City Council proposes divine intervention to pay for Olympics

By Evan Lewis, March 27 2018 —

The formal bidding process for the 2026 Winter Olympics will begin any day now and Calgary City Council is still working to persuade citizens that it’s worth the cost. Requests have been made to the provincial and federal government for funding the Games, with uncertain feedback. As a result, the city has now proposed another alternative — divine intervention.

“It would take a miracle, literally, to pull off these games without debt,” Mayor Naheed Nenshi tweeted last Thursday. “And since we at City Council consider all of our options, we’re taking a look at a literal miracle. #HolyOlympicsCalgary”

Council has since been in talks with a number of gods and goddesses from a variety of pantheons and belief systems. Generally, divine intervention occurs alongside some kind of lightning bolt, fire or soft murmuring that echoes through all of nature. Much of the negotiations have been spent trying to balance these needs with the fact that the gods will just magically make a couple of zeroes appear on the end of the available funds to pay for the Olympics.

Oddly enough, this proposal has brought about an unexpected alliance between the Calgary Atheist and Skeptics Group and a variety of fundamentalist religious groups, both protesting the use of divine intervention.

David Newall of the Christ Reborn Church expressed his criticism with relying on any deity to fund the Olympics.

“Listen, clearly City Council has misunderstood the way our God works. He doesn’t get involved in the minutiae,” Newall said. “Instead, he goes quiet for hundreds of years and only intervenes when it’s convenient! It’s a far more effective method, in my opinion.”

Meanwhile, the Atheist and Skeptics Group made their way into City Hall and protested by covering their eyes and repeatedly muttering, “They’re not real if I can’t see them.” Much like the city councillors, the beings of immense power did their best to ignore the atheists.

One pantheon voluntarily excluded themselves from the proceedings. When asked about the situation, Hermes, Messenger of the Greek Gods, Possessor of the Winged Sandals, and Wielder of the Caduceus whined loudly into the phone.

“It’s not faaaaair. Why can’t we ALWAYS have it in Greece? It sucks. This sucks.” He then hung up, having failed to comment on the Greek gods and goddesses’ lack of attendance at the Calgary negotiations.

The exorbitant price tags of past Olympics points to costs only going up with the 2026 Olympics. However, with a little bit of luck and several dozen deities on its side, Calgary may be able to escape the significant losses the Games could incur.

This article is part of our humour section.