Topic:
Country: Canada
Delegate Name: Kaya Dragan
As previous hosts of the Olympics, Vancouver, Montreal and Calgary respectively, Canada understands the benefits of hosting, but also the negative impacts of hosting. Hosting the Winter or Summer Olympic games can bring massive revenue via tourism, new jobs created for the games, and can generally raise the pride of a country. Although with positives, there are some negatives with hosting. For example, when we, Canada, hosted in Vancouver, we saw an increase in greenhouse gas emissions by eight times the regular amount. We recognize that we are among the small number of nations that came out of hosting the Olympics at a positive financial gain recently but we would also like to remind the committee that when we, Canada hosted the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, we suffered a debt of 1.5 billion dollars, and was not paid off until 2006. Saying this, we understand both sides of the spectrum.
Canada poses the following question to the committee: “After the Olympic games in a country is completed, why does the IOC step away and not support the country with losses and negatives if they have any?” “Why must countries bid, then spend more to have the Olympics, then suffer with debt?”
Canada fully believes the IOC needs to look and opt for better options of bidding and for host countries to be supported with funds to host the Olympics without any repercussions. Canada also believes that the IOC, regardless of the bid amount, needs to background check countries in regards to human rights violations. Tourists from many different countries come to a certain country to watch the Olympics in person, and the possibility of harm to tourists is something that Canada would not like to consider. Canada is looking forward to the search for resolutions to the topic at hand.
