The 2026 Olympics: Canmore Counts the Cost of the 'No' Vote

CANMORE, AB — As the 2026 Winter Olympics wraps up in Milan-Cortina, residents of Canmore are left reflecting on what might have been. The mountain town and neighboring Kananaskis were slated to host key events and a massive athlete village in the failed Calgary 2026 bid.

But the real story isn't nostalgia—it's the $5.1 billion question that never got answered. In the world of municipal planning, the Olympics are often treated as a funding Trojan Horse: a strategic way to smuggle decades of "boring" infrastructure needs, like sewage upgrades and affordable housing, into a high-glamour package that senior levels of government feel compelled to fund.

The Math of the "Funding Trojan Horse"

The proposed 2026 bid carried a sticker price of $5.1 billion in 2018 dollars. However, the math for the municipalities involved was less about the "cost" and more about the leverage.

Of that total, $2.875 billion was slated to come from public coffers, split between:

• The Federal Government: $1.452 billion
• The Province of Alberta: $700 million
• The City of Calgary: $370 million (plus a $150 million downtown credit)

For Canmore, a $3 million cash commitment was a strategic gamble on a massive intergovernmental transfer. By putting a relatively small amount of "skin in the game," the town was positioning itself to unlock hundreds of millions in federal and provincial grants for infrastructure that would otherwise take 30 years to negotiate through standard, glacial bureaucratic channels.

Timing, Trust, and the Failure of the Pitch

The "Trojan Horse" strategy only works if the public trusts what’s inside the horse. On November 13, 2018, 56.4% of Calgarians voted "No" in a municipal plebiscite, effectively killing the bid six days later.

The friction wasn't just about the sports; it was about timing and transparency. The final funding model was only clarified less than two weeks before the vote, leaving little room for the "civic project" narrative to take root. A divided Calgary City Council—where an 8-7 vote to kill the bid failed to reach a supermajority—signaled internal chaos rather than a unified vision for urban growth. Combined with an aggressive campaign by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, the bid's identity as a "housing and transit project" was lost to the noise of "reckless spending."

The Price Tag of a Missed Opportunity

For Canmore, the loss of this strategic vehicle was felt most acutely in its housing department. The proposed athlete village was designed to be a permanent asset, converting into 242 units of affordable housing post-Games.

Mayor John Borrowman called the project "worthwhile" precisely because it bypassed the typical, hyper-competitive grant cycles. Canmore's council voted 6-1 in support, viewing the Olympics as a rare accelerant for infrastructure the town desperately needed.

When the bid died, that "shortcut" to 242 homes died with it. The town wasn't just saying no to a two-week party; it was saying no to the $1.4 billion federal "check" intended to fund the foundation of its future.

A Reminder of the Cost of "No"

As the 2026 Winter Olympics open today in Italy, Canmore is left to face its infrastructure deficit through the traditional, slower-moving channels of provincial grants and municipal taxes.

In a mountain town currently gripped by a housing crisis, the decision to reject the Olympic "Trojan Horse" is a reminder that saying no to risk also means saying no to opportunity. In 2018, the price of the Games seemed too high; in 2026, with construction costs and housing demand at record highs, the price of the "No" vote is a tag that compounds daily.