Taxpayer funding of major professional sports should be completely disqualified from the game. Whether it’s the Olympics (or as I call them, The Government Games, because that’s precisely what they are) or the upcoming (2026) FIFA World Cup soccer games taking place in Canada, or anything else, they should be funded by themselves.
If I understand correctly, and I usually do, soccer in particular is the world’s richest sport, with some players making hundreds of millions. Per year.  According to Forbes, “In total, the world’s 11 highest-paid soccer players are projected to earn $995 million” in 2023. In Canada, the top player on the Toronto team (“Toronto FC”) made in excess of $20 million in 2023. So soccer isn’t exactly struggling for cash or supporters.
By contrast, the head of the state-owned CBC only makes a half-million plus bonuses per year, and she has no balls. Or game. Tho she does run a racket. (We have fun.)
Those in the community who want to send soccer players money despite their riches can naturally part with their extra after-tax cash all they want. Corporate sponsors can also feel free to pay all they want out of their own shareholders’ cash to help fund a spectacle if they feel it will help the execs making those decisions personally or corporately.
Just don’t “invest” my money for me.
I get that having a big event in town may be good for the promotional purposes of that city, and similarly for the province or state (it also may not be, depending on how it goes). And I get that people and businesses will get an extra jolt because of the brief influx of people (in normal times it’s already hard for people and businesses to cope during any travel period in Vancouver). And I get that lots of people are interested in soccer (and don’t have one of those newfangled “TV sets”). What I don’t get is the government running the show or deciding how or where to “invest” my money. And then not telling me anything about it.
If I want to invest in something, I’ll invest in it. And it won’t need quotation marks around the word invest. And I’ll know all about my investment. And you can be damn sure I’ll have to tell the government all about it, too, in detail, on time — and pay tax on it!
I also get the ruse — and it is a ruse just as it was for the money-losing Olympics in Vancouver in 2010 — and it’s a government funky math ruse. If the government “invests” in this big shiny thing that will just so happen to make them look and feel good (and shiny!) to their voter base, then the returns to the community (sure, sure — the returns are for the community!) will more than pay for the taxpayer, um, “investment.”
In this case, although we still aren’t being told the amount of the taxpayer “investment,” the government said it will generate $1 billion in “economic benefits.” That, they’ll tell us!
I’ve tried without success to get a full copy of the economic report backstopping the NDP government claim that hosting the World Cup will generate over $1 billion in economic benefits.
—Vaughn Palmer, Vancouver Sun
For the record, I can guarantee you that (A) the “over $1 billion in economic benefits” is nothing but numbers pulled directly from their butts, and (B) the costs to taxpayers will far exceed that. Some “investment” of the taxes I paid on my own investments.
Just exactly how many hundreds of times must we play out this bogus ruse before people cotton onto the fact that it is a bogus ruse? More times, apparently.
I’m not anti-sport. Or anti-fun. I could only be accused of having too much fun. I’m just against the government taking my money from me and spending (sorry, “investing” it) it on any non-core things, like this ridiculous sports entertainment, or other shiny thing that they choose to spend it on (and no, I’m not averse to government spending on defense or any other core required government thing — the operative word being core).
I’m also not averse to taxpayer support for sports participation by Canadians in the form of tax breaks. For example, I think most health-related products and services should be tax-free and tax-deductible just as education is. You have to pay federal and provincial sales tax on a treadmill! That’s literal insanity at work right there, folks, particularly in a country that suffers under a monopoly state-owned, state-funded, state-run healthcare system catering to unhealthy and all-too-often obese people, and diabetics, and others suffering from maladies associated with being a lazy-ass and being an overeater. (Not that I don’t also want to quash the state-owned, state-run healthcare system as well. I do. But that’s another story. My argument holds up whether it’s state-owned and state-run or not.)
Good health is essential to one’s prosperity, which is your own business, not mine, but also to the prosperity of the country, which is partly mine. And certainly, parents (remember them?) would all agree that getting their kids into healful activities (whether it’s a treadmill or a baseball mitt or even stupid soccer) would be a lot easier if taxes on the equipment and team fees (or whatever) were axed and a tax deduction was also offered — you know, as if physical exercise of any kind were as important as education of any kind — which it most certainly is. (It’s arguably more important, given the direction of some of today’s progressive left-captured educational institutions —which are more like centers of woke cult indoctrination, or outright socialist propaganda and in my opinion, bad for our nation).
Journalist Bob Mackin has tried his darndest to get answers. Watch the video below on X (opens in a new window) of a document that he received (only by paying for an official access to information request) to further his inquiry about the costs to taxpayers of this idiotic event, which remain a secret from us all, for reasons badly explained or utterly unexplained. And note: Early last year, the province announced $230 million as a cost for the City of Vancouver alone, and the province is responsible for untold (literally untold — they just, won’t, say) hundreds of millions or even billions in other, extra costs. Seriously. And then there’s federal taxpayer cash on the line as well:
Behold, the @CityofVancouver host city agreement for #FIFA26 #WorldCup. #cdnfoi @caj @bcfipa @taxpayerDOTcom #SportsBiz #vanpoli #bcpoli #vanRE #greyestcity pic.twitter.com/EE9A7y8LFK
— Bob Mackin (@bobmackin) March 13, 2024
https://twitter.com/i/status/1767974168262312358
Mackin and a precious few other journalists have been trying in vain to get answers. Simple: How much is this going to cost taxpayers? Well it’s as if they’re in the House of Commons asking Justin Trudeau or any other Liberal MP any simple question, a question which any normal person could and would answer in three seconds flat, and then move on. But no, instead you either get a massive minute-long deflective word salad made up of complete sliced-and-diced bullshit, or you get told that they can’t answer your question because (A) they don’t know the answer yet even though it’s years gone by, or (B) it’s just sooo secret (even if it is your money), or (C) it’s none of your damned business you stupid taxpayer, or (D) some other such Iranian-style answer.
Vaughn Palmer of the Vancouver Sun has asked as I alluded to above, but again, it’s like asking Trudeau anything — ie., you get nothing. Other reporters too:
…What did B.C. offer to secure Vancouver’s status as a host city?
Daphne Bramham of The Vancouver Sun tried two years ago to get a copy of the host city agreement. She was rebuffed.
Bob Mackin of Business in Vancouver went after the bid agreement, too. He got back 117 mostly blank pages. [The above video]
Richard Zussman of Global TV has tried several times to unlock what tipped the balance for Vancouver over rival city Edmonton. He’s been told nothing. …
—Vaughn Palmer’s column again
The winning shot: If you dare to “invest” my money, tell me every damn thing about it up front. Every, damn, thing. Moreover: Unlike what you, Joe and Jane Citizen, and your pals do while engaging in your sporting amusements, governments shouldn’t pick winners and losers. In any commercial field. Don’t try to “create” an economy for us. Don’t central plan the economy. Leave that to the Chinese and the Venezuelans and the government geniuses behind the ArriveCan app and Canadian healthcare. It never works. If the public want it, the public will build it. With their money. That works. The free market works.
UPDATE: See next article wherein I report that THE COST ESTIMATE HAS DOUBLED.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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