A vision too far? : Lessons from the games that changed Canada : annual Gordon Osbaldeston lecture

We believed we were serving the higher purpose of the country, and that in the end, individual Canadians would look back and say, “I feel better about who I am for having experienced this.” We felt that the country would emerge from this adventure a more patriotic one, and that citizens would be more proud and more likely to use the words “I am a Canadian”. [...] State of the art! By the 15th of January, we were in panic mode and realized that the plan we had developed over five years was no longer valid and we had to reinvent the Cypress Mountain solution from scratch. [...] It required us to bring in thousands of bales of hay, from anywhere we could find them, to shore up the sides of the hill and to put in a new false base, because the snow was literally slipping off the mountain. [...] We did try to get Canada to look at the project and target areas where The budget breakdown for the operations of the Games – the $1.76 billion budget – was 90% private sector, 10% government. [...] The day after the Olympics our Prime Minister remarked to the global media, “As historians look back on Canada’s growing strength in the 21st Century, they will say that it all began here in Vancouver at the staging of the best Winter Olympic Games of all time.” The atmosphere in Vancouver post Games was stunning.