Preparations for the 2010 Winter Olympics created more than 20,000 jobs in B.C., according to a new report examining the economic impact of the Games during the six-year period between 2003 and 2008.

The report — titled The Games Effect by Price Waterhouse Coopers — estimated 5,000 of those jobs were in construction, and concluded overall B.C.'s unemployment rate would have been 0.4 per cent higher were it not for the Games.

The authors also found work done up to the end of 2008 generated between $684 million and $884 million in real GDP, mostly in BC.

The report also found Vancouver's preparations compared favourably with preparations for the Winter Olympics in Turin in 2006, Salt Lake City in 2001, and Calgary in 1988.

Future impacts not examined

The report only covers the period between 2003 and 2008, and does not include figures for 2009 or attempt to estimate future impacts.

It did examine some predictions made in 2002 and found they were fairly accurate. But it did not address one particularly controversial prediction from 2002 often cited by provincial Finance Minister Colin Hansen that the Games would put $10.7 billion into the economy.

Hansen now says direct benefits will be more like $4 billion, and the $10.7-billion figure included spinoffs.

"Whether you look at the direct benefits of the spending by VANOC and by the corporate sponsors or whether you look at the broader economic benefit of what we actually get over the next 10 years of economic advantage, it's a big number regardless. We're talking in the billions of dollars," Hansen said Wednesday.

NDP MLA Jenny Kwan suggested the difference in the number has more to do with politics than spinoffs.

"Why did the minister give British Columbians one set of numbers before the election and another set of numbers after the election?" she asked during question period on Wednesday.