Toronto not to bid for the 2020 Olympics
It has just been recently revealed that Toronto, the largest city of Canada, is no longer interested in hosting the 2020 Olympic Summer Games on its soil.
The reason for backing out from the international sporting event is financial constraints that the city feels it is suffering and based on that, cannot support such a large scale event. The city already has too much on its hands as it has to cater to a budget
deficit of $774 million. Bidding for the Olympics 2020 would mean leaning on taxpayers heavily to finance the event.
Councillor Doug Ford gave the following statements on Toronto’s non interest in the 2020 Olympics: "We can't, the feds can't, the province can't. It's just not the time. Everyone would love it but financially no one is in the shape to take it."
In sharp contrast to this, a poll conducted by the Postmedia News reveals that 87 per cent of the people of Ontario are in favour of Toronto bidding for the Olympics event. If this group of people is further segmented, than a favourable 55 per cent are seen
to give their full support for the bid while 31 per cent believe that bidding for the Olympic Games would not be such a bad idea.
Canada has already had the experience of bringing the Olympics within its borders. In 2010, Vancouver played host to the Olympic Games and it turned out to be a huge success.
The Ipsos Reid pollster, John Wright, expressed himself in the following words: "I think part of the attraction that this isn't just all about Toronto. It's about bringing together the region to hope about the future, rather then to despair about the current
(economic) situation."
It would not have been the first time that Toronto put up its name in the bidder’s list. The city has already tried to bring home the event a total of two times before. The first time was for the 1996 Olympics, when it stood bettered by Atlanta while the
next time was for the 2008 Olympic Games when Beijing emerged as the winner of the bid.
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