Spending Vancouver's new Olympic capital

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson heads east to Ottawa this week, to spend some of the political capital that he and the city have amassed during the successful run of the 2010 Games.

On his shopping list: a national housing strategy to help Vancouver's homeless, and greater funding for transit, both from the federal and B.C. governments.

In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Mr. Robertson said he hopes momentum from the Olympics will pave the way for commitments on both fronts.

“We suppressed expectations and then we had a home run. It feels like we knocked this one out of the park. Now that it's happened, we have to capitalize on that. We need to take a deep breath and focus on the follow-up.”

He'll be looking for the federal government to spend significant amounts on social housing – and ties that need directly to the Games. “I am hopeful that I can drive a commitment to a national housing strategy to help us meet the commitments that were part of the Olympics,” said the mayor, as the Games wound up and he prepared to launch what he sees as the next phase.

Second point to press: more provincial and federal funding for transit, with the mayor drawing connections to the Olympic experience.

“The appeal of transit in the Games was off the charts,” said Mr. Robertson, who himself managed to get around to 99 per cent of his official and unofficial duties by bike and transit, as he usually does.

“We've demonstrated on the transportation front that if we supply the transit options, people will leave their cars at home. But we need the investment from the province and the feds,” Mr. Robertson said

And third big item on the to-do list: Establish Vancouver as the emerging hotbed of green businesses.

Mr. Robertson, who spent a considerable amount of his time during the Games schmoozing 100 specially invited executives from 70 companies around the world, said he believes several of those companies will be committing investments to the region in the very near future.

“It's been a grand success on the economy front. This showed that Vancouver and Canada are ready to take on a more robust leadership position in the grand economy.”

The city will need to make sure it leads the way in following up on those opportunities, which will take work, he said.

“I'm mindful of the additional workload and logistics to manage growth.”

In spite of all that forward-thinking, the mayor, like many others in the city, is still flooded with the euphoria that the past 17 days produced.

It wasn't even the sports wins that wound him up. (Nor the many Twitter posts from visiting female Olympics fans commenting on how “hot” the mayor of Vancouver was.) His favourite day was the Friday after the Games started.

“We shattered transit records. The sun was shining. There were 180,000 people in the streets. We had a series of focused meetings on business investments. It was like a grand-slam day.”

The mayor is even thinking about another mega-event that Vancouver could host. But, he says, he doesn't know if he would necessarily want it to be a sports event.

Instead, he's bullish about the idea of a big arts and culture festival. He did get to go to several cultural events – though not as many as he would have liked – including one where he participated by playing the drums with Tewanee Joseph, the CEO of the Four Host First Nations, and his band Bitterly Divine at LiveCity Yaletown.

“I don't know about the future of sports mega-events,” said the mayor, who acknowledged that he only rarely got to see a sports event because of his official duties. “You can only go to so many sports events. But it would be fantastic to have a big arts and culture festival.”