Before writing this text, I did my little relaxation exercise for which I have the application (RespiRelax) on my iPad. I wanted to comment on Stephen Bronfman’s attitude and recent comments on his baseball stadium project, keeping my cool!
Imagine: a new stadium, not only for a half-baseball team, but also for shows… And right next to the Bell Center and a dozen metro stations from the Olympic Stadium! Do we really need a third location for big shows? It is true that at one time, for downtown businessmen and residents of the West Island, venturing east of Montreal, beyond the Main, could seem perilous! Josh Freed mentioned it with humor in his Anglo Guide to Survival in Quebec, in the 1980s. This may still be the case for them today. Too far to the east, the Olympic Stadium!
Moreover, during the summer months, nothing better than the Place des Festivals, in the city center, for shows. This new building will not be occupied 12 months a year.
The millionaire’s latest find: his stadium project is a community project! Suddenly, the gentleman, who must have been especially used to the large performance halls of elegant hotels or resorts, wants to get into the community.
Montrealers who live in the Center-Sud and Sud-Ouest neighborhoods do not need this type of project. Above all, they need real community projects: social housing, new schools, sports fields, skating rinks, swimming pools and places of recreation. Leisure and street animators, hired to intervene in these neighborhoods and thus counter the idleness and violence of certain groups of young people.
No question of diverting our taxes and our taxes towards the ambitions of promoters. So that these promoters dig into their cash or their portfolios placed in the Cayman Islands or elsewhere. They will certainly be able to finance “their big dreams”.