On the heels of hosting an extraordinary Winter Olympics, British Columbia Finance Minister Colin Hansen recently announced that “more than 800 new businesses were created Canada-wide as a result of the incremental economic growth stimulated by the 2010 Winter Games.” The BC Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Secretariat, an agency of the BC Ministry of Healthy Living and Sport, prepared the report on whose figures Mr. Hansen relied.
The BC Secretariat obtained the figure from a PricewaterhouseCoopers report on the Games released in November 2009 and reported on a Government of Canada website in which federal Minister of State for Sport Gary Lunn and BC Minister of State for the Olympics Mary McNeil announced the results of the study.
Relying on PricewaterhouseCoopers econometrics, the number is theoretical – not actual – and no actual businesses could be shown to have been created.
Its one thing for economists to use models from which to base projections but it’s quite another for a politician to trumpet it as evidence as good public policy and point to a precise number of businesses being built as a result of hosting the Olympics.
Were it not for the astute reporting of Robert Matas of The Globe and Mail, 800 new businesses would be accepted as fact and relied upon by Olympics apostles when the figure is instead little more than an econometric estimate.
Kris is an Associate Professor of Sport Law, and Co-Director of the Centre for International Sports Law (CISL) at Staffordshire University, UK. He originally trained and competed as an elite gymnast until a shoulder injury at university forced him to retire as an active competitor. He now spends his spare time coaching Trampolining, Gymnastics, DMT, Cheerleading, Parkour and anything that involves throwing yourself through the air with various degrees of twist and rotation!
Jon is an Associate Professor, and Co-Director of the Centre for International Sports Law (CISL) at Thompson Rivers University, British Columbia. Jon worked as a climbing guide, trained and coordinated search and rescue, managed risk and sales in the United States with a European-based manufacturer of outdoor equipment and advised recreation programmes on their exposure to legal risk. His extra-curricular background is just as diverse and includes stints playing semi-pro volleyball in Brazil, researching wolves in the Canadian Rockies, climbing and leading expeditions from Alaska to Argentina, Tajikistan to the Tetons, and many points in between. He has been married to Wendy for 15 years and together they have 2 wonderful kids – Tegan (10) and Brock (8) – whom he continues to emotionally scar as their football coach!
The Sports Law Canary 
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
[…] noted in a July 17 post on The Canary, PrincewaterhouseCoopers released a report on the economic impact of the Games in […]