Anticipation is growing, as Vancouver prepares to host seven games at the 2026 FIFA World Cup. That excitement would likely not exist were it not for Expo 86.

Indeed, Vancouver would likely not be in a position to co-host this year’s FIFA World Cup tournament if it had not first hosted a successful world’s fair, which launched 40 years ago on May 2.

Expo 86 propelled the city to be known as one that was capable of hosting major global events—a reputation that was furthered when Vancouver successfully hosted the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

The fair also gave politicians the political will to complete major projects, such as BC Place stadium, which is the venue set to host Vancouver’s games at this year’s World Cup.

“There are three key turning points in Vancouver city-building,” said Brent Toderian, an urban planner and principal of Toderian UrbanWORKS.

“One was the rejection of the freeways [in 1973], the second was Expo 86 and the third was the 2010 Olympics.”

Toderian said Expo 86 did more than just provide the city with transformative assets such as a stadium, a convention centre and transportation infrastructure.

“It was the kick-starter for the physical transformation of the waterfront,” he said.

“It was the catalyst, or jet fuel, to the very notion of turning the waterfront from industrial land to high-density, well-designed, livable neighbourhoods.”

That transformation in Vancouver was not limited to having high-density condominium towers on the north shore of False Creek, where Expo 86 took place. The concept of high-density residential living spread across the downtown core and to Coal Harbour, said Toderian, who was the City of Vancouver’s chief planner between 2006 and 2012.

Arthur Griffiths, who previously owned the Vancouver Canucks and who built Rogers Arena near BC Place in the 1990s, agreed with Toderian that Expo 86 helped create the mindset for urban vitality in the downtown core.

Griffiths now lives on the former Expo 86 site and credits Rogers Arena’s construction for helping revitalize the area.

“The arena site’s history includes having a small metal refinery so the soil was highly contaminated,” he told BIV. “There was also a rail yard there. Industry really started around Main Street and it went around, basically, to the Granville Street Bridge.”

Backwater to world-class city

Vancouver was a relative backwater in the early 1980s, when it was readying to host Expo 86.

The city had Empire Stadium, which could hold about 30,000 fans sitting on wood benches. That stadium, on the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE) grounds, was the city’s largest sporting venue.

The region had no rapid transit and no space for large conventions.

Expo 86 stimulated government spending on early infrastructure that laid the groundwork for the city to rank today as the most livable in North America, according to the 2025-26 Economist Intelligence Unit’s Global Livability Index.

BC Place stadium cost $126 million to build, which then-premier Bill Bennett touted during the construction phase as being cheap, given that it was about the same amount as the Quebec government was paying at the time to put the first roof on Montreal’s Olympic Stadium, which was originally open.

Upgrades followed.

B.C.’s then-premier, Gordon Campbell, authorized a 16-month, $563-million revitalization to BC Place starting in 2010, which gave the venue new seats, a retractable roof and other amenities.

BC Pavilion Corp. (PavCo) recently spent up to $181 million to improve BC Place and elevate it to FIFA standards to host World Cup games.

The genesis for building BC Place, however, was Expo 86. Were it not for that fair, the government likely would not have financed building a stadium downtown, politicians and business leaders told BIV.

“It’s hard to predict but I think it is a safe bet that they would have found a way to build a new stadium out at the PNE, which would have been a mistake because you need it near rapid transit,” Griffiths said.

Mike Harcourt, who was Vancouver’s mayor in the lead-up and during Expo 86, agreed.

He told BIV that the PNE’s then-president, Erwin Swanguard, was lobbying to have a large new stadium built on his organization’s fairgrounds.

“I disagreed with him and he was pretty upset with me,” said Harcourt.

Harcourt and Griffiths hailed BC Place as a great city amenity that helped Vancouver land the 2010 Winter Olympics and co-host status at the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

So does BC Place’s general manager Chris May.

He said major events at the stadium through the decades include 10 Grey Cup finals and concerts by performers such David Bowie, the Rolling Stones and Taylor Swift.

The Times of India Film Awards in 2013 attracted a massive in-person and global audience. So did the 2010 Winter Olympics ceremonies.

The stadium has also welcomed Queen Elizabeth II, Pope John Paul II, the Aga Khan and other luminaries, May said.

Its role hosting 2026 FIFA World Cup games therefore is a natural evolution for the site, he said.

“A major stadium at this size is a pretty fundamental baseline requirement to hosting these types of global events,” May said.

“These are events that people remember for the rest of their lives.”

Expo 86 fuelled Vancouver’s convention hosting capacity

Longtime tourism advocate Graham Clarke was among those in the early 1980s lobbying for Vancouver to get a large convention centre.

Some hotels had spaces for small conventions but nothing existed for larger ones, he said.

When Clarke was involved in the early 1980s on a Greater Vancouver Board of Trade committee, he interacted with federal bureaucrats, he said.

They were reluctant to fund what became a convention centre at Canada Place because, they said, they would have to fund similar centres in cities across the country, Clarke said.

“Why don’t you make it the Canada pavilion at Expo 86?” Clarke recalled suggesting. “‘OK,’ they said. ‘Done.’”

Then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau in 1982 announced what turned out to be $144.8 million in federal funding to build the public portion of Canada Place, including what was the Canada Pavilion for Expo 86.

Expo 86’s former chairman, Jim Pattison, told BIV in 2016 that he believed former B.C. senator Jack Austin deserved credit for getting that funding given that he was in the federal cabinet at the time.

Tokyu Canada Corp., controlled by Japanese interests, contributed an additional $140 million to build the adjoining Pan Pacific Hotel and the World Trade Centre complex.

The Canada Pavilion then became the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre on July 1, 1987, enabling the city to host larger events in what PavCo said is 135,935 square feet of exhibition and meeting space.

“That convention centre was an absolute game changer when it was built,” Destination Vancouver CEO Royce Chwin told BIV.

He said that for tourism to be successful and for cities to attract convention business, they need large convention spaces and stadia.

“Vancouver, in its history, has had these incredible leapfrog moments,” Chwin said, before listing Expo 86, the 2010 Winter Olympics, the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup, the 2025 Invictus Games and the 2026 FIFA World Cup as global events that showcase the city’s potential to convention clients.

Expanding convention facilities remains an ongoing mission, Chwin said. That is why it was worth it to build a second and larger convention centre to the west of Canada Place—one with 1.2 million square feet, including 330,565 square feet of exhibition, ballroom and meeting room space, according to PavCo.

That facility cost approximately $883 million and opened in April 2009 in time for the 2010 Olympic Games.

Chwin also pointed to a plan for a 250-room floating hotel that city council approved on April 14.

It is to be built north of the Vancouver Convention Centre West building and would act as a further extension of Vancouver’s convention amenities.

At 431 feet long and 60 feet wide, the structure is set to also have a restaurant, spa, public seating, gardens and other amenities.

Clarke is a proponent of that project because he owns a lease on land under the water north of the convention centre.

He partnered with Finnish hospitality company Sunborn Group to create the structure, which is set to look like a large yacht and have six levels above water and one level below the surface.

Various permanent ramps are set to enable public access. Sewage, electrical and water infrastructure for the structure is to be connected to the convention centre.

The need for more convention amenities stems from the city’s success at hosting conventions, and from that first convention centre built as an Expo 86 pavilion, Clarke said.

Expo 86 brought transportation upgrades, SkyTrain

Hosting a transportation-themed world’s fair gave governments the political will to finance major transportation infrastructure.

That includes major projects, such as SkyTrain and the Coquihalla Highway.

It also prompted politicians to support building a new Cambie Street Bridge in Vancouver, Harcourt said.

“City council balked at replacing the terrible old bridge on Cambie Street,” Harcourt said.

“It was a really dangerous old bridge with a swing span in the middle and really narrow lanes and wooden sidewalks.”

He used his role as mayor to convince council to agree to hold a plebiscite on whether the city should pay to replace the bridge, he said. Voters overwhelmingly approved the plan.

“We got a 76 per cent yes vote to build a $52-million bridge,” Harcourt said. “It was largely the taxpayers of Vancouver who paid for it.”

He credited Pattison for helping to get the province to contribute part of the bridge’s final cost.

“Jimmy Pattison thought it would be better for the Expo layout to have a new bridge,” Harcourt said.

Rapid transit may have been Expo 86’s biggest legacy.

Governments combined to spend $854 million, or about $1 billion including interest charges, to build the first prong in Metro Vancouver’s rapid transit line.

That original SkyTrain line opened by offering free rides between 15 stations on 21 kilometres of track in December 1985, with paid service launching in January 1986.

The system now has four times that amount of track, and 54 stations. Another six stations are set to open on the Broadway subway line by late 2027, with eight more stations to open on the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain expansion by 2029.

“The theme of Expo 86 was transportation and it kick-started SkyTrain as the alternative to freeways,” Toderian said.

“Freeways had already been rejected, and if you’re not going to get downtown by car, how are you going to get downtown? The answer was SkyTrain.”

He said governments may have financed rapid transit in Metro Vancouver through the decades but that spending would not have been as fast were it not for Expo 86.

The key to building successful rapid transit, he said, is to do it fast enough to gain traction and regular riders. Otherwise, there will be blowback from critics who condemn spending lavishly on public infrastructure that few use.

“If you don’t get to the critical mass fast enough, you can be killed by the blowback,” Toderian said.

B.C. Transportation Minister Mike Farnworth told BIV he believes the province would have eventually built SkyTrain, but it would have taken longer and the system would not be as extensive as it is today.

Expo 86 also helped SkyTrain, and its driverless metro cars, become a hip way to get around, Farnworth said.

“People took SkyTrain down there and they realized, ‘Oh. Wow! This is actually pretty cool,” he said.

Farnworth credited the rapid transit system for shaping real estate development and land-use decisions.

Indeed, the first iteration of Burnaby’s Metrotown shopping centre opened during Expo 86, in September of that year.

Farnworth pointed to other city-centre population clusters on the rapid-transit system, such as ones at the Amazing Brentwood, Surrey City Centre and Oakridge Town Centre.

He said he would love to have more SkyTrain extensions in the works but there are competing priorities and complexities with funding.

Transit advocates have for years lobbied to extend SkyTrain service to the University of British Columbia, while others are pushing to build an extension to the North Shore.

Former Surrey mayor and current mayoral candidate Doug McCallum earlier this month released a platform promising to get a commitment to extend SkyTrain to Newton.

One thing Farnworth said governments are unlikely to do today is put toll charges on new transportation infrastructure. That was done on the Coquihalla Highway, when its first phase opened in May 1986.

Then-transportation minister Alex Fraser in late 1985 pinned the cost of the initial 186-kilometre, Hope-to-Kamloops phase of the Coquihalla Highway at $375 million.

He later asked for more money to finish the highway’s original leg but that budget was merged with other projects so the exact cost of the initial Coquihalla Highway is tough to gauge.

The Coquihalla Connector extension, to Kelowna, opened in 1990 and cost about $225 million.

The B.C. government in 2008 estimated that the entire Coquihalla project cost $848 million. By that year it had collected about that amount in tolls, which is why then-premier Gordon Campbell announced an immediate end to those tolls.

“I don’t think there would be a public appetite for putting tolls on [new infrastructure,]” Farnworth said. “We’re certainly not planning on it—not the highways or tunnels or bridges.”

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