker:

Honourable David R. Peterson

Guests:

Mr. Marcel Aubut, President, Canadian Olympic Committee

Norm Kelly, Councillor, City of Toronto, Ward 40, Scarborough-Agincourt

Dr. Gordon McIvor, Executive Director, National Executive Forum on Public Property; President, Empire Club of Canada

Ms. Karen Peters, Empire Club Accounting

Mr. Saad Rafi, CEO, Toronto 2015 Pan Am/Parapan Am Games

Mr. Geoff Wilson, CEO, Ports Toronto

My name is Gordon McIvor. I am the Executive Director of the National Executive Forum on Public Property and your host today. Ladies and gentlemen, your head table.

I would also like to acknowledge the presence in our live audience today of some past presidents of the Empire Club of Canada: Noble Chummar. Noble, nice to have you with us. Peter Hermant. Peter Hermant, could you stand and be recognized. Welcome, Peter, nice to have you. Nona Macdonald. Nona, wonderful to have you with us today. As we have already introduced at our head table, John Campion. John, nice to have you with us.

We are also honoured to have with us today, the President of the Toronto Blue Jays, Paul Beeston. The former Minister of International Trade, the Honourable Jim Peterson. The former President of the University of Toronto, David Naylor. David.

Introduction

We start our season off this year with a topic that was, is and will be of extreme interest to all Torontonians and Canadians and that is how Toronto presents itself to the world. As most recently witnessed through the 17th Pan Am Games, which, of course, were held two short months ago in our great city. Our guest today was the Chair of this extraordinarily successful event in the city’s history and is here with us today to address that topic and to maybe give us a hint on what that could mean for the city going forward.

He witnessed throughout his leadership role with the Games, a population that literally evolved from an attitude of indifference and somewhat jaded annoyance at traffic issues, to a united, patriotic and wildly enthusiastic populace that could not get enough of these athletic competitions. Now, if the mere success of our Canadian athletes was the change agent, we as a city, of course, would be hard-pressed to explain the perennial success of our beloved local hockey team. There is something more than just success that happens in selling the Pan Am Games. Perhaps it is a coming of age of one of the world’s truly great cities, a pride in telling our stories to the world. That is what we are looking forward to hearing about today from our guest speaker. Well, any Torontonian could tell you, of course, that Mr. Peterson was the Premier of our province in the last half of the 1980’s. Few realize the enormous contributions that he has made to industry, the arts, healthcare and ensuring the matters of public importance are debated and better understood by the citizens of Ontario. His biography reads like what the French would call a roman-fleuve, and to list them all would, in fact, take us to the end of this lunch. We will highlight, however, that he is the Chairman of the Toronto law firm, Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP, where he practices corporate and commercial law as well as being Chancellor Emeritus of the University of Toronto, a director of St. Michael’s Hospital Foundation, Rogers Communications Inc., Franco-Nevada Corporation and Ivanhoé Cambridge.

We would also be remiss to not remind you that he was the founding Chairman of the Toronto Raptors Basketball Club Inc. and Chapters Inc. In fact, Mr. Peterson has been a Director of over 30 public and private companies in Canada. If that were not enough, he is a senior fellow of Massey College, a fellow of McLaughlin College and Executive-in-Residence at the Rotman School of Management. Mr. Peterson was called to the Bar in Ontario in 1969 after completing studies at the University of Western Ontario, the University of Toronto and the Université de Caen in France. He was appointed to Queen’s Counsel in 1980 and was appointed by Her Majesty to the Privy Council in 1992. There ensued many, many other honours, including several honourary doctorates and special awards and honours from the Government of France.

If that all sounds exhausting to you, let me assure you that I have only touched on a few of his many, many achievements. We are delighted that he has agreed to open our 2015 season and to talk to us about the significance of this past summer for the city and what that may mean for the future. Ladies and gentlemen, would you please join me in welcoming the opening speaker of our 112th consecutive year at he Empire Club of Canada, the Honourable David R. Peterson.

The Honourable David R. Peterson

With an introduction like that, I am bound to disappoint. Listen to this, you try this and put yourself in this place: Gandhi, Churchill and Peterson. I am getting off this stage right now, Gordon, before I embarrass myself. Let me just say thanks to the Empire Club for inviting me today, and thank you all for being here. There are so many people I look around this room who helped make this summer such a great success. And this is the first chance, roughly, a month after the close of the Games, to give, shall we say, a public accounting, to stand up and say where we were as we look back and also as we look forward.

Let me just say that the Pan Am Games were the largest event ever staged in Toronto and the GTA area. There was probably no event in the history of Toronto that has attracted more attention, little bit negative and some positive. But it was wonderful to witness the transformation and attitude towards the Games, and, very quickly, one could see in this city, apprehension turn into awe and cynicism turn into optimism. Maybe that was the chief legacy.

Let me take you back to 2008, 2009. If you mentioned the Pan Am Games, it was a big yawn. Only 15% of the people had ever even heard of the Pan Am Games, an unaided awareness. And if you asked people if they wanted it, and they would say, “What are they and why would we and who cares?” there was no clamouring for the Pam Am Games. The political leadership of the day at the provincial level, who was Dalton McGuinty, came to the conclusion that the Pan Am Games could serve not just Toronto, but the GTA area, the Golden Horseshoe. He came to this conclusion for a number of reasons. One of his big reasons: He had gone to the Olympics, and he realized there was a disproportionally small number of Ontario athletes at the Olympics and on the Olympic teams. When he studied this deeper, he found out that this was about a lack of facilities, coaching and programs to work with our young people in this highly competitive world of high-competition sports. And he felt, with the help of others in this room, that he could draw attention to that. He asked me to chair a bid in 2009, and, with other people in this room, we spent a year.

I swear, if Shelley was here, that I was every weekend in planes going to South America trying to persuade these 42 countries to vote for us, so we could have the Games here because it was highly, highly competitive with two other cities. I remind you, that bid cost $10 million to win it.

The vision articulated by the government of the day was threefold: Number one was to boost the economy and create jobs, and I will come back to all this. Number two and, perhaps, more importantly, was to have a physical legacy of facilities, of infrastructure, that our young people could use and that our communities could use because this is beyond just high-performance athletes. Three, there was a more, should we say, ethereal ambition to motivate our young people, to enhance our performance in international competition and harness the power of sport to build on the very best in our communities. I have seen many forces in my life and in public life, but I do not think anything is as powerful as the power of sport to elevate our young people. There is not a mom and a dad in this room that does not go to an arena, that does not encourage their kids to run, to jump, to swim. It brings families together, and it brings out the best in our young people.

I used to say that the measure of success for the Pan Ams would be if every single 11-year-old went to their mom and said, “Take me to the Pan Ams.” I am not saying we have got them all, but we have got most of them, and they were transformed by this experience. But that was the vision by the government of the day.

Let me just recognize also that not everybody shared that vision. There were many, many, many vociferous critics, and they saw nothing but debt and cost overruns and excessive spending. They saw traffic jams and chaos. Some saw an event that would not be worthwhile, and others saw that it was not the Olympics; it was only the Pan Ams because it is a sub-brand of the Olympics. Some saw apathy and empty seats at all the venues. Some saw headaches with the government, especially, in a minority legislature. Some saw security problems, and you read all about this; you saw how exaggerated all these people in the absence of facts put forward, saw security problems similar to the G20, and then they saw venues that were late and Games that were not ready on time. Well, you have got to give the critics some credit. They were wrong about everything, but they were very thorough.

Let me talk right now about the financial history of these Games because I was there at the beginning. After the bid was won, in 2009, the governments cut $300 million off the original budget. That was the budget save for an enhancement of $74 million that we went into the Games with six years later. You cannot find anything in public life, let alone private life, that can live with a budget that is six years old, particularly, in terms of those capital expenditures. I want to say the organizing team and the Founding Chairman then, Roger Garland, and the Founding CEO, Ian Troop, did a very good job of sticking to that vision.

And do not forget another management challenge here: Nobody had heard of the brand. Nobody wanted the Games, yet one volunteer and one guy, and they had to build an organization to produce the biggest sports event in the history of Canada, hire the staff, put it all together, and the Games are over and they all disappear, never to be seen again. You think of that in terms of a management challenge, in terms of managing 10,000 athletes, selling all of the tickets, selling out 31 venues—it was an extraordinary feat.

Here we are one month after the Games, and let me tell you about the financial history because there have been many, many critics, and this is very important to understand these facts: We have already established that the capital surplus on these Games was $57 million under budget.

That is old news. I am here to tell you today that there is a new contingency, a contingency on capital of at least another $10 million going on to of that, and I will tell you today that there will be an operating surplus of tens of millions of dollars—tens of millions of dollars under budget, call it a surplus, some call it a profit. That is the way these Games were run.

Let me tell you, it is a credit to a great number of people, but this guy right here, Säad Rafi, came in here a couple of years ago and has done an outstanding job managing for value, getting every last penny’s worth of value out of these Games and doing a brilliant job. Let me just say there is a number of his senior leadership team right here. I think they should stand up because this is a leadership team I would go to war with anytime, anywhere—an enormously competent person and if my numbers are wrong, it is Barb Anderson’s fault, so do not worry about it.

I just want to give you an example of the kind of things that Saad had to do. This is the largest Games in Canadian history, 10,000 athletes and officials, 31 venues— did it with roughly 1,000 paid staff. The Winter Olympics had about 3,000 athletes and officials, one third the size, with 4,000 paid staff. How can you do that? You do that with extraordinary management and you also do that with 23,000 of the most dedicated volunteers you have ever seen in your life.

Let me just say it was done cooperatively. This was unique in Canadian history. This was a cooperation of four levels of government. The First Nations were deeply involved. Bryan LaForme, through the Mississaugas of the New Credit, was our partner throughout. We are on their traditional lands. They are included in everything, and they were wonderful partners. I think we helped create a new dialogue going forward in the future.

We had the federal government. The federal government was a contributor here, and Bal Gosal, the Minister, was enormously helpful in always standing up for our causes and did a wonderful job. Our Minister, Michael Coteau—and really, the primary responsibility was the provincial government—carried that can with aplomb and courage and grace, even when he was being criticized. Then, the municipal governments—there were 14 municipalities involved in all of this, principally, Toronto, but Hamilton and a variety of others. I said to Norm Kelley, who was always been a supporter, thank you and thank the city and thank the Mayor for all you have done to make this a stunning success. This was a model of cooperation. Not bad to remind these guys during this election that, occasionally, we can get along.

Let me tell you as well, corporate Canada stepped up with aplomb. Monica is here from CIBC. CIBC was the principal sponsor. They did a wonderful job and were there all the way. We raised $169 million in sponsorships from about 80 sponsors. That is the largest sponsorship program in Canada outside of the Olympics and the greatest sponsorship in Pan Am history. You can see that Canadians stepped up.

Let me just talk briefly about the visions, carrying out the visions. Not only did the Games deliver surplus, but we delivered on the vision. The government estimates 26, 000 jobs were created and added about 3.7 to the GNP. In spite of the fact that if you search the press, you will see somebody go around and find a business whose business was off during the Games—because you heard all of that—but that is factually untrue. I am not saying there are not the odd exception to what I am saying. But Moneris, the only objective arbiter and one who studied this, says that business was up 7.7% in the downtown core as a result of the Games and international spending was up almost 19%. In other words, the Games were good for business. I read this morning in the Hotelier Magazine, and it said the Pan Am Games—this was just this morning—across GTA, left hoteliers beaming, and it was the best summer they have ever had. It was not just one winner in all of this; everybody was a winner.

Let me talk about the legacy, which is a very, very big part of these Games. I told you we had wonderful partners throughout these Games, and the legacy is spread throughout the entire GTA. There is a brand new track at York University, where you saw the opening of the Para- pans, and you saw Andre De Grasse run there and it is, shall I say, to die for—permanent to York University. A new stadium in Hamilton has helped revitalize Hamilton, and people there—they tell me, are very, very proud of it. A new velodrome in Milton. Very few people have ever ridden in a velodrome. I have. It is a thrill of a lifetime, let me tell you, but that will now centre the cycling team. And it is not just a velodrome; it is a community centre with enormously great leadership by Gordie Krantz, the mayor there, who took the risk to put that into his community.

There is a new aquatic centre in Scarborough that would not be there if it was not for David Naylor, who was the President of the University of Toronto at the time. This is an aquatic centre. If you have not seen it, it is as good as anything in the world, as anything in the world. The critics are raving about this, but what is interesting about this model is its governance is tripartite: The University of Toronto, the community of Scarborough and the high-performance athletes. The dream was then as it is now: You can have Michael Phelps in one pool and a little kid from the community in the next pool, and they all interface. It is working fabulously, and everybody is happy with the way it is serving everybody. There is a new pool and sports centre in Markham, and it has already been deeply in place by that community.

In addition to all these facilities, in the budget accrued for and put away, is $70 million for legacy. In other words, that money will go for maintenance for these facilities for the longer term, for at least 10 or 15 years. In other words, we have provided not just the governance, but the funding of these assets for the years to come. I think you will find them all serving the communities well, and I can assure you there will be no orphan assets.

In addition to that, we have negotiated high-performance athletes for new and upgraded venues. That means 20 new national and provincial sports organizations have new homes. There is the Caledon Equestrian Park, and the dream was there to build something equivalent to Spruce Meadows in Calgary. This is Spruce Meadows East, in a sense that, if you ask anybody in the agricultural business, it is a great boon to that part of the world. There is Centennial Park at BMX Centre. There is the Minden Wild Water Preserve, the Ajax Pan Am Ballpark just to name a few of the new facilities. And that leads to something where we a have new competitive advantage going forward in the world, and that is the area of sports tourism.

Sports tourism is a billion-dollar business around the world. And already we are participating in that because of these new facilities. Welland is hosting the World Dragon Boat Racing Championships. That brings 4,000 people to Welland from 20 different countries. You can imagine the economic impact on a community like Welland. Markham—they are competing for the Yonex Canadian Open in the coming years, the largest international badminton event, I am told, in the world. Milton will now host the Canadian Track Cycling Championships, and the Table Tennis Canada is just competing for the North American Olympic Qualifiers. In other words, all of these communities, all of these facilities will go on to serve the sport, the community and the local economy.

There is one other advantage from these Games.

They tend to drive by a date certain a lot of other development, things that have to be done. We take no credit for the Union-Pearson Express that was going to be built anyway, but the odds are it would have been another two or three years. You take the GO services and a lot of other things and cleaning up the roads and facilities—it becomes a planning focus for things that have to be done. And so the ancillary benefits of having a Games like this provide a catalyst for the private sector and the public sector to make things happen, things that tend to fall off the table by a certain date.

Let me talk about probably the biggest legacy, and that is the Village. I am very happy: My good friend John Campbell is here from Waterfront Toronto, who had so much to do with this. This is the marquee Athletes’ Village. I do not know if you have been there. I invite you to go down; it is just beside the Distillery District. This was a derelict piece of land called Ataratiri. It was industrial wasteland, and I know about this because when I was in public life, I actually bought it. Let me just say, it was just a brilliant decision about 30 years off in terms of timing, but it has turned out to be a stunning new area of this town. It has had the critics raving about it as a community and architecturally and every other way—and as development of the West Don Lands. What does it have there? It has a student residence for George Brown. It has, I think, the biggest YMCA, John, am I right, in the city, a fabulous new facility. It has got a First Nations wellness centre. It has got new condos, and I am told that 76% of those condos are sold. I think my figure is right on that. It has got sustainable housing, affordable housing, so it is a modern, new community right walkable to the downtown of the city just down Front St. It is absolutely stunning, and you see families raising children; you see seniors raising active lives; you see lively public spaces and new parks all as a result of this development, as a result of these Games.

Now, all this costs money, right? And it does, but I can tell you that the property owned by the province in that area now has already gone up in value—something like $200 million—so there is a yield on these kind of expenditures, and my friends tell me that the tax revenue based on not just that development, all the development around it—and it is the hottest area in town right now—will raise hundreds of millions of dollars for the public purse, federal, provincial and the community. You can see that these kind of Games provide momentum and acceleration to things you need to do and want to do.

Well, let me take you to the third vision, and that was, shall we say, the elevation of the human soul. That was the inspiration. That was a harder thing to prove and a harder thing to grasp, but this is something my dear friend, Marcel Aubut, understands very well as President of the Canadian Olympic Committee. He put his full energy into these Games. He provided the best athletes in this country. They came with pride. They were all happy to wear the Canadian sweater, and they won 217 medals, a record!

We can talk about buildings, and we can talk about money, and we can talk about investment, but until this all comes alive with the human narratives, with the stories of those wonderful athletes—who had ever heard of Andre De Grasse or Ellie Black or these kids that are so absolutely wonderful?—and they tug at our heartstrings, and we share their stories, and we share their history, and your kids look at it and do the same. That, maybe, is the most important thing we do.

They had a remarkable leader, the Canadian team. This guy, I think is in the room, Curt Harnett. Where is Curt? I love Curt Harnett. It is not just because of his hair. It is just because he carried these Games with his enthusiasm, his energy and, of course, he is one of the greatest athletes Canada’s every produced, but he brought soul and dimension to these Games that very few can.

Then the volunteers. I have mentioned them— about 23,000 of them. There was not a miserable experience. There was not one bad thing. You would think something bad would happen. Nothing bad happened. Every single one of these kids will tell you that was the greatest experience of their life. They were not kids, actually. They were all sizes, all age, all colours, all sexes, all religions, everything you could possibly have all mixed together, all working together, meeting people that they had never met before, working in sports they would never even heard of before, all feeling good, because they are making the world a little bit better place.

I am going to tell you a little story that means something to me: Rosie MacLennan, who many of you people have heard of now, but I had not heard it. When I was Chancellor of the University of Toronto working with David Naylor, I was at an athletic event, and there was a little kid standing there. I went over and shook her hand and I said, “Hi, I’m David Peterson, the Chancellor.” She said, “I’m Rosie MacLellan.” I said, “What do you do?” She said, “Well, I’m actually on the trampoline team.” I said, “For U of T?” “No,” she said. “I’m actually going to the Olympics.” I had never heard of her, and I was not even sure trampoline was in the Olympics, but I took it at face value. I had a lovely chat with her. She is just an absolutely outstanding young woman. She phoned me about a month later. She said, “Are you the guy I met at the University of Toronto?” I said, “I think I am.” She said, “I’m doing a fundraiser. My friend Sara Gairdner and I are doing a fundraiser for University of Toronto”—because they were raising money for the Goldring Centre—“and we would like you to come on a Friday night. We’re inviting our friends and family to this fundraiser.” I say, “Yeah, okay, Rosie, I’ll come.” I went and made a little speech. And she stood up and made a little speech. Now, she was just on her way to the Olympics. Nobody had ever heard of her. She stood up and said, “I just wanted to thank the University of Toronto for all they’ve done for me and thank my mom and my dad who drove me to all these lessons and practices all my life, who went to all these tournaments all over the place with me and gave their life and their coaches that did this for me,” this little athlete and her friend, and they raised $20,000 that night and gave it to the University of Toronto.

Months later, she was off to the Olympics and our only gold medalist in London. This is the kind of character we are building in these young people. I think it is an investment of which we should all be proud.

And there is something else we did in elevating a human. We shone a little light of the world on Toronto and the things that we believe. We have a unique brand in this country, the brand of inclusiveness, the brand of sharing and the brand of diversity. We do it better than anybody else in the world, and the world understands that and, by God, the world needs it right now. It is a good thing that we were able to move the yardsticks a bit in that area as well.

Just in response to the critics, I just want to say there was no debt or cost overruns. There was no gridlock. There were some issues here and there in moving traffic, but I think the traffic plans will tell you they learned an awful lot from this experience and things. They will use those lessons going forward. Sure people adjusted their plans. GO ridership was up over 25%, but then it worked very well, and there is no question we have issues to solve in that regard going forward.

These Games were not a small, unworthy event. They were performed at Olympic caliber. All of the experts coming in from around the world said, “These Games are to Olympic standards.” You look at the 31 venues that Al Vansen had to run—31 venues across this province from Minden to Welland, the look, the feel, the security, everything worked fabulously. Over one million tickets were sold, over one million tickets—biggest event ever and people responded with enthusiasm and generosity. Attendance at the various events was over 2.25 million. And I am talking about PANAMANIA; I am talking about all of the cultural events, of 35 days of animation, of culture at Nathan Phillips Square at Pan Am Park and the Distillery District and other areas. And you saw the best of Canadian artists, and you saw us showing our soul to the world.

You can say that it was a great success. Those that predicted security problems, let me just say there was not one security problems. No, that is not true. Before the Games started, somebody found a little hole in the fence, and it took four days of media to find that little hole in the fence, and it had blown into epic proportions. Other than that, not one security problem. If you were at the Games, you just look at the behaviour of our police forces, the municipal forces. They were part of the face of Toronto. They did a fabulous job. They were happy; they were part of it; they were friendly guys. That is policing at its best. They were not standing there just being fierce and scaring people; they were part of this great face of this great country that puts forward and welcomes the world to our country in as safe way, and I think Chief Saunders and others deserve a great deal of credit for what they have done.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me just conclude by addressing the elephant in the room, which is the Olympic bid. Should we or should we not? I can tell you this is an extremely controversial subject. I have never seen subject outside of some political debates and some religious debates that garners more strong opinions. Some that are informed; some of it are not. And this is not a debate the mayor asked for. This just came about because the Pan Am Games were such a success. I remind you it was already turned down once, but now because there is this head of steam coming up saying, “Good God, we were good at this. Should we go ahead and take it up a notch for the Olympics?” Let me tell you, this is fraught with horrible politics. You can imagine the mayor and the Council—Norm, you are listening to this—have to make a decision on this in the next five days, at least to open the door. You understand that they face an election in about three years, and the anti-voices will be very, very loud in three years, and could come along to derail a vision. You understand that the vast majority of them will not be here in 2024 to enjoy the fruits of that. Norm Kelley will. Nobody else will be here. He has been here. He has been here since 1904, so he is going to be here. I was in student politics with Norm Kelley at Western—I am not going to tell you when, but a long time ago.

It is a question that elicits very, very, very strong opinions. You ask and for some reason, Montreal is indelibly seared into people’s lives. Montreal was 1976, but everybody remembers the deficit in the dome and used that as an example of public spending. They do not remember Vancouver that came in on time and under budget; they were. Calgary was a great, stunning success. These Pan Ams, which are bigger than all of them, were an outstanding success. If you want to find negative examples, you can use Sochi, or you can use Montreal, but do not be burdened by the past in your thinking on these things. I can tell you it is much, much easier, politically, not to bid on these Games. There is an old adage that Norm Kelley understands: Dogs do not bark at parked cars. But, if the political leadership starts to decide to go ahead, there are two points that I would like to make, that I would like to share with you. The Olympics is not an end in itself; it is only a means to an end. And the mayor is absolutely right to ask the most important questions: Will it help people? Will it benefit people? Will it build a better a better city? Will it advance our agenda of transportation?—and that is probably our biggest, most complex problem in the city. Will it advance waterfront development? Will it advance housing? Will it detract or reduce resources that maybe should be committed to other areas? Will it bring people together? And will it advance our human objectives in this? Those are the right questions to ask, and they have to satisfy themselves. If the Olympic bid and achieving the Olympics does not achieve those ends, then it is not worth doing.

Number two, the only advice I would give is you need big vision to pull off something like that Pan Ams or the Olympics. And you have to believe in it passionately because I can tell you, there will be bumps in the road, and there will be rough spots and there will be lots of critics. Everyone will ask the question how it advances their own agenda. The Olympic bid has to win over that person who is looking out their front window at a pothole and saying, “How will an Olympic bid fill my pothole?” Or how will it ease congestion? How will an Olympics drive the change that people want? Then, of course, you have to go to the question, “Can we afford it?” The cost of the Olympics depends on the size of the vision. You can have a very narrow vision, and you can have a broader vision if you want to use the Olympics to accomplish a lot of other social and planning purposes, but that has to be articulated by our political leadership with the visions they have and the future that they have for this great city.

I want to make one important point that is rarely made and, I think, rarely understood. Anytime you hear a figure for the Games, you will hear a figure that sounds like a lot of money, and it is a lot of money, whatever that figure is. But this cost would be spread over seven years. It is not a one-off expenditure in one year. That cost would be shared with the private sector because it attracts huge investment, as well as the federal, provincial and municipal governments. If you take that cost—whatever it is—as a percentage of the total infrastructure budgets, you will find it is not a significant figure. That is often lost in the debate on the costs of these kinds of Games.

Well, what are the odds of winning? Five days to decide. The mayor and Council have to make the decision. At least they have to open the door. They have to send a letter to the IOC with a signature of the president and the COC, Marcel, who is here as well as Mayor John Tory, saying we want to open the door as well as $150,000 deposit. Then, the work starts, if they decide to open that door. They can always close that door. They can always close it, if they come to the conclusion that they cannot pull off the vision or if they do not have the vision. People tell me, in the know—and we had many, many international visitors here this summer—that we have a very, very favourable position to win because of the stunning success of the Pan Ams, the venues, the wonderful organization, the volunteers, the outstanding response from the communities, the unparalleled cooperation of all levels of government, many facilities in the Pan Ams can be used for the Olympics. Do not get the impression you have to build all new stuff; you do not because we have a lot of great facilities. We have the best time zone. The Eastern Time Zone is the best commercial time zone in the world to stage Games, and it is probably— although this is not an absolute rule—North America’s turn to host the Games.

Canada’s brand is very, very, very welcomed in the world because we represent the best of the world, the best of the world, and everybody knows that the world needs more of Canada, not less of Canada. Let me tell you the greatest compliment I got on these Games. I was walking out of the opening ceremony, and I hope some of you saw it on television or were there. I walked out with a chief from Quebec. He was French-speaking; he was an Aboriginal chief, and we walked out together. I said, “Chief, what do you think of it?” He said, “That was a beautiful, beautiful ceremony.” I said, “Why?” He said, “Because you told everybody’s story.” Think about it. We told everybody’s story. Everybody felt included in that event, and I think in the entire Games.

Let me not be naïve in conclusion. This is not without huge risks. It could easily lose. Criticism could drown out all the other positive aspects because the negative noises tend to be louder than the positive noises. We live in a free and democratic society, and everybody has a right to their point of view. And bad things can happen, especially if you are looking for them. I can tell you there are no guarantees. The question is, “Is it worth the risk?”

In conclusion, let me just say the mayor and the Council will make a decision in the next few days. I do know this about life, and this is my own personal conclusion: It is a lot easier to do nothing than it is to do something. There are no critics if you are doing nothing, but I do know that cities, provinces, countries, as with individuals, are better when they aspire, when they have big dreams and when they reach. We, in Canada, are good at dreaming, planning, building and executing ambitious ideas. We have proven that. It will be up to the people of this region to decide where this renewed confidence can take us. The 2015 Games may be over, but the impact, the legacy and the transformation are really just beginning. Thank you very much.

Question & Answer

Q: Premier Peterson, thank you for comments, and, again, congratulations to you and the team who are all here, on a fantastic, fantastic Pan Am Games— really enjoyed it. The elephant in the room is, indeed, the Olympics. We all know the bid is due next week, and, building on the momentum we have right now, I guess what you are suggesting is we need to sort of strike now, in a sense, while the iron is hot. We have got great facilities, momentum, brand, etc. What exactly is the holdup with writing a cheque for $150, 000 to open that door next week, and what role are you playing with the experience you have now to persuade the Council and the mayor of the fact that we should be pursuing this great ambition and vision and making it a reality in 2024?

DP: Look, I consider I have given blood, but then I have lots more blood to give. It is obvious from my remarks that I think we should reach for this, personally. I have no influence on this decision whatsoever, and I do think I understand the politics from the point of view of the mayor and the Council. But I can tell you there are a lot of critics out there. I read it all, and there are some highly uninformed and influential critics out there that will come to bring their points to view as they have every right to do. I am not trying to shut off discussion. My own opinion is there is no official group right now. There is no organizing committee. Marcel has been very vocal, and he understands the international politics of the sports better than anybody in this country, and he has many, many friends. He lives in Quebec City, not in Toronto. He speaks for the Canadian athletes and has done a great job with the Olympic Committee, but he cannot speak for Toronto. Toronto has to speak for itself, and that is through the voice of the mayor with the help of the other levels of government. I think if you think it is worthwhile and you ask Norm Kelley, this is not easy. He will be hearing both sides of this, I would assume. Some people feel passionately the other way about it.

I think if you feel it is worthwhile, fire off an email to the mayor and say, “Look, Mayor, I understand you have a tough decision to make. If you decide to do it, I’m there with you.” By the way, if the Olympians come along, it will involve thousands of people, not just a few. This is not an elite enterprise. This is not an elite undertaking. It is going to involve all the corporate leadership; it is going to involve the social leadership; all the sports leadership; the moms and dads and eventually that 11-year-old kid who tells their mom, “Take me to the Olympics, and I’m going to get up earlier and I’m going to work a little harder today, so I can run in that race.” That is what moms and dads, or at least that is what guys like me when I was a dad, like to hear. This is for all of us. It is not for just a few of us.

Note of Appreciation by Geoff Wilson, CEO, Ports Ontario

Well, I have the great pleasure of, on behalf of the Empire Club of Canada and everyone here, friends and colleagues in the room today, offering thanks for David Peterson’s speech today. But it occurs to me in listening and in watching your reaction that a thank you for a speaker for coming and giving us a wonderful speech today is really not what I would like to do. What I would really like to do is thank Mr. Peterson for making us feel pretty special to be in Toronto; Toronto has arrived, and for the wonderful team that he very freely and generously also points out in this room. I would actually like Saad Rafi and his team right here to stand up for a second, Mr. Peterson.

We were a proud sponsor of the Pan Am Games— Ports Toronto was—and when the Games are a success, every sponsor feels special, and that was special to me in a personal way as well. I think that as one of thousands of people that attended this sporting event, and I am sure many of you did as well, you caught the spirit; you caught the excitement of the moment. This was a very impressive undertaking that this team put together—that Mr. Peterson led. I am grateful for your coming today, David, and giving us this insight and telling the story. The Games captured our imaginations. The Games really, truly made us feel fortunate here in Toronto. It really made us feel like this city has arrived on a global stage, and that is really important. And the Games are over now, but we are going to continue to benefit from the infrastructure, from the goodwill and from all of the generated excitement and enthusiasm and energy that the Games have put together. On behalf of the Board of the Economic Club of Canada, thank you all for coming and a very special thank you to Mr. David Peterson who sits here.

Concluding Remarks by Dr. Gordon McIvor

Thank you, Geoff, and thank you very much to Ports Toronto as well for sponsoring our event today. Thank you, Mr. Peterson, again, for a wonderful season opener, and I must say that Gandhi, Churchill and Peterson is starting to have a certain ring to it. I do not know. We would also like to thank the National Post and our other print sponsors as well as Rogers Cable, our television sponsor. Please, follow us on Twitter @Empire_Club, and visit us online at empire- club.org, or you can follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.

We would also like you to join us in the coming weeks. We have got an incredible season lined up. Starting next week, we will have Omar Khadr’s lawyer talking about, obviously, from his and his client’s perspective, the long and torturous route to justice as well as we have Rachel Notley coming in to do her first out-of-Alberta, major address to Canadians here on October 2nd. She will be followed three days later by our own Premier, Kathleen Wynne, who is going to come to join us. And in a few weeks’ time, we have got the Governor of the Bank of Canada. Please, join us again this season. It is going to be a great and very rich season. Thank you for coming to our season opener. Have a great day, everyone. Thank you.