by John Furlong
The next day, Terry Wright and I sat down with Richmond’s top official, George Duncan, a towering man and at one time a helluva squash player who wore his community pride on his sleeve. I drew up my concept on his whiteboard, gushed on about the potential benefits to the community of such a venue and suggested that if Richmond took the project on it would get a $63-million gift from VANOC and ownership of a one-of-a-kind sports facility. We suggested the Oval would allow the city to rethink its long-term recreational sports facility strategy. George was intrigued and more than a little excited but said he’d need to talk to Mayor Malcolm Brodie and members of city council. Soon we got a message back that the city was interested in entering any competition we commissioned to land the rights to the Oval.
We now had to have an uncomfortable conversation with the folks at SFU. They were not happy when we advised them we were planning to put the Oval up for grabs through a competitive bidding process. We tried to get other municipalities interested, but in the end it came down to SFU versus Richmond. It was no contest. Richmond put an enormous amount of effort into its submission. City staff had flown around the world to look at other ovals. They proposed using a magnificent piece of land along the Fraser River, easily the city’s premier site, to build on. The architectural renderings of the structure the city envisioned would clearly make it the most celebrated venue of the Games. After the Olympics, the city planned to convert the Oval to a magnificent recreational complex, probably the best in the country with a focus on high-performance and community-based activities.
The final price tag would turn out to be $178 million. The city paid for it by selling roughly 20 acres of land it had around the site of the Oval for about $140 million. The architects planned to build the structure, in part, with wood from trees in B.C.’s interior that had been killed by the pine beetle, which would eventually help make the project even more popular with the public. It would be an architectural marvel. The crown jewel of the Games. The “wow” structure that every Olympic Games wants to have.
Simon Fraser’s proposal wasn’t at the same level as Richmond’s. That was a simple fact. There just wasn’t going to be anywhere near the same communitywide legacy as Richmond was envisioning. We had suggested the university try to enlist the help of the City of Burnaby, where the school was located, to get additional funding, but that didn’t go anywhere. Burnaby’s mayor, Derek Corrigan, was not a fan of the Games, so the likelihood of his becoming a champion of SFU’s quest for the Oval was pegged at about zero. It was a shame, because our polling confirmed that Burnaby was a major hotbed of support for the Olympics. We had little choice but to go with Richmond.
I wanted to tell the university’s president, Michael Stevenson, about our decision in person. The timing meant flying home from Athens, where I was attending the Summer Games. I went up to the school with Dave Cobb, who had graduated from SFU and was a favourite son. I was hoping his presence might defuse some of the anger and tension I anticipated. It didn’t.
Michael was pretty miffed. The next day we announced our decision publicly. Michael was quoted in the newspaper as saying he was looking forward to getting an explanation from VANOC about why we had decided on Richmond—making no mention of our face-to-face meeting a day earlier. Derek Corrigan, true to form, used the occasion to take some more shots at us. Most of the media coverage was positive, with many people suggesting we’d pulled off a major coup. We had done our duty and protected taxpayers from a huge cost increase. We felt badly for SFU, but our mandate had become extremely challenging and we were playing for keeps.
It wouldn’t get any easier moving forward.
Since returning from Prague, we had trimmed about $85 million from our original capital costs budget of $470 million by refining designs, cutting out elements that were difficult to build, and by deciding to house the broadcast media in the new Vancouver Convention Centre downtown. Originally, the plan had been to put the broadcasters in a temporary building in Richmond and the print media in Canada Place on Vancouver’s waterfront. NBC’s head honcho, Dick Ebersol, hated that idea and told us so every time he came to town to talk about 2010. He was furious that the broadcasters, who had paid billions of dollars for the right to cover the Games, were being “stuck out in Richmond.” Once we were convinced that the new Convention Centre, which had been plagued by delays and cost overruns, was going to be built on time for us, we made the move. It was going to save money too, because we were not going to have to build a $20-million temporary structure in Richmond. So Richmond lost the broadcasters but had a lock on the Oval.
We were determined that we were not going to provide the two levels of government or the media a whiff of any new numbers until we were satisfied they were ones we knew we could count on until the end. We simply could not afford to get it wrong. We would have only one chance to make a case for more funding.
Meanwhile, we had also decided to see if we could convince the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) to allow us to stage the Olympic hockey tournament on an NHL-sized ice surface, instead of the larger international one. Most of the men’s hockey tournament and some of the women’s would be played at GM Place, home of the Vancouver Canucks. Reconfiguring that ice surface to international dimensions was going to cost up to $20 million to get the job done properly, which would entail ripping up cement and taking out seats. If we could convince the IIHF’s board to allow us to hold the tournament on the existing ice surface, we would save money, time and headaches.
We also thought it was a more responsible decision that should have been up for debate anyway. It seemed ridiculous to tear apart a perfectly fine structure just to have to put it back together again later. That wasn’t living up to one of our values—sustainability.
In 2004, I flew to Riga, Latvia, where the IIHF board was meeting during their world championships, and arrived late the night before the meeting, exhausted. I immediately went to see René Fasel, the IIHF president, in his hotel room. He was waiting there for me with his CEO, Jan-Ake Edvinsson. Everyone was tired. René sat in his chair in his stocking feet, looking as if he’d rather be in bed than briefing me on what to expect the next day. It was the first time I’d spent serious time with Jan, who was a hockey lifer, a stocky guy with a big face and warm smile. But make no mistake; he was tough as battleship steel.
My conversation with the two helped me frame what I would explain to the board the next day. For instance, they told me that the Russians and some other European countries might resist the idea of keeping the NHL ice surface, as they would see it as a move designed to give the North American teams added home-field advantage. My answer to that was simple: most of the world’s top players already played on NHL ice. I just needed to be convincing.
It was made clear to me that if the IIHF was to give us a break, there would have to be a quid pro quo. In other words, enough of a benefit to calm any anxiety expressed by the Europeans. From my end, that meant giving an outright guarantee that hockey would have a spectacular stage at the Games, and that IIHF officials would be treated extremely well and given access to top-notch hotels conveniently located close to the hockey venues. That wasn’t an inducement. It was the least we could do, I figured, given the multimillion-dollar break we wanted them to cut us. Not to mention the fairly radical departure from tradition that the organization would be making.
The next morning, bright and early, I went before the IIHF board and laid out our proposal and suggested it was not reasonable to ask an organization to take existing venues, tear them apart for a one-time use and then endure further costs to restore them to their original use. I suggested that it was contrary to our value system and probably contrary to the value system of the IOC as well. I went so far as to suggest the IIHF would seem heavy-handed and out of touch with the times if it was to press us to deliver wider ice. I wanted to place a burden on them that was too heavy to carry, and to appeal to their social conscience and better judgment. I pitched hard and took my leave. An hour later, I
was on a plane for Vancouver.
I thought the discussion went well, but the directors took my presentation under advisement. It wasn’t long, however, before we got word that the IIHF was, in principle, okay with our plan to keep GM Place as it was, subject to some fine-tuning of our proposal. It was a huge win at a time when we were looking to save every dime we could.
By this point in the project, I had already indicated publicly that although we were performing surgery everywhere we could we were going to need more money for construction than we had indicated in our bid. In a speech to the Vancouver Board of Trade in November 2005, I said that with construction costs expected to increase by 50 per cent on comparable major projects and infrastructure, we might need some additional help from government.
Discussions with federal and provincial partners had already started. We had made a detailed submission asking for a lift of $55 million from each. We outlined all the different ways we had trimmed costs, from doing away with our plans to build a temporary broadcast centre in Richmond to reconfiguring cross-country ski trails in the Callaghan Valley southwest of Whistler, and a score of other initiatives. Still, those efforts were mostly overlooked in the ensuing coverage, which focused largely on the call for more funding. The 2002-dollars argument was being ignored.
It bothered us that, even though the construction projects were mostly on schedule and on budget (if you factored in inflation), our message didn’t seem to be getting out. Public confidence in the project was taking a beating. It made no difference that we were outperforming almost every other major project in the province. No matter what we did, it seemed, it was a public relations battle we were losing. The level of scrutiny we faced was intense.
We were even getting negative comments from some elected officials who were pretending they were caught by surprise. Both levels of government knew all along that our original construction budget wasn’t going to be enough because it was in 2002 dollars and did not factor in inflation and rising costs. They knew. We told them enough times. Although I understood the politics of some of the public remarks, it didn’t make them any less galling to swallow. My team felt pretty beaten up and for good reason.
I could have responded to some of those comments, but doing so would have meant throwing our government partners under the bus, and I wasn’t prepared to do that. In part, I think politicians in both Victoria and Ottawa were feeding off concerns the public had about costs and whether we were going to complete the project on time—or if we even knew what we were doing. If the public was unhappy with us, ipso facto it was unhappy with the government.
I spent a great deal of time talking to Jack about this problem. He knew the construction business inside out and had great instincts. We agreed that something dramatic needed to be done, a seismic event of such significance that it would help rebuild public confidence. After a great deal of soul-searching we decided to sign a new head coach for the construction team.
Jack and I both admired Dan Doyle, who had recently retired as B.C.’s deputy minister of transportation. Dan was highly regarded and had successfully spearheaded a number of high-profile provincial initiatives. I first met Dan during our discussions with the government over the Sea to Sky Highway. He had come to Prague for our closing presentation and had a real spirit for the Games. He was a guy who instilled confidence in people and organizations. He was solid, no-nonsense, composed, durable, trusted and respected. We knew he would have a calming effect on the organization and help dissipate the growing panic about our construction program. We knew he could hit the ground running.
As a bonus, Dan knew the inner machinations of the B.C. government. His appointment was going to give us instant credibility in Victoria and probably get government officials off our backs over the cost of the venues. Personally, my plate was overflowing. I just wanted to sleep at night knowing the construction program was in the hands of someone who could deal with any issues that might arise, who would not accept failure. An unflappable, stoic commander.
This meant removing a great guy in Steve Matheson, who was incredibly capable and had done a stellar job on the construction side. Dan Doyle said as much soon after he’d had a chance to assess where things were. Unfortunately, Steve wasn’t able to instill public confidence in what was going on in the way we knew Dan could. Informing Steve of the change was one of the tougher decisions and conversations that I would ever have with anyone, especially as I had earlier convinced him to abandon a great career to join our team. He deserved to cross the finish line with us, having given his heart and soul to the project. It was heartbreaking to ask for his keys.
Dan’s presence on the team had the immediate desired effect, inside the organization at least. He took bear-trap control, declared the construction program sound and then quickly appointed a quarterback for the indoor venues and another for the outdoor ones. He was adamant that all construction would have to be done within our revised $580-million budget and declared victory on that number. The two levels of government eventually approved the $110 million in extra funding. The new budget was the one our organization believed we should be measured against. This was an important distinction, because we planned on saying we had constructed the venues on time and on budget. Others would disagree.
AS GOOD AS we tried to feel about the direction we were heading, there always seemed to be a challenge or mini controversy around the corner.
In September, the provincial auditor general released a report by Pacific Liaicon, a subsidiary of construction powerhouse SNC-Lavalin, which was commissioned to look at our building plans. It questioned whether our $580-million budget was going to be enough to deliver a venue package that the IOC was going to be satisfied with. The auditor general said in another report released at the same time that the true cost of the Games should be pegged at $2.5 billion and not the $600 million the B.C. government was saying was the cost.
Needless to say, the opposition New Democratic Party jumped on the reports, suggesting they pointed to mismanagement, planning errors and cost overruns and harkening back to the massive debt piled up by the City of Montreal for the 1976 Summer Olympics. I thought this was blatant gamesmanship. They did it because they could.
I met with Harry Bains, the NDP’s Games critic, one morning at the Waterfront Hotel and outright accused him of making up facts. I used pretty strong words to remind him of the damage he was doing to the Games by spreading fictitious information. Harry would hang out in our lobby after press conferences looking for the cameras, and when he found one he’d sound off on us. It didn’t matter what we did; it was never good enough for Harry or his party. He would just swing the bat as hard as he could and it didn’t matter who he hit in the process.
A few days after the auditor general’s report, there was a front-page headline in the Vancouver Sun suggesting that people were calling for my head. This was mostly based on NDP leader Carole James’s statement that I should be fired in light of the reports released a few days earlier.
It rattled me a little, I won’t lie. I expected more respect from Carole James, who had never asked for a walk-through of our finances. It burned me even more that the auditor general was sounding off and yet had never once asked to meet with me or members of my team to talk about the facts. It all felt pretty cheap and opportunistic. We had no choice but to sit there and absorb the blows.
Although the temperature around the project seemed to be rising, I felt that we were on the right track. I could see miles of progress that others couldn’t. I tried my best to drown out the background noise, focus on the job and look after my team, which was vicariously under attack too. What else was I going to do? We had a strong set of values upon which we were trying to build the whole organization. And during troubling times like these, it was those values of honesty and decency and trust and hard work that guided us. My dad used to say, “When your world is falling apart and people are saying bad things about you, and the walls are caving in, to survive you must ask yourself the one an
d only question that matters: ‘What is the truth?’ That will sustain you.” He was right.
All I could do was continue pushing forward. If someone decided it was time to change the CEO for the Games, I had no control over that. What I could control was my ability to lead, be a good example to my troops and continue to work my butt off from five in the morning until I collapsed in bed at midnight.
IT WAS A little-known fact that during the bid phase we had allocated a certain amount of our construction work to First Nations companies and crews as part of Aboriginals’ broad participation and partnership in the Games. There were certainly some doubts within the organization about the capacity of First Nations companies to construct at this level, while staying within the cost parameters and time constraints we had set out. To make certain we kept the situation under tight control, we chose to allocate construction work to First Nations groups upfront, to test the waters, so to speak. That would allow us to see how capable their teams were, and if we saw a problem there was still time to rectify it. As it turned out, we didn’t need to worry.
The First Nations construction crews were first-rate. We began by having them do some earth-moving work on the Nordic cross-country ski trails in the Callaghan Valley. They finished below budget and before their deadlines. They were good. And they were excited to be in on the serious action of building the Games. Everyone was so pleased with the quality of the work that we ended up awarding them about $50 million in contracts, a far leap from the $15 million that was first envisioned. Fact is, they gave us an early edge by saving us money and getting us ahead of schedule. The result was outstanding construction, beautiful venues, full First Nations participation, additional jobs and job training. It also gave these companies a new confidence and new capacity to compete for high-level construction work in the future and worked wonders for our relationship with the four host First Nations.