The Caledonia Nordic Ski Club is hoping to bring the Para Biathlon World Championships and World Para Nordic Skiing World Cup finals to the city in 2024.
The club hosted the 2019 World Para Nordic Skiing Championships, which drew 202 competitors from 17 countries for seven days of competition. The city provided $250,000 in grant money to help host the 2019 games, but a similar request for 2024 met with resistance from city council on Monday night.
"I think we're going to get a lot of asks, coming up," Coun. Teri McConnachie said. "Our dance card is just so full, right now. I can't, in good conscience, risk this coming back to us as an increase to the tax levy. We just don't have it, at this time."
The club is seeking $20,000 this year, $20, 000 in 2022 and $210,000 in 2023 – if the club's bid to host the events is successful – to use as seed money for the event. The $250,000 provided by the city for the 2019 game enabled the club to access $670,000 in matching federal and provincial grants, Caledonia Nordic Ski Club director of competitions Kevin Pettersen said in a presentation to city council.
"A lot of the other grants aren't available until later," he said. "It would have been a much, much different experience trying to host this without (the city grant.)"
The 2019 event had a final budget of $2.47 million, and generated $4.42 million in local economic activity, Pettersen said.
In addition, the event resulted in the installation of a new snowmaking system at the course and accessibility improvements, and garnered international media attention.
"We were really able to show off our best," Pettersen said. "
Funding for an events like the biathlon world championships and nordic world cup would normally come from the city's Major Events Reserve fund, city director of finance Kris Dalio said. However, there is only $66,000 left in the reserve fund.
The city normally allocates $200,000 per year to the reserve from the roughly $2.6 million per year it receives in gaming grants, he said. Each year, $75,000 of that $200,000 is earmarked for smaller events, leaving $125,000 per year for large events like the para world cup.
"As a host community, we get 10 per cent of the net revenue from the Treasure Cove Casino. This year, we've gotten exactly 10 per cent of zero," Dalio said. "If gaming revenue doesn't come back, we would have to find other funding sources for this."
Because the grant would be an operating item, not a capital project, the city has few options for funding the event other than increasing taxes, Dalio said.
Coun. Garth Frizzell said he would like to support the event, but the timing is bad.
"I think everyone around the table wants to do it, but this request comes when we are running on fumes," Frizzell said. "I don't see the gas in the tank. I can't see doing it right now."
Coun. Brian Skakun proposed a motion, asking city staff to prepare a report on the limited options available to city council – including potentially borrowing the money from the city's endowment fund, or using some of the city's COVID-19 safe restart money.
"I want to make sure we don't say 'no' now, before we have all the options," Skakun said. "We need to start reopening our economy, and sports tourism is a part of that. The spin off in the community is going to be way more than we could contribute as a council. We can make this happen."
Coun. Kyle Sampson said the city has roughly $3 million in provincial COVID-19 relief money left, after using $3 million to bring the tax levy increase down to zero for 2021.
"I have zero appetite to increase the tax levy to host events like this in the city," Sampson said. "(But) these are the types of things that are going to be important. We have another $3 million for things like this, to restart the community."
The report, with options and a preliminary budget for the event, will come back to city council later this year.
The club has time to wait for an answer, Pettersen said.
"I definitely don't want to paint council into a corner on this," he said. "I would feel much better with the city having more certainty."
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