Provincial leaders Thursday balked at the idea of spending millions in provincial money on the construction of a new arena in Edmonton.
Premier Ed Stelmach said he won’t subsidize private business. Conservative leadership candidates vying to replace him say infrastructure priorities lie elsewhere.
Opposition parties also weighed in, saying Albertans won’t tolerate the government spending millions of tax dollars on a facility that will put more money in a billionaire’s pocket.
“Premier Stelmach has been very clear, there is no direct subsidy for private business,” said his spokesman Cam Hantiuk. “It’s not in the cards. It’s not going to happen under this premier.”
Asked whether the province would support parts of the project that benefit the public, like a community rink, Hantiuk said the premier wouldn’t speculate until he sees more information.
“The premier hasn’t been provided with the details of the arrangement that the City of Edmonton has reached with the Katz Group,” he said. “Our understanding is that it is an agreement in principle and it is not binding.”
The city and the Katz Group agreed in principle Wednesday to build the $450 million facility, but the deal requires a $100 million from the province and the federal government.
“We haven’t got $100 million laying around for a billionaire and his hockey team,” Alberta NDP Leader Brian Mason said. “If in fact there is $100 million available, then we need to spend it to make sure people get timely health care and keep class sizes small.”
Wildrose MLA Rob Anderson said he can’t fathom how the province could justify this kind of expenditure.
“My kids have been indoctrinated since birth to be Edmonton Oilers fans, so there’s nobody happier than me that they’re going to be here for another 35 years,” Anderson said. “But the province is in no position right now to contemplate spending any amount of money on a private venture.”
Conservative leadership candidates expressed similar concerns.
“In terms of infrastructure priorities at the moment, what I’m hearing from Albertans … is that our infrastructure priorities have to be around public transit, schools and health care,” leadership candidate Alison Redford said. “One-hundred-million dollars is a lot of money and as we know Edmonton isn’t the only community that’s thinking about building an arena,” she added, referring to Calgary’s plan to build a new arena.
Leadership candidate Doug Griffiths said it’s impossible to justify funding the arena while education, health care and housing are coping with shortfalls and cutbacks.
“This is going to be for profit, so I don’t support one dime of public money going into it,” Griffiths said.
“It’s very hard for me to justify putting $100 million of provincial taxpayer dollars into an enterprise that is for profit for a sports team, when … we’re trying to build housing for seniors, we’re trying to deal with housing for the homeless, we’re dealing with health care and we’ve cut money to education, which is like selling the topsoil off the farm.
“It’s hard to do those things and then say yeah, we’ll throw $100 million into a for-profit business.”
Gary Mar and Ted Morton declined to comment. Rick Orman could not be reached for comment and Doug Horner did not return calls.
Liberal Leader David Swann said he needs to see details before deciding how the government should respond.
“The principle has always been that these arenas, if they are publicly funded, they should be publicly owned and publicly controlled,” he said. “We would very much like to see the details before we make any commitment on this.”
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