Calgarians will cast their ballots on Tuesday in a public vote to determine if the city should go forward with a potential bid for the 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

Rallies for and against were held over the past few weeks and both sides are fighting to gain votes.

Yes Calgary 2026 held a rally at the Olympic Oval on the weekend and says the Olympics will serve as a catalyst for investment and much needed upgrades to the city’s sports facilities.

“I’m encouraging everyone to vote tomorrow and I hope that they’ll vote Yes. I myself made up my mind once we had the deal on the table. I’ve always said that I’m much less pro-Olympics than I am pro-Calgary and pro-a-good-deal-for-Calgary and ultimately, I think this is actually a great deal. We’re putting in as a city $390 million, of which, about $300 million is to build a fieldhouse that we desperately need and about $50 million is to do renovations to eight facilities in Calgary that need to get done so I gotta find the money for that anyway. In return, we’re getting nearly $4 billion of investment from the federal government, the provincial government, the IOC and private sponsors; it’s a ten to one return. But more important than that, we’re getting a fieldhouse we need, we’re making the largest investment in affordable housing in our history and we’re doing that by investment, largely from outside of Calgary, and I think that’s a great deal,”  said Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi.

No Calgary Olympics claims that it isn’t the right time and that other infrastructure projects are more important.

“We simply don’t need to host the Olympics again to grow our city and be a livable city that attracts new business and fills our downtown core again, we think there’s other opportunities,” said Erin Waite from No Calgary Olympics. “I do see some benefits, there’s no question, but I do think there are better opportunities. The venue upgrades is one way to go but then there are still the risk of cost overruns even though it’s an upgrade and not new builds and we have other priorities in this city beyond sports venues so if we choose to go down the path of hosting the Olympics then there are many things in this city that would not get investment, we would choose not to do things that our city needs.”

Waite says there are a number of cities that have thrived after choosing not to host an Olympics.

“Denver is a great example for Calgary, it’s a mid-size city, it had economic challenges and it simply rebooted the city and became a thriving population by choosing not to host the Olympics. New York City lost the bid to London in 2012 and actually benefitted from the bid work it had done even though it lost and thrived because of that. It actually recorded more tourists during the Olympics in 2012 in New York City rather than in London so it shows you that you do not need the Olympics to gain lots of benefits.”

Nenshi says cost overruns have already been considered and that as far as security is concerned, there have been a lot of advances since the Olympics were held in Vancouver.

“We’ve baked in the possibility of cost overruns into the budget, so there’s nearly a billion dollars of cost overruns already in the budget in case they happen. So we’d have to blow through a billion dollars, plus four or five insurance policies before we had any further cost overruns. No other city’s ever done that before,” he said. “The RCMP and Public Safety Canada are the ones who come up with our security plan, they’re the ones who have to deliver it and ultimately the federal government is responsible for delivering a safe and secure games so if, God forbid, something bad happened, the federal government would have to figure out how to manage that.”

A million ballots have been printed to ensure there are enough to go around and Elections Calgary will use vote tabulators to electronically tally the ballots.

Some people are reporting issues with mail-in ballots saying they have yet to receive them.

Elections Calgary says it is confident that Canada Post will have them distributed by 4:00 p.m. Monday.

Officials say if that is not the case, they will contact those voters directly to discuss additional voting methods.

Some are also concerned about people voting more than once but returning officer, Laura Kennedy, says she is confident that will not be an issue.

“This is the process the Province of Alberta established for all municipalities decades ago. This is the process we have used over and over again to bringing all our new councils every time we have a general election, all of our trustees. This is the process the province trusts, this is the process we have,” she said.

The mayor says the plebiscite needs 51 percent support to go ahead.

Calgarians will vote on the plebiscite on November 13 and 165 polling stations have been set up around the city. The voting stations are open on Tuesday from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

  • Find your voting station HERE.

The unofficial results will be posted on the Elections Calgary website after the polls close and official results will be available on Friday, November 16 at the Municipal Building posting site, Elections Calgary Office and on its website.

For more information on the 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games bid, click HERE