The proposed domed football stadium for the Saskatchewan Roughriders was mentioned again on the "Field of Schemes" website. It referenced my prediction that the endorsement of the dome was a foregone conclusion, despite the goverment's insistence otherwise. Yes, I told you so.

I had more to say in my comments on the site:

I was the CTF Sask director at the time who wrote the comments about the foregone conclusion. Nothing has changed. The government news release regarding the release of the stadium report was FEASIBILITY STUDY SHOWS POSITIVE ECONOMIC SPIN-OFFS FOR PROVINCE. If that isn't spin, I don't know what is.

Then the province announced that it would make a decision on the stadium in late spring. Given that this is when the Roughriders begin CFL training camp, it's almost inevitable that shortly before the Roughriders first pre-season game in June, the government will announce it is going ahead with the project. Meanwhile it has announced 10% cuts in all other government departments.

The first report cost taxpayers $70,000 and we could not even get a full copy after filing an information request. The latest one is 600 pages and apparently we don't get all of that one either.

Between the two announcements, the size of the stadium shrunk. All this momentum towards a new stadium came when it was heard it would seat 38,000 instead of the current stadium which seats 28,800 (plus 2000 "temporary" seats that are there all season). Then between the two reports, it shrunk to 33,000 because the Roughriders couldn't fill a 38,000 seat stadium long-term.

This is one big demonstration of pretense and PR. There's more information on our stadium page:

http://taxpayer.com/issues/saskatchewan/sk-stadium-sense.

By: Lee Harding
Posted: March 04, 2010

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