You’d really think that an über-rich guy like Daryl Katz – valued at $3.3 billion – would be grateful to taxpayers for ponying up big time to hand him a $480-to-$600 million arena for his private business interests. You’d think that he would at least say “thank you” on his own dime and not stick taxpayers with half the bill for announcing said half-billion dollar arena.

Being the nosey, anti-corporate welfare stickers that we are at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, we filed a Freedom of Information request for the costs of a flashy press conference held on February 11^th by Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson and Daryl Katz.

Here’s what we found:

The props purchased for the event cost about $9,000, half of which Katz sent taxpayers half the bill.

The full Freedom of Information request can be found here: LINK

The total cost of the press conference was $9,000. Pricey for a press conference with all the flashy imitation arena boards and whatnot, but only about 0.0015% of the cost of the arena in the greater scheme of things.

Emails contained in the FOIP indicate that Katz was willing to at least go Dutch with taxpayers, since the props will effectively become his property for future use after the press conference. That brings the cost to taxpayers of announcing our gift to him to $4,500.

This may be the cheapest part of the entire Katz arena ordeal, but it adds insult to injury when a guy who represents the 1% of the 1% bills taxpayers to announce the final agreement that will see hundreds of millions in taxpayers’ money funnelled into his own private pockets.

It’s a new take on noblesse oblige.