The largest new venue built for the Pan Am and Parapan Am Games is now completed, the organizing committee announced Monday in its second-quarter financial report.

The aquatics centre and gymnasium in Scarborough, officially named the CIBC Pan Am/Parapan Am Aquatics Centre and Field House – is now finished. The venue will host the swimming and diving events, along with fencing, pentathlon and the sitting volleyball event of the Parapan Am Games.

Three other venues are also now completed:

The Atos Markham Pan Am/Parapan Am Centre, which will host badminton, table tennis and water polo;
The Pan Am/Parapan Am Fields at the University of Toronto, which will host field hockey and soccer;
The President’s Choice Ajax Pan Am Ballpark, which will host baseball and softball.

The organizers said eight new sponsors bring their sponsorship funding up to $120 million, out of the total budget of $1.4 billion. The sponsors added since the last quarterly report are Barrick Gold Corp., Imperial, OLG, Garrett Metal Detectors, Live Nation, CN Tower, the Ontario Trillium Foundation and Siemens Canada.

This quarter also saw the first ticket-sales program launched, a three-week "early request" phase that closed on Oct. 6. Tickets will go back on sale on Dec. 8, though Parapan Am Games tickets are not available until the spring.

Games organizers report four times a year on the latest financial developments and venue construction progress.

Although the opposition has been bringing up the Games often in question period, attacking the Liberals over delays on the Hamilton football stadium, which will serve as the Games' soccer venue, and the potential for a ballooning security budget, there seemed to be little media interest in the new report.

In a conference call Monday that featured CEO Saad Rafi and three other Games officials, the only question came from QP Briefing.

Asked for an update on security costs, Rafi said the security budget remains at $239 million. In September, when Tourism, Culture and Sport Minister Michael Coteau appeared before the estimates committee that examines his budget, the opposition was highly skeptical that was enough money to cover the policing costs.

The lead police organization on security is the OPP, which will run the Integrated Security Unit for the Games and includes participation from the other police services in the region.

Last week, a training centre for about 5,000 security guards was opened by Contemporary Security Canada, which was given an $81-million contract by the OPP to run venue security. CSC has been recruiting students in police and and security management programs at Ontario colleges to work as guards.

Although the police service agreements for the Games are negotiated directly with the provincial Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services, Rafi said his organization meets often with police to go over operational details.

"Our interactions with them are twice monthly and have been for quite some time," he said. "As venues become more clear in terms of what the footprint will look like … we are constantly in contact with the ISU members and our own team members to make sure that how we are managing the flow of spectators, athletes and media is done in a way that is the most efficient but also the most effective."

Pan Am organizers announce new sponsors and venue completions in quarterly report

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