The province is not taking any of the blame saying they were not kept in the loop.

The city, and especially mayor Peter Kelly, are sticking to their guns and say we could not afford the games.

So who is to blame?

Why don’t we ‘blame it on the Bossa Nova’ (a hit song from the 60’s), as no one wants to accept or even point blame.

Talk about covering you posterior.  I’ve never seen anything like it.

The 2014 committee held a ‘technical briefing’ on Monday.  It was a classic case of making oneself look good.

And who needs a great accounting firm when you can work the numbers like these guys.

Three weeks ago we were told the figures were a ballooning 1.7 billion bucks.

Then the figure 1.4 was circulated.

On the Fred Mac “dark day (March 8) for Nova Scotia” I heard the figure that it could be 1.3 billion to hold the games.

And now following Monday’s ‘briefing’ we’re told it’s 1.1 billion.

Heck, at this rate it will get back to the original 785-million and I figure they will make that dollar amount official on May 9th, the day the bid book was supposed to be delivered.

Who’s kidding whom here?

And just how much wine, or something stronger, have they been drinking and what in the world are they smoking?

If the 2014 Commonwealth Gang could have delivered a 1.1 (or apparently even lower amount) then WHY IN THE WORLD DIDN’T THEY?

I don’t get it.  It simply doesn’t make sense.

1.7, 1.4, 1.3 and now 1.1 billion.  How low can you go seems to be the new limbo craze?  It defies logic but then logic hasn’t been a strong point of this group.

It wasn’t logical to keep city council in the dark and in this column I won’t even touch on their biggest gaffe, that of secrecy. We the public would have an easier time getting the recipe for Coke and KFC than get information from these guys over the past year.

First of all the’ technical briefing’ was nothing more than a ‘super spin exercise’.

I call it a highly skilled session designed to make themselves look good.

And what did you think of all those pretty pictures of the Halifax Forum, the commons and other locations.  Yes, artist drawings look good. In fact the Forum looked like the refurbished Montreal Forum.

It does show what we can do with infra-structure and I hope the feds, the province and city is listening because we can get and do deserve infrastructure without going a billion bucks in debt.

Regrettably and with all due respect to the 2014 committee, I simply don’t believe them.

Think about it.  They spend nearly a year in doing what they claim is the ‘most detailed’ bid ever.  So detailed, that Logan says ‘we can tell you how bolts are in the stadium’.

They’ve used this meticulous quest for the exact dollar as a reason for not giving us information (although we’re paying for it) and they say it took so much time and almost excruciating labour to arrive at this 1.7 figure.

And now they claim to CUT OVER 600 MILLION IS JUST A COUPLE OF WEEKS!!!

I repeat “what are they smoking”?

And again, with all due respect, why in the world should anyone believe their figure.

It sounds good but what guarantees do we have that it is the correct one. Isn’t this the same gang that told us 785-million was almost a ‘locked in, guaranteed figure’?

Right.

So the question still is…who is to blame.

Answers please.

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