North Vancouver making bid for 2018 BC Games
With the 2012 BC Summer Games just wrapped up in Surrey, North Vancouver is already planning its bid to host the event in 2018.
On Monday, the councils of both the voted to put in a collective bid for the 2018 BC Summer Games.
As part of their bid plan, North Van city agreed to commit $15,000 cash and $16,700 in in-kind services, while the district agreed to put up $30,000 cash and $33,300 in-kind, if the games are awarded to North Vancouver.
The winning bids for the BC Summer and Winter Games in both 2016 and 2018 will be announced by B.C. sport minister Ida Chong this November.
In the meantime, the North Vancouver Recreation Commission has sought and earned the approval of the North Vancouver School District to use its sport facilities and has been given the go-ahead from the local chapter of the Canadian Union of Public Employees to staff those facilities with volunteers — terms that are required for a successful bid.
However, at Monday night’s district council meeting, Coun. Roger Bassam raised concern that North Vancouver’s lack of proper pool and track facilities could hurt the hometown bid.
“Part of the application I understand is they would host the track-and-field component at Swangard Stadium [in Burnaby]. And while it’s viable, it’s certainly a blemish on our record as a great sporting community that we do not have these sporting facilities available to us in a population of 200,000 people on the North Shore.”
The North Vancouver Recreation Commission estimates the economic benefit of hosting an expected 3,700 participants in 30 different sports at $2 million for the municipalities.
While North Van has never hosted a BC Summer Games, the city and district were home to the BC Winter Games in 1996.
COMMENTS
Let's keep comments:
We ask that all participants own their words by logging in with their Facebook account. It's a simple process that will take seconds and helps keep our comments free of trolls, cranks, and “drive-by” commenters.
We reserve the right to remove comments from anyone using screen names, pseudonyms or false identities. Please see our FAQ if you have questions or concerns about using Facebook to comment.