The oldest walled city in North America has much to offer the International Olympic Committee.
Quebec City is a seasoned pro at staging international sporting events, is a master at welcoming millions of tourists each year and has assembled a prudent fiscal plan for the Winter Games in 2002.
But the city’s capability, coupled with its cobblestone streets and Old World charm, may not be enough to counter a lingering doubt that politics in the province of Quebec, where a referendum on separation from Canada is in the offing, may create an unstable situation in 2002.
“Without the threat of a referendum,” Richard Pound says bluntly, “Quebec City’s a slam-dunk.”
Pound, a Montreal attorney and vice president of the IOC, was called a “crackpot” by an official with the ruling provincial Parti Quebecois this year after Pound stated that the proposed referendum on independence from Canada could hurt Quebec City’s bid.
Premier Jacques Parizeau eventually apologized for the official’s remark, but Pound’s opinion that Quebec’s bid will be damaged by “separation anxiety” hasn’t changed.
“When we were trying to whittle the bids down to the final four,” Pound relates, “(an IOC member who is) a retired court judge from the Hague asked me about the political situation in Quebec.
“To pretend it’s an entirely domestic matter of no interest to anyone outside Quebec is silly.”
Yet Pound has tried to impress on fellow IOC members what he calls two facts of life in Quebec. “First,” he says, “(independence) is not going to happen now. Second, as an issue in Canada, it’s not likely to disappear.”
Pound, meanwhile, is in the curious position of serving as an IOC official while, at the same time, cheerleading Quebec’s bid before the IOC. “My role gets a little blurred,” he admits. “In a sense, I should be neutral, but it’s very difficult. I’m in the position of being able to speak in favor of a bid I think is the best one out there.”
Pound thinks Quebec City is ideal for both athletes and spectators.
“It’s a very compact bid,” says Pound, a former Olympic swimmer, noting that all 3,500 athletes will live in a single Olympic Village at Laval University and that the furthest competition site is only an hour away. “You can stand up in a hotel in Quebec City and see every single venue from your room.”
As for spectators, says Pound, Quebec City offers “an absolutely scrumptious physical layout.” It has an abundance of hotels and restaurants, is just 20 minutes from an international airport and is an old pro when it comes to entertaining tourists in winter, staging a world-renowned winter carnival every February.
The carnival, by the way, will go forth as usual should the Olympics be awarded to Quebec in 2002, which means visitors should expect “une grande fete”–a big party. While 2002 committee members here don’t say it outright, the party atmosphere they’ve plotted provides a meaningful contrast to Salt Lake’s uptight image.
“Unlike most other sites,” Pound says, “Quebec City is fun. You start having fun as soon as you arrive. You don’t have to generate it.”
Pound’s comments are endorsed by former World Cup skier Lucie LaRoche, who lives north of Quebec City, surrounded by members of her famous skiing family, which includes Alain, a World Cup champion ski jumper, and Phil, an Olympic silver medalist in Lillehammer. The LaRoche family gathered more than 70,000 signatures backing the bid, which they handed to the 2002 committee last month.
“I can tell you as an athlete,” says Lucie LaRoche, “that it’s really fun to see all the athletes from all the sports in one place.”
In addition, says LaRoche, the snow in Quebec City is a given, which is not always the case at world-class competitions. “February might be cold here,” says LaRoche, citing a point sometimes used to knock Quebec’s bid, “but I can tell you as a skier, I’d rather see more snow than none. I know we’ll have a real winter Olympics here, not a fake summer-winter Games.”
Promoting Quebec City as a capital of snow and winter sports is Rene Paquet’s primary aim.
The lawyer and president of Quebec 2002 has been pushing the city’s bid for four years. In recent months, he has squired nearly 60 IOC delegates around the city.
As they traverse Quebec’s ancient streets or gaze out on the St. Lawrence River from steep cliffs that once served as fortifications, Paquet makes his pitch. “We’ve held over 75 international or world sporting competitions in the Quebec region,” he tells them. “We welcome over 4 million tourists a year, and we have great beauty and a European atmosphere.”
Although Paquet and his 2002 committee now have widespread local support for the Olympic bid, it wasn’t always so. Quebec City residents were worried they’d end up drowning in debt like their neighbors in Montreal, who are still paying for the 1976 Summer Games and the astronomical costs arising from the ill-fated retractable roof over Olympic Stadium, now dubbed “The Big Owe.”
But Paquet notes that 80 percent of the facilities for the Games are in place already. Only four remain to be built: housing in the village, the run for bobsled and luge; a ski-jumping hill and the men’s and women’s downhill site. And finally, Paquet says, if a deficit should arise, the Quebec government has promised to assume it in full.
Therein lies the catch. Will the Quebec government be a stable entity in 2002? Almost certainly, backers of the bid affirm. But IOC members may not be convinced.
When Paquet is asked whether Quebec’s political situation will influence the IOC vote Friday, he answers quietly.
“I’ll only know after the vote,” he says.
