régis labeaume

It’s hard to feel much sympathy for PQ leader Pauline Marois. It was an absolutely terrible idea for the PQ to support bill 204, which would immunize Quebecor’s arena rental deal with Quebec City from being tested before the province’s courts. It was an even worse idea for her to be petty and belligerent about it. The word ‘comeuppance’ keeps coming to mind.

Winnipegers have a mighty comedown ahead of them when they finally see what the Thrashers look like on the ice, but kudos to them for having seemingly landed a reincarnation of the Jets without making fools of themselves in the process. Because that’s an apparently rare way to go about dealing with the NHL. In Quebec City, for instance, the Nordiques saga has officially crossed over to the surreal.

Why shouldn’t sports get public money if the arts do?

Winnipeg built an NHL-calibre arena with ‘minimal’ money from Ottawa. It’ll be different for Quebec City.

I should start with a confession: when I wrote that really long post slamming governments for getting into the NHL arena-building business, I hadn’t yet read the Ernst & Young feasibility study (summary here; full report here) about the project. Had I read the report, my opinion would have been different. I would have hated the idea even more.

The chips appear to be falling into place for Quebec City as it looks to revive the Nordiques franchise. The province announced Tuesday it would kick in about $180 million to build a new home for the as-yet-non-existent franchise, adding a plea to the feds to do the same. And if the Conservatives have no plans to fund the rink, they’re doing a brilliant job of hiding it—their Quebec City MPs were out and about sporting vintage Nordiques jerseys on Wednesday: