Businessman Stephen Bronfman was optimistic to say the least for baseball’s return to Montreal on Tuesday after a meeting with Mayor Valérie Plante. However, this calls for a public update on the project before anything else.
“It will become something for Montreal. And it’s not just a baseball stadium, it’s a community center for Montreal, which will be operated 12 months a year. It will be something magnificent, we are going to be able to give more to our city that we love so much “, indicated the entrepreneur in front of the town hall, at the end of the morning, by saying wanting” to revive a part of Montreal where there is not much going on ”.
Mr. Bronfman maintains that a “press conference” should be held in the coming months after the holidays. “We are not at this time when we can make big announcements or give details, because our work is still continuing, but it will be soon”, he summed up, before adding: “there is has a lot of balls still in the air, but there are fewer and fewer these days. We are almost at the end ”.
We’re going to be transparent, because that’s our style. This is what Quebeckers, Montrealers and Canadians want: to see how this project will affect our life here in Montreal.
Stephen Bronfman, from the Baseball Montreal group
The man who is at the head of the investment firm Claridge says that Mayor Plante was “very receptive” during the meeting, even speaking of a “very nice exchange”. “Everyone knows this is a very good project for Montreal. We are all together, we all have the same vision. We have to work together. But for sure it will work, ”said Mr. Bronfman, smiling.
Plante wants a public update
Valérie Plante, she asked the Montreal Baseball Group on Tuesday to be transparent with Montrealers, after the meeting with Mr. Bronfman. She says her group has done “a good job”, but that it must now publicly explain its intentions for the arrival of a baseball team in the metropolis.
PHOTO DAVID BOILY, PRESS ARCHIVES
The mayoress of Montreal, Valérie Plante.
There is enthusiasm, but the devil is in the details. We want a good project, the population is worried. And there is a concern that I share because this project must be socially and economically beneficial in the long term. I think that’s the biggest question.
Valérie Plante, Mayor of Montreal
A public update is “absolutely necessary”, hammered Mme Plant. “The next step, for us, is for the Baseball Group to update the population, be able to talk about their project, their vision and also answer questions,” she said at a press briefing. Because there are a lot of them. […] There are plenty of questions. ”
The head of Projet Montréal says she reiterated to Mr. Bronfman that “Montreal will not be the promoter of the return of baseball” and that “there will be no public money from Montrealers in this project, in the construction of a stadium ”.
Quebec prudent, the FCC is indignant
Asked about this Monday, Prime Minister François Legault, who is studying the idea of a contribution “at zero cost” for taxpayers, was cautious. “This project must be supported by the mayor, it is an important file in a district in full development”, he simply offered, speaking of the baseball stadium.
Early December, Press reported that Stephen Bronfman’s team is asking Quebec for a financial contribution of up to a few hundred million dollars for its baseball stadium project in Montreal. Almost all of these scenarios amount to at least a hundred million dollars. For example, one of the scenarios mentioned amounts to a contribution of around 300 million.
By calculating that Quebec expects “to obtain an average of $ 5,600 in income tax from each taxpayer this year”, such a subsidy “would be equivalent to the taxes of 54,000 Quebec taxpayers,” lamented Tuesday the Quebec director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CFC), Renaud Brossard. He says he “has a hard time believing that a billionaire’s stadium project is the best place to spend tax money” of all these people, “especially when you consider the state of the health care system and the fact that Quebecers are still the most taxed on the continent ”.
“Decades of research in economics shows us that taxpayers consistently lose when their governments subsidize stadium construction,” said Brossard. “It is obvious that the government must reject this request and we do not understand why it is taking so long to do so,” concluded Mr. Brossard.