Mayor John Tory says he has decided against submitting an expression of interest in bidding on the 2024 Olympics but remains optimistic that the city will one day play host to the multi-sport spectacle.

Tory had until the end of the day today to submit a written letter to the International Olympic Committee expressing an interest in bidding on the games but at a news conference in Nathan Phillips Square on Tuesday morning Tory announced that he has decided to put the idea on the backburner so he can pour his energy into addressing Toronto’s transit and housing needs.

The mayor, however, promised to strike a working group to study the merits of going after major international events in the future, such as an Olympics or even a FIFA World Cup of Soccer.

"I believe that one day Toronto will be a great venue for the Olympic games, but not in 2024,” Tory said. “Let me be clear, I am not saying no to the Olympic games; I am saying no at this time."

In January 2014, the city's economic development committee under former mayor Rob Ford voted against studying the possibility of going after the 2024 games but the success of the Pan American Games and changes to the IOC bid process intending to make it less costly revived the debate and sent Tory scrambling for facts ahead of today’s deadline.

Over the last several weeks, Tory met with 80 groups and individuals to discuss a possible bid, including all three major federal party leaders, Premier Kathleen Wynne, fellow GTA mayors, former Premiers Mike Harris and David Peterson, Canadian Olympic Committee President Marcel Aubut, city councillors and labour and business leaders.

Tory then made the decision late on Monday afternoon to abandon the idea of submitting an Olympic bid that would have cost an estimated $50 to $60 million. The cost of actually hosting the games was estimated to be $3.3 to $6.9 billion, according to a 2014 staff report.

“The truth is I can’t look people in the eye at this point in our city’s development and tell them that an Olympic bid is the best use of our time, or our energy, or our investment,” Tory said on Tuesday. “I can look into the eyes of my colleague at other levels of government and say this: we should be making the investments we talked about in the context of the Olympics and we should be working to build up Canada’s largest city for residents past, present and future.”

Private sector enthusiasm was lacking

The idea of Toronto embarking on what would have been its third Olympic bid in the last 25 years proved extremely divisive with a number of councillors raising serious concerns about the costs of bidding for and potentially hosting the games.

Speaking with CP24 about Tory’s decision to put an end to the Olympic speculation on Tuesday afternoon, Ward 2 councillor and former mayor Rob Ford called it “the first thing he has done right in a year."

Meanwhile, at city hall most councillors CP24 spoke with were similarly positive about not embarking on a costly bid.

“We dodged a bullet. We have a lot of important work to do around our transit system, affordable housing, daycare, stuff like that and if we had taken on the Olympics all of that would have been put on the backburner while we sorted out the immediate requirements of the bid,” Parkdale—High Park Councillor Gord Perks told CP24 on Tuesday. “The mayor made the right call.”

“I think it is a responsible, prudent decision he made to not do it right now,” Budget Chair Gary Crawford added. “We didn’t have the answers as to who would be paying for the bid, where the partners were – provincial, federal, private sector – and there were just a lot of questions that the mayor didn’t quite have answers to.”

While Tory did not need the approval of council to submit an expression of interest to the IOC, he would have needed council support for any Olympic bid.

Discussing his reasons to not pursue a bid earlier on Tuesday, Tory said it ultimately came down to the lack of time, especially when it came to obtaining the necessary corporate support for the bid.

“When I sat down with business people and started to broach with them the notion of a largely privately financed bid, which was my own quite strong view with how this should go forward, people weren’t saying a thousand times no but they weren’t rushing forward with their chequebooks either,” Tory said. “It was one of those things where time was against us in terms of building that kind of support you have to have to make this work.”

COC says it respects Tory’s decision

Tory’s decision not to launch an Olympic bid came despite lobbying from the Canadian Olympic Committee and other sports leaders.

The COC even held a vote on a potential bid on Monday, securing unanimous support from its members. Despite its push for a Toronto bid, though, the COC said it respects Tory’s decision in a statement released Tuesday morning.

“We respect the Mayor’s decision today and appreciate the thorough consideration given to a potential candidature. Thank you to everyone who supported this undertaking,” the statement read. “We remain optimistic Toronto could and should host the Olympic Games in the future.”

In addition to the COC, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation also released a statement on Tuesday morning, applauding Tory for “saying no to handing future generations an even larger bill than they already will receive.”

So far Los Angeles, Budapest, Hamburg, Paris and Rome have expressed an interest in submitting a bid to on the 2024 games.

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