Halifax: "A lasting legacy"

Halifax, Nova Scotia was one of the original Commonwealth Games bidders, along with Glasgow and Abuja, Nigeria. Halifax's bid fell apart a few months ago however.

But in the spirit of openness and transparency that characterises our modern democracies, the president of Halifax's bid committee won't tell anyone what has become of the public money spent on this venture.

The organisers "spent $8.5 million [Canadian dollars] in taxpayers' money", but they won't tell the citizens who profited from this.

As the president says:

"All those documents are in the hands of the actual international bid committee at this particular point and I don’t know if they ever will be divulged," said Fred MacGillivray, president of the Halifax 2014 bid committee.

"That’s not a decision I will make."

Well that's perfectly clear isn't it? It just goes to show that these mega-events are designed to "provide a lasting legacy" in the words of our own Steven Purcell. It's just that the actual legacy may be a little different from the pretty pictures that are painted by our dear leaders. It doesn't really matter if the games happen or not, because the same people keep on making massive amounts of money from the public. It's amazing, schools need to close, but there's plenty of money to be thrown at mega-events.

See more here at the Chronicle Herald: http://www.thechronicleherald.ca/Front/847205.html