Toronto shelves Olympic bid, still looking at World Expo

The citys economic development committee has decided not to consider putting together a bid to host the Olympics in 2024, but left the door open for the 2025 World Expo.

According to a staff report, the cost of a competitive Expo bid will be at least $10 million and it will cost at least $1 million to get through some of the initial pre-bid preparation work.

But the report says that if Toronto did host the World Expo, it would boost the citys profile and would likely create new business opportunities.

An Olympic bid would have been even more costly, estimated to be between $50 million and $60 million when all is said and done. Like the World Expo, it would cost $1 million to do some of the key, pre-bid work.

The committee of five voted unanimously to forgo a look into the Olympics. The vote was 3-2 in favour of looking into the World Expo.

Toronto has made prior Olympic bids, most recently when the city lost out to Beijing for the chance to host the summer games in 2008.

The committee will pass its recommendations on to council to consider.

Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly released a statement Monday saying that "now is not the right time" for Toronto to pursue a bid to host either the Expo or the Olympics.

But he said it might be a possibility after the city has hosted the Pan Am Games next year.

"Onlyafter the 2015 Pan Am Games can we further explore the feasibility of hosting either the Olympics or the WorldExpoin the future," Kelly said in the statement.