City council officially quashed Calgary’s 2026 Olympic bid on Monday after Calgarians voted to stop the bid process in a plebiscite last week.

56.4 percent voted against pursuing an Olympic bid and council was presented with the final results of the vote on Monday.

A ten-point motion was brought forward to officially end the bid process and disband the 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Assessment Committee.

The motion also called on the city manager and acting CFO to provide a report outlining the total cost of the bid project as soon as possible.

Mayor Naheed Nenshi thanked returning officer Laura Kennedy and the members of BidCo for their efforts on Monday morning.

He said he’s disappointed with the end result but that it’s time to move on.

“It’s time now council to accept the will of the people and to wind down the Olympic process,” he said. “I’m very proud that this was truly a community driven and community built bid and ultimately that the community got to decide what they wanted to do with it.”

Nenshi says the $30 million that would have been made available for the bid was designated for sports work and planning and that he will advocate for the remaining money to be used for that purpose.

“I think that we will have a great deal of work to do as we move forward because ultimately we did, as a community, say no to a lot of funding and now our job is, as it always is, to continue to try and replace that funding,” said Nenshi.

City council voted unanimously to end the 2026 Olympic bid process and the motion was carried.

“One of the biggest arguments I heard is we can’t afford this. We’re facing the biggest recession that we have ever had. Calgary has the highest unemployment rate of any city in Canada. We were looking at this in many ways to be, sort of, an economic stimulus on a go forward basis. We listened to citizens. Citizens said no," said Councillor Diane Colley-Urquhart.

Council also voted for the mayor to lobby the provincial and federal governments to continue Olympic and Paralympic funding commitments to the city.

Nenshi says he has already sent letters to the Premier and Prime Minister asking them for continued support with Calgary’s economic recovery.

Stockholm and a joint bid from Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo are still in the running to host the 2026 Games.