Edmonton to bid for 2022 Commonwealth Games

The City of Edmonton is bidding for the 2022 Commonwealth Games. 

City manager Simon Farbrother said the city decided to submit a bid after the province agreed to fund most of the $1 billion cost. 

"As a city, we are fully committed but we also wanted to ensure that our provincial government was committed to the bid and that has been confirmed by the premier and so that is why we're going forward," he said. 

Farbrother hoped the federal government could also contribute funding but today Bal Gosal, minister of state for sport, said Ottawa can't afford to chip in. 

"We studied this bid in 2012 in cabinet ... and it was decided that in this fiscal restraint we won't be able to support the financial part of this bid," he said. 

The only other competing bid is from Durban, South Africa. In a newspaper article published earlier this year, Sam Gideon, the vice-president of the Commonwealth Games Federation who is from Africa, suggested that 2022 will "be Africa's time" to host the games.  

But the head of Commonwealth Games Canada, Brian MacPherson, says nothing has been decided. 

"There may be some who believe that it could be Africa's time, but there are others who would say that going to a place that has already staged the games, that it would be nice to know to put the games in a place where a great games will take place," he said.

More than 70 countries with 4,000 athletes participate in the games. Edmonton last hosted the event in 1978. 

Completed bids are due to the Federation by March 2015 with the Games being awarded in September 2015.

The 2014 games will be held in Glasgow, Scotland, while the 2018 event will be hosted by Australia.