Distinct society

There is an obvious, knee jerk reaction that occurs to a Western-based sportswriter when he weighs in on the topic of copious tax dollars streaming into a new arena in Quebec City.

It is too easy though, for an Albertan to paint the picture of a province that seems always to have it's hand out; a people who look at the way things are done across the rest of Canada and appear to say to themselves, “Why should we have to pay also?”

So we’ll try our best not to do that.

So what if arenas in Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg and Vancouver were all privately built, with no handouts from the Feds? Who cares if in Edmonton, where two years of local haggling has included every scheme except looking to Ottawa or provincial coffers for the lion’s share of the costs?

On Tuesday the Quebec provincial government announced it will finance 45 percent of a new arena, or about $180 million of the proposed $400 million project. The civic government has already said it is in for $50 million, so now the pressure is on the federal Conservative government to ante up their $170 million, to make this dream an entirely taxpayer funded reality.

And here’s the amazing part. It has an excellent chance of happening.

This is Quebec, after all. The relationship between that province and Ottawa has never been the same one that any other province has had with the Feds.

So why would it change now that somebody in Quebec’s lovely capital had the brilliant idea that a winter city in a hockey mad province should replace the Colisee Pepsi, a building that went up in 1949 and was re-done in 1980?

“The current arena is a relic from another era. It doesn't serve our ambitions anymore," Mayor Regis Labeaume declared at a news conference held last October.

His plan: an 18,000 seat rink costing $400 million. Now, if the federal government would politely forward $170 million to the arena account, we can move on with actually getting an NHL team to play inside of it.

So, while most major arena projects across Canada have been trending towards 100% private funding in cities that (other than Winnipeg) already had National Hockey League teams, Quebec has typically gone the other way: One hundred percent government funding, with no NHL team at all.

Gary Bettman, however, has said that with the right owner — read: One willing to lose millions for a long, long time — and a new arena, he could see Quebec City supporting an NHL team.

If the Mayor of Quebec figures that tacit level of commitment is solid enough to wager all those taxpayer’s dollars, than who are we to argue? Other than, of course, the Rest of Canada, whose hard-earned money, through copious transfer payments to the needy La Belle Province would make up both the provincial and federal input.

But we’ll ask you: If no one in Quebec cares where the money comes from, why should we? They’re getting the tax dollars from the Rest of Canada anyhow — who are we to say what they should spend it on?

Of course, that is the mantra of a province that has become the Florida of Canada.

In the United States, a disproportionate amount of mail scammers, telephone fraudsters, real estate schemes and all-around con artists reside in Florida. In Canada, whenever there is a Shawinigate, a sponsorship scandal, accusations of a crooked judge-naming process, or a good old-fashioned political sex scandal a la Julie Couillard, it seems it is brought to us by our Quebecois friends.

So, of course, as we dig deeper for the scandal that, let’s face it, almost certainly lurks under the outer skin of the Quebec City arena project, we find that the prospective owner of the team is Sun media magnate Pierre Karl Peladeau.

This is the same man who is hoping to launch Sun TV – that Conservative-friendly, right-wing channel that would dovetail perfectly with many of Stephen Harper’s policies.

Peladeau scratches Harper’s back by reporting the Prime Minister’s spin on national events, and gets what he gives in return. It sounds so Quebec.

Of course, if the end result is that a dead-end, no-care American franchise gets moved to a wonderful hockey town like Quebec City, should we really care about the back dealings that got it there?

I say, what the hell: give them the money and ship the Atlanta Thrashers north.

We’ll discuss the merits the evening before opening night 2015, over dinner and wine at La Crémaillère.

Mark Spector is the senior columnist on sportsnet.ca