Rekindling memories or burning money?

What PavCo has charged clients, including charities

The Olympic cauldron on Jack Poole Plaza was unveiled on Feb. 12, 2010 and burned through the entire 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics.

I was first to report that the Olympic flame would burn next to the Vancouver Convention Centre (which was doubling as the International Broadcast Centre) in the plaza named for the original VANOC chairman, who died in Vancouver of pancreatic cancer hours after the Olympic flame was lit in Olympia, Greece.

The outdoor cauldron, lit by Wayne Gretzky on Feb. 12, 2010, was necessary because of fears that an open flame would melt the roof in B.C. Place Stadium.

During the Olympics and Paralympics, the cauldron burned natural gas around the clock for 25 days. Based on the results of a Freedom of Information request filed after the Games, I estimated the cauldron burned 4,564 Gigajoules of natural gas — enough to power 56 houses for an entire year! Read more about it here.

After the Games, a surveillance camera was embedded in the underside of the main burner.

The Sochi Olympics began Feb. 7 and cauldrons in 1976 host city Montreal and 1988 host city Calgary were activated. Public pressure prompted B.C. Pavilion Corporation to decide to turn on the cauldron at 8 p.m. on Feb. 12 (the fourth anniversary of the Games) and again on days when Canada wins a gold medal.

PavCo normally turns on the cauldron for a price, for conventions and fundraisers. It is turned on so much that it may no longer be special. But certainly, an hour during the Olympics is reasonable. A full 17 days again? That would be deserving of the gold medal in waste.

Check out what some organizations paid, or didn’t pay, in 2011 and 2012.

FOI 286 – Olympic Cauldron


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