A group comprised of Quebec City based business people Thursday launched a glitzy campaign aimed at landing the 2030 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games for the Province of Quebec.
With a new website, social media accounts, logo and video a bid committee with 12 directors claims to have the backing of “dozens” of local business leaders, 40 financial and service partners and 29 athletes from across the Province. Preliminary plans including a proposed CAD $5 billion (USD $4 billion) budget based on figures from Calgary’s failed 2026 bid were also released.
Officials say the bid has been “several years” in the making, and the 2030 campaign could cost less than CAD $5 million (USD $4 million). The group will continue to seek sponsors to support the pitch.
Quebec City last bid internationally for the Games in 2002, losing out to Salt Lake City. The Quebec capital bid again for for the 2010 edition but lost the national nomination to Vancouver. Quebec’s previous plans lacked a downhill ski slope high enough to meet international standards so organizers had proposed staging those events in Lake Placid, New York or elsewhere.
At the time, International Olympic Committee (IOC) rules shunned disconnected venue plans making the Quebec bid a non-starter. In 2014 the IOC approved Olympic Agenda 2020 with new reforms that relaxed rules around joint hosts, and in 2019 further changes opened the doors to regional projects that don’t require venue construction.
Organizers are confident that Agenda 2020 rules will allow Quebec to prepare a competitive bid this time around, but bid founder Mark Charest told reporters that he is seeking another Canadian city to be joint-host.
He said “We had discussions with other Canadian cities, without naming them, to clearly demonstrate the interest of Quebec.
“We want to respect one of the clauses of the reforms, namely to hold the Olympic Games jointly with another city in Canada.”
Nous avons besoin de votre appui pour convaincre les gouvernements de saisir l’opportunité pour tenir les Jeux Olympiques d’hiver, chez nous en 2030.https://t.co/pXMDzSTkEq pic.twitter.com/lWuSsoDPW5
— Jeux Québec 2030 (@2030Jeux) March 19, 2021
“The issue of the men’s downhill skiing event has even been studied very seriously and solutions are already on the table,” a statement by the bid committee said with respect to plans to stage the discipline.
“The committee confirms that thanks to the precise and detailed work carried out by its experts in recent months, Quebec City could very well host transparent, less expensive and, above all, greener Games in 2030.
“The Committee is very optimistic about the option of holding games in a multi-city format, as will be the case with the Milan-Cortina Games in 2026.”
The bid is being positioned as an opportunity to fuel economic recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Download Quebec 2030 Bid Proposal
Organizers plan to immediately present the project to government partners for support and hope to submit a completed bid application to the IOC early in 2022. Quebec Mayor Régis Labeaume is reportedly opposed to an Olympic bid, but Quebec is scheduled to hold municipal elections in November.
The IOC has no fixed timeline for the election of the 2030 host city, but its Future Host Commission is in ongoing discussions with multiple jurisdictions according to recent reports.
Last week former Vancouver 2010 CEO John Furlong urged British Columbia businesses to get behind a new regional bid for the 2030 Games in the Province. He said the second Games in the region could be held at a low cost by leveraging existing legacies from the first edition. A Vancouver City Council staff report said that the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) won’t consider any bids until after the rescheduled Tokyo 2020 Olympics this summer, but the COC indicated “Vancouver (as a region) would be the strongest candidate for a future Winter Olympic Games based on a set of evaluation factors.”
The COC can only nominate one bid to engage in talks with the IOC.
GamesBids.com has contacted the COC for further comment.
The Province of Quebec and Canada have hosted the Summer Games once in Montreal in 1976. The Winter Games have been held in Canada twice – first in Calgary in 1988.
The IOC has announced that bids from Salt Lake City in the United States, Sapporo in Japan and Pyrenees-Barcelona in Spain are engaged in discussions to host a future Winter Games. Vancouver has also been mentioned as an interested party.
Quebec 2030 Bid Committee
François Houle (Civil and Mining EBC), Nathaly Riverin (Rouge Canari Inc.), Maxime Laviolette (Dessercom), Stéphanie Huot (Groupe Huot), François Bilodeau (Aéroport de Québec Inc. ), Manon Allard (Mallar RSVP Inc.), Jean-Philippe Bonneau (Ambicio), Vincent Bernier (Groupe Bemesa), scientist François Whittom, Antoine Rouleau (Blaxton and RSC Conseil), Richard Bureau (Richard Bureau CPA Inc.) and general manager of the project Mark Charest.
Quebec 2030 Corporate Partners
Groupe Klein City, EDDYFI NDT, Eterna Groupe Financier, Groupe Camada, Dessercom, SBI, Gamache Assurances, Laval Construction Inc, CIBC Wood Gundy, HKD, Via Capitale, Groupe Memesa, EBC, Burt Brassard CPA Inc, Groupe BOD Inc, Groupe JD, Constructions Beaubois, Doyon Després, Impact Gestion Immobilière, TBC Constructions Inc, McKinley Construction, Hilton, Graph Synergie, Habitation Canadienne, Groupe Pompage Industriel, DeRico Experts-Conseils, MRA Paysagistes, Quanta Architecture, J Design Graphique, Ambicio, XemmeX, Brouillard, IFX Productions, Mallar RSVP, Rouge Canari, Groupe Huot, RTCOMM, Les Agences, Imédia, Studio Teki and RSC Strategies.
