Residents in Quebec - a key competitor to Salt Lake City's bid for the 2002 Winter Olympics - want voters to decide whether the area continues its pursuit of the Winter Games.
According to results of a public opinion poll reported Thursday and Friday in the newspaper Journal de Quebec, 69 percent of residents want to vote in a referendum before Quebec continues its pursuit of the Games. Some 72 percent believe that a Quebec Olympics would result in a financial deficit. Quebec residents are still paying off the deficit for the 1976 Olympics in Montreal.The call for a referendum vote is supported by Andree Boucher, mayor of the second largest city in the Quebec area - Sainte Foy. Boucher said that residents are uneasy about the Olympic bid because too many questions remain about how the Games would be funded.
"People are concerned about the financial aspect of the Games, not the Games themselves," Boucher said.
She said that recent Olympic organizers have said that $240 million (U.S. dollars) of the estimated $560 million tab for the Quebec Games would be picked up by taxpayers. However, questions still surround those numbers. Quebec organizers said Friday the proposed public budget is closer to $200 million and that there are moves to reduce that by $50 million.
"Now there are only promises, not facts. We only want facts," Boucher said.
She said she wants Quebec's Olympic organizers to take the lead in preparing the referendum, something she wants to occur as soon as possible. She said if Olympic organizers don't act, she wants a local referendum in her city of 71,000.
Dr. Jean Grenier, executive vice president of the Quebec Bid Committee, said, "It's difficult to invoke the referendum law in Quebec. It's expensive and doesn't happen very often. That's up to the politicians."
Along with questions about financing a Quebec Olympics, doubts among Quebecers grew after a Canadian Broadcasting Corp. series about Salt Lake City's Olympic preparations and economic boom.
"It was like a bomb," said one observer about the broadcasts. Many weren't aware of the level of Salt Lake City's preparation.
Quebec's bid was also dealt a major setback in November with a judgment by the International Ski Federation that the hill slated for the men's downhill event is not steep enough. Quebec 2002, the corporation seeking to land the Games for the provincial capital, submitted five different scenarios to develop the Petite-Riviere-Saint-Francois mountain, about 40 miles northeast of Quebec City, to meet ski federation standards for the men's downhill.
In Lillehammer, Norway, Quebec's Olympic supporters were undaunted Friday morning by the debate back home.
Grenier and Salt Lake Bid Committee President Tom Welch had a somewhat humorous interchange at breakfast Friday morning at the Lillehammer Hotel, where both are staying: "Mr. Welch stood up and said he'd heard that in that afternoon's meeting the IOC would propose that Salt Lake remain and nine cities withdraw," said Grenier. "I told him I would be sure and vote against that."
At Canada House, the rather opulent Lillehammer headquarters for the Quebec 2002 Winter Games Corp., located in the middle of the village, Grenier said it was the nature of Quebecers to doubt and question.
"Quebec people are prudent and they are trying to be prudent here. One Quebecer says one thing, another says the other thing - just for the sake of argument. . . . We know very well that public support is up one week and down the next. The public wants to be involved. We're confident that in the end they'll support us," Grenier said.
Salt Lake City and Quebec have been cited among the top contenders for the 2002 Winter Games and are likely to be in the group of four cities that the IOC will select to undergo technical analysis before a final vote in June 1995. Quebec is spending nearly $9 million on its bid for the Games. There have been reports that Quebec is spending $350,000 in Lillehammer alone.
Dave Johnson, vice president of the Salt Lake Bid Committee, said, "We hope Quebec works out any problems it has. We fully expect them to be one of the four finalists for the 2002 Games and we wish them the best."