Rob - social and health care spending can be justified....spending (wasting??) money on the Olympics, or the Pan Am games .... or the World Cup.....not so much.  Actually, not at all.   And the fact that Toronto was dumb enough to host the PanAm games does not justify wasting taxpayers money on a Winter Olympics....albeit, if Calgary does get the games, that might further reduce the odds that Toronto is ever dumb enough to try for the summer games....we can't afford to build subways here in the Big Smoke, but there is always some politiican that thinks we need a "games" of some sort.