As the 1952 Summer Olympics drew to a close in Helsinki, Finland, Canadian Olympic Association (COA) president A. Sidney Dawes declared that Canada wasn’t ready to host the games anytime soon. “I don’t feel we would be justified in making such a request and it would be very unwise to do so unless much greater interest in amateur sport is shown by the Canadian public,” he told the Canadian Press. Dawes believed that no Canadian cities had the appropriate facilities and noted that, while Toronto’s CNE Grandstand could be expanded to hold 100,000 spectators, “they would not give up the Exhibition to hold the games.”
In subsequent years, Toronto made five Summer Olympic bids. Criticized by social activists and hampered by general disorganization, they were often motivated less by the thrill of competition and more by solving two eternal Toronto issues: what to do with the city’s waterfront and how to prove the Ontario capital was a world-class city.
The first serious attempt occurred in 1954, after the city lost the British Empire Games (today’s Commonwealth Games) to Vancouver. Leading the campaign were Mayor Allan Lamport (who had loosened the city’s ridiculously restrictive laws outlawing Sunday sports) and Ontario Hydro chairman/former mayor Robert Hood Saunders. “We sincerely feel that Toronto’s size and population, fine athletic facilities, the warm hospitality of its people, and its convenient geographic location would contribute to the success of the Games and merit your kind consideration in the selection of the site for the 1960 Olympiad,” Lamport wrote in the city’s official invite. The bid was supported by Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent, who assured the IOC that the games could expect “a congenial atmosphere.” The opening ceremonies would occur in an expanded CNE Grandstand, while existing venues such as Maple Leaf Gardens, Maple Leaf Stadium, Riverdale Park, and Varsity Arena would host competitions. Estimated cost: $6.3 million.
When Lamport and Saunders attended the IOC’s annual meeting in Athens, they discovered that invitations were received only every four years and that the next opportunity would occur the following year. Saunders, who became the bid’s main contact, was sent a mandatory questionnaire. That document was never returned, probably lost in the confusion over the state of the bid after Saunders died in a plane crash in January 1955.
Canadian Olympic Association reception at the office of Mayor Nathan Phillips (front row, third from left), 1956. (City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 220, Series 65, File 3, Item 2. )
When the city failed to return the questionnaire by the March 1 deadline, Toronto was automatically removed from consideration, a fact the IOC didn’t immediately share. Anyone who knew what had happened kept quiet as planning rolled along. An Olympic committee formed in late March 1955 to advise new mayor Nathan Phillips and prepared to send an official invite to the IOC in Paris in May. Dawes believed the city shouldn’t waste its time sending a representative, because a Toronto victory would be the second in a row for a British Commonwealth country, as Australia had secured the 1956 Summer Olympics. Dawes also told a city official that Toronto had not flattered IOC officials enough and should have sent trinkets such as cigarette lighters adorned with the city crest.
When the truth about Toronto’s status was revealed to city officials in April, Phillips was stunned. He had not known about the questionnaire and had believed the city could wait until Paris to make its move. “If I thought for one minute that it would enhance our chances, I would either go or suggest that someone else go to represent the city,” he told the Telegram. “But I’m averse to spending the taxpayers’ money on what might be a wild goose chase.”
Closeup of MOB button (Hamilton Spectator, August 24, 1968)
Toronto’s next bid is a mysterious one. City officials were urged to try again to win the 1964 Summer Olympics. Dawes felt the effort would require “considerable propaganda work.” Phillips wrote a letter to IOC president Avery Brundage in 1955 to state the city’s intentions, only to receive a response that told him to leave the IOC alone for a few years. Little evidence has turned up to indicate what a 1964 bid would have included, but some observers have noted that there was continuing unease about the lack of international-level facilities and questions about how the Olympics would improve the city’s waterfront.
In September 1967, a bid committee chaired by Lamport was established, even though signs pointed to Montreal being approved to secure the 1976 Summer Olympics. When the invite was released in July 1968, it proposed construction of a domed stadium and pool on the site of the recently vacated Maple Leaf Stadium and an Olympic Village placed near present-day Ontario Place (the never-built Harbour City project) or by Ashbridge’s Bay. New transportation infrastructure included a Queen Street subway line, a monorail through Harbour City, and the replacement of Union Station. There were promises to make Toronto Canada’s national amateur sports capital through administrative offices, training facilities, and a series of annual “mini-Olympics” to improve our competitiveness.
The plan received a cool reception in Hamilton, which had prepared its own bid based on a site near the Burlington Skyway. Mayor Vic Copps believed Hamilton’s strength lay in its history of community participation in large projects; it had, for example, recently secured the Canadian Football Hall of Fame and hosted the British Empire Games in 1932. Hamilton officials proposed a funding formula that would see the city kick in $6 million of the cost and the province and federal government cover the remaining $23 million. Accommodations would be covered by hotels across the Golden Horseshoe. Teenagers hired to serve as volunteer ambassadors stood on street corners canvassing the public for $10 pledges that would ultimately turn into event tickets. These boosters, which became known as the MOB (Mayor’s Olympic Boosters), caused some controversy in August 1968, when one crotchety city councillor complained that Hamilton city hall shouldn’t have been used for a publicity-building MOB teen dance. Hamilton officials were also upset that one of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s advisers was allegedly pressuring the PM to back Toronto’s bid.
Photos from a promotional event for Hamilton's 1976 Summer Olympics bid. (Hamilton Spectator, August 30, 1968)
At the final presentation to the COA, Toronto bid officials stressed two points: financing that depended less on taxpayers than did opposing bids and the ability to house all athletes within five minutes of the major venues. Hamilton delivered its bid via a 14-man torch run to Montreal, then Copps stated the city’s case. “They gave me a very good hearing,” he told the Hamilton Spectator.
But Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau’s team was better at schmoozing, and it didn’t hurt that most COA voters were from Quebec. When the first ballot was cast on September 7, 1968, Montreal earned 18 votes, Toronto 16, and Hamilton 2. On the second ballot, the Hamilton votes split, giving Montreal a 19-17 victory. The decisive vote was COA treasurer Bill Parish — as Telegram sports editor Charles McGregor observed, “Bill’s from Hamilton, and there’s a great rivalry between the two cities. A stupid rivalry.” Metro Toronto later received a consolation prize: it would host the 1976 Summer Paralympics.
Map of proposed venue sites for Toronto's bid for the 1976 Summer Olympics. (Globe and Mail, August 1, 1968)
Civic officials in Toronto blamed the loss on the stacking of the COA. Lamport blasted Allen for running a cheap one-man show. Allen wanted to press on with plans for a dome and amateur sports facilities, but the municipalities within Metro squabbled about stadium sites within days of losing the bid. “At times,” a Toronto Star editorial noted, “the parochialism of some of our Metro politicians is enough to make even the most loyal citizen wince in embarrassment.” Such disunity made some observers wonder whether full amalgamation of Metro Toronto wasn’t a bad idea.
Asked whether Toronto would soon try again, Allen noted that, if Montreal won the games, “that’s the end of Canada hosting the Olympics for this generation. There’s no guarantee that a second run would produce any different results than the first one.”
Cartoon from the August 21, 1986, edition of the Toronto Star.
The next serious effort began in 1986 to secure the 1996 games. When the final bid book emerged in February 1990, it stressed points such as the region’s multicultural identity as a reflection of Olympic ideals, rich cultural activities, strong transit system (“the TTC being one of the cleanest, most efficient and comprehensive urban transit systems in the world”), and the promotion of amateur sports excellence. It also served as the latest blueprint for waterfront redevelopment, focusing on the area between Ontario Place and SkyDome. The Olympic Village would consist of 20 low-rise residential buildings located in the former railway lands now occupied by CityPlace. A new 80,000-seat replacement for Exhibition Stadium would be reduced to 30,000 after the games for use as a cheaper, multi-use alternative to SkyDome. An aquatic centre would be built by Ontario Place. Outside the core, Etobicoke’s Centennial Park would receive a velodrome, while basketball matches would take place in the Canada Coliseum, a new arena already planned for land the Weston family owned in North York. Not all events would take place in Toronto; preliminary soccer matches, for example, would be held in London and Sudbury.
The bid was led by Paul Henderson — not, as it was frequently stressed, the hockey hero, but a former Olympic sailor with impressive networking skills. “He’s the kind of guy,” Metro Chairman Dennis Flynn told the Toronto Star in 1986, “who tackles something and doesn’t let go until he has what he wants.”
To avoid the financial disaster that had affected Montreal in 1976, organizers promised debt-free games through “careful capital investment”; this would be accomplished by maximizing corporate contributions and limiting government input to elements like human resources and sec
Photo from the September 17, 1990, edition of the Toronto Sun.
urity. While backers promised the games would cost just over $1 billion and earn a $10 million profit, a city report prepared in January 1990 showed that, when estimates of indirect costs were factored in, the games would cost over $2.5 billion and lose $90 million.
The loudest opponent of the bid was Bread Not Circuses, a coalition of social-activist groups concerned about community benefits that asked for provisions regarding affordable housing and fiscal responsibility. “We’re saying that we want a better Toronto,“ noted BNC spokesperson Michael Shapcott. “We don’t think that the Olympics can be stretched and pulled and pushed and manipulated enough to achieve that kind of vision.” Ignoring urgings from Henderson, the group sent its concerns to the IOC.
BNC became a wedge, dividing public opinion on the merits of the bid and creating tense city-council debates. Mayor Art Eggleton and other bid backers raised temperatures by demanding unanimous support. By April 1990, most councillors were ready to kill the bid unless their conditions were met. Several wanted guarantees on the amount of social housing built. Others were persuaded when CN agreed to turn over the railway lands without demanding concessions on projects elsewhere in the city. The final vote was 12–4 in favour of the bid.
Continued opposition angered Henderson, who vilified anyone who didn’t think the bid was the greatest thing since sliced bread. He alienated some people through statements such as one he made during an interview with a York University student, when he said that half the profits would go to the COA, who could “piss away on whatever they do with it.”
One figure missing from the delegation sent to Tokyo in the run-up to the final announcement in September 1990 was Ontario premier David Peterson, who had just lost his job to Bob Rae. The new premier supported the bid, but, feeling that he wasn’t fully up to speed, sent Lieutenant-Governor Lincoln Alexander in his place. Opponents accused Rae of casting his lot with BNC and NDP-allied opponents on Toronto city council. BNC sent two representatives to Tokyo to make their final pitch.
Photo of Ashwini Kumar (an Indian IOC representative) and Paul Henderson. (Maclean's, August 13, 1990.)
Around 4,000 people milled around SkyDome on September 18 to hear the result: Toronto placed third, behind sentimental favourite Athens and the winner, Atlanta. The blame game began immediately. Henderson criticized BNC for being anti-Canadian and anti-Toronto. Councillor Chris Korwin-Kuczynski blamed fellow councillor/bid opponent Jack Layton, citing BNC as a puppet front for his colleague. Layton felt the corporate power centred in Atlanta had secured its victory. The Toronto Sun sneered at “socialists” who’d deprived the city of economic and social benefits. Toronto Star sports columnist Jim Proudfoot blamed several factors, ranging from the failure to build SkyDome as an Olympic-sized venue to Henderson’s individualistic campaigning style (“Too much hung on his credibility as a self-styled Mr. Toronto”).
“It is rather ironic that Toronto’s 1996 bid promoted the Olympics as an opportunity for diverse groups in the city — and beyond the municipality — to resolve differences and act as a catalyst for consensus, because the bid itself seemed to produce a social-psychological wound,” academic Robert D. Oliver later noted. “To an international audience Torontonians must have appeared as passionate sulkers.”
Cover of TO-Bid's 2008 Master Plan.
Lessons had been were learned by the time the city went after the 2008 Summer Olympics. The initial public face was a respected one: former mayor David Crombie, who felt the Olympics would, besides the eternal waterfront-revitalization component, cheer up a city suffering from post-amalgamation blues. “This is about city building for me,” Crombie told the Toronto Star in March 1998. He also believed all three levels of government had to work together to ensure success. A social contract was created, with promises of up to 2,000 low-income housing units, protection of the rights of the homeless, and policies to ensure residents weren’t displaced and neighbourhoods wouldn’t experience any major impositions.
When the COA approved Toronto’s bid in 1998, it quietly imposed conditions that prevented Crombie from being the sole person in charge of what was now known as TO-Bid. While Crombie served as chairman, John Bitove Jr. became president and CEO. Bitove was seen as someone who got things done (such as the timely construction of the Air Canada Centre) and possessed strong connections at all levels of government. Chief operations officer Bob Richardson garnered good press for the bid and was unapologetic about pushing the limits on rules regarding currying favour with IOC officials.
TO-Bid created a list of infrastructure projects ranging from urgent temporary measures to long-term projects that would benefit the games. Many of these became reality over the following decades, including the construction of Fort York Boulevard, the addition of a second subway platform at Union Station, the elimination of the Dufferin Street jog in Parkdale, and soil remediation in/realignment of the Don River in the Port Lands. The scale of proposed waterfront redevelopment made some observers wonder whether the city saw the Olympics as a means to fix long-standing infrastructure problems, as the Waterfront Revitalization Task Force, headed by Robert Fung, ran concurrently with the major stages of the bid. When all three levels of government agreed to fund the games, they also promised to back waterfront renewal regardless of TO-Bid’s success — a pledge that ultimately led to the creation of Waterfront Toronto.
For the games, an Olympic stadium, aquatics centre, and athletes’ village would have risen in the Port Lands, while the media would have been housed in the West Don Lands. Most events would have clustered into three hubs termed as “rings”: Exhibition Place/Ontario Place, downtown, and the Port Lands.
In notes made on her copy of the bid package, city councillor Anne Johnston wrote that “negativism is the only thing that will kill it!”
But then Mayor Mel Lastman opened his mouth. Weeks before the final vote, Lastman, possibly attempting to make a joke, indicated he wasn’t eager to visit IOC delegates in Kenya. “What the hell do I want to go to a place like Mombasa?” he asked. “Snakes just scare the hell out of me. I’m sort of scared of going there, but the wife is really nervous. I just see myself in a pot of boiling water with all these natives dancing around me.”
Cartoon by Brian Gable. (Globe and Mail, August 31, 2000)
Lastman apologized for using old racist stereotypes, and TO-Bid officials hoped his ignorant remarks wouldn’t sink their pitch. They needn’t have worried. As many commentators pointed out after Toronto’s distant second-place finish was announced on July 13, 2001, the fix was in for Beijing. It didn’t matter how technically strong Toronto’s bid was, how outlandish Lastman was, or how many concerns there were about civil rights in China: IOC members felt that Beijing deserved to win after having lost the 2000 games in a close vote. There was great disappointment in the perceived failure of Canadian IOC representative Dick Pound to boost the bid. “We were there as window dressing, to fool the world into believing that every plucky underdog has a chance. We mostly fooled ourselves,” observed Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente.
Following the success of the 2015 Pan-Am Games, there were calls to pursue a bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics. The city declined to do so. Mayor John Tory indicated the timing didn’t make sense (a bid would have to have been assembled in less than two years), and councillors across the political spectrum felt there were too many financial uncertainties. Canadian Olympic Committee president Marcel Aubut accepted this decision, noting that “we remain optimistic Toronto could and should host the Olympic Games in the future.”
Sources: Toronto’s Proposal to Host the 1996 Olympic Games (report, issued June 1989); Toronto’sProposal to Host the Games of the XXVIth Olympiad (report, issued February 1990); Toronto 2008 Olympic and Paralympic Games Master Plan (report, issued November 1999); Toronto’s 2008Olympic and Paralympic Games Bid (City of Toronto Staff Report, February 11, 2000); “Toronto’s Olymoic Ambitions: An Investigation of the Olympic Bidding Legacy in one Modern City” by Robert D. Oliver (dissertation, 2011); the August 1, 1952, September 28, 1967, October 12, 1967, November 7, 1967, November 25, 1967, July 31, 1968, August 1, 1968, June 3, 1989, April 13, 1990, September 19, 1990, March 31, 1998, and July 14, 2001, editions of the Globe and Mail; the July 26, 1968, July 31, 1968, August 2, 1968, August 14, 1968, August 26, 1968, and September 7, 1968, editions of the Hamilton Spectator; the August 13, 1990, edition of Maclean’s; the July 14, 2001, edition of the National Post; the September 5, 1968, September 9, 1968, September 11, 1968, October 5, 1986, September 11, 1990, and September 19, 1990, editions of the Toronto Star; the September 19, 1990, and July 9, 2001, editions of the Toronto Sun; the April 15, 1955, and September 9, 1968, editions of the Telegram; and correspondences held by the City of Toronto Archives.
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