No Tax Funds for NHL Arenas

The owners of the Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames both want to build new NHL arenas for their teams. Unfortunately it’s expected (in Calgary’s case) or known (in Edmonton’s case) that they want taxpayers to foot a big chunk of the bill.  Every new NHL arena built in Canada over the past two decades (Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver) were built with virtually 100% private funds.  The owners of the teams, or other private sector interests in Edmonton and Calgary, should do the same.

Recently, the Oilers owner has proposed a $1.4 billion entertainment complex that called for Edmonton taxpayers to pay $400 million for a new hockey arena. Katz expects the federal and provincial governments to help with infrastructure, including a nearby connection to a planned LRT station. Edmonton mayor Stephen Mandel suggested a $5 ticket tax at entertainment venues to cover this cost.

Katz hopes that construction will begin by January 2012. Lest this expensive project move forward, sign our petition and contact lawmakers.

UPDATE: Edmonton city council green lighted a major corporate welfare cheque to drugstore billionaire Darryl Katz to build his Edmonton Oilers a new downtown arena. Taxpayers are already on the hook for purchasing $75 million worth of land for and around the arena (some of which Mr. Katz might buy back) as well as having agreed to cover $125 million of the final arena costs. The city has also spent $30 million to get design work completed, despite the fact that the arena project is still missing $100 million of funding. Only the province and federal government have said no at this point in spite of numerous poll results opposing taxpayer cash for the arena.

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Read more on this issue at the Edmonton Journal, the Battle of Alberta blog, and the CTF blog archive.