A union leader warned me when he left his first meeting with a newly elected Prime Minister François Legault: “This is a populist government. You’ll see, he’s going to do what’s going to be popular. Or rather, what he believes is going to be popular. It will take precedence over all other considerations. ”
It was this sentence that came to mind when I saw the announcement of the creation of a committee of experts on the development of hockey in Quebec. The goal is to revive the development of hockey in Quebec and, as a subtitle, to see more Quebec players in the National Hockey League. And as long as you slip into this type of populism, why not add the return of the Nordics to Quebec?
Especially since the amphitheater is already built and – no but, how good is it? – that it is right at the exit of the future third link!
Obviously, the committee is full of well-known names. In fact, there are so many former hockey players who are now making television careers on this committee that one wonders if The anteroom will not have to be removed from the schedule soon.
But this committee is above all in line with the stars who are now invited to press conferences to announce new government policies. You could say that this is a “stardust” strategy or, in this specific case, to use the Prime Minister’s own words, a “star team”.
In short, the Legault government is already in an election campaign and it wants to surround itself with people known and loved by the public, to show that it is casting a wide net and taking care of everything that concerns Quebecers. Athletes like everyone else.
There is no doubt that the creation of a committee on the future of hockey in Quebec fits perfectly into the image that Premier Legault wants to give himself as a man close to the people and their concerns. There is no doubt that the idea has also been the subject of polls and has been tested in “discussion groups”, these famous focus groups which are the prerequisite for any government initiative. There is no doubt that it will also find a small advertising budget, this government already being the Canadian champion of government advertising.
And, of course, we end the press conference with a promise that this report, of course, “will not be shelved”. But don’t we always say that to each new committee?
The minor hockey problem is pretty well documented anyway. This sport is increasingly costing parents, both in registration fees and in equipment. The infrastructure is aging and is no longer always in good condition.
Most importantly, our national sport now competes with other sports that are more accessible and increasingly popular among young people. There are now twice as many licensed players at Soccer Quebec as at Hockey Quebec (165,000 versus 87,000). And one only has to look in gyms, parks and schoolyards to see the new popularity of basketball. Two sports that only require a pair of sneakers and a ball.
For a municipality, for example, the question now arises: how many soccer or basketball fields can we build for the price of a single indoor rink?
Hockey is simply no longer a mass participation sport and it would take a significant investment of public funds for it to – without certainty – return to it.
But where Prime Minister Legault pushes the cap a little too far is when he takes over the issue of the return of the Nordics. We saw during the last expansion that Quebec had no chance of obtaining the franchise which now plays in Seattle.
But above all, the history of the Nordiques’ move in 1995 shows that it would have been impossible to keep the team in Quebec without the owners paying off significant deficits or the state being called upon.
“In the end, what Marcel Aubut wanted was equivalent to a pipeline between the consolidated fund of the province and the Colosseum,” said an adviser to Prime Minister Jacques Parizeau at the time.
Even with a new amphitheater and a more lucrative television contract, the Quebec market remains too small to support a National League team. That’s what the NHL governors felt in 2018 and the situation has not fundamentally changed, which every accountant should know.
We understand that Mr. Legault would like us to consider him as the chief supporter of our national sport. But unless he wants to be the chief investor of a loss-making team, he should leave the legwork with Commissioner Gary Bettman to the private sector. And leave the possible return of the Nordics outside the electoral campaign.